Fanny Palmer Austen was vitally interested in all aspects of her husband Charles Austen’s naval career, including his exploits in chasing and capturing prize vessels. The circumstances of her birth and early life in Bermuda gave her insights about naval prize that other genteel young women would not have. Until 1801 her father, John Grove Palmer, was Advocate General, that is the lawyer who represented the Crown and thus the captor’s interests when a prize case was brought before the Bermuda Vice Admiralty Court. When Fanny married Charles in 1807, she became the sister-in-law of the next office holder, James Christie Esten. Moreover, when on shore Fanny lived with the Estens, close to the harbour in St George’s, Bermuda so she was well located to watch for prize vessels being brought into port and to observe the condition of those riding at anchor awaiting adjudication. With her familial connections, Fanny was no stranger to the complexities of the adjudication of a prize case and the disposal of the vessel and/or cargo when the case was successful.[1]
Given her situation, Fanny was able to monitor Charles’s prize related business. Since his financial success would benefit them both, it was of great personal interest to her. She had plenty of time to keep track of his prize claims and, as Charles was often away at sea, she could readily write him accounts of their progress.
Fanny also had a very immediate understanding of the risks involved in prize taking. Any British vessel in North American waters was potential prey for cruising enemy warships or privateers. In May 1806, the year Fanny and Charles became engaged, HMS Indian (18 guns) barely escaped capture by four heavily armed French men-of-war. She was chased for fifty hours and only escaped when all the vessels became becalmed and the smaller, lighter Indian was able to put a safe distance between herself and her pursuers by rowing out of their range.[2] Charles was incredibly fortunate to have escaped an encounter which would have proved catastrophic for the Indian and all aboard her. Fanny was bound to discover some of the details of this near disaster. There was coverage of naval news in the local press and, as she was frequently in company with Charles’s naval friends, conversations no doubt touched upon his recent exploits.
In addition, Charles was always at risk from violent storms at sea, like the tremendous hurricane he only just managed to survive in 1807. According to his description, “the wind became so furious as to perfectly overpower the Ship, which lay down on her beam ends, with such a weight of Water on Deck as made me fear she would never right again.” Mercifully, after the main mast was cut away, “the ship, tho’ with evident difficulty, righted herself.”[3] Fanny was at home in St George’s when the tattered and dismasted Indian limped into port, telling evidence of the vessel’s vulnerability and the dangers Charles had recently faced. Although monitoring Charles’s prize business would take place safely on shore, there was, for Fanny, always the underlying disquiet, even anxiety that the very activity of taking prizes was extremely hazardous.
![Fig. 1: St George’s Harbour where prize vessels would anchor prior to adjudication.[4]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c1547768ab722e48ecf1942/1595199924311-B7CO7JDV8GMQ37Y6UR4M/St.Georges_Harbour.png)
Fig. 1: St George’s Harbour where prize vessels would anchor prior to adjudication.[4]
In 1806 Charles seized Spanish schooners, the Lustorina (25 May) and the Neustra Senora del Carmen (25 July)[5] and sent them to St George’s where the Bermuda Vice Admiralty Court would adjudicate their capture and where Fanny could observe what happened next.[6] To her satisfaction, the subsequent legal and commercial business was straightforward. As the Spanish vessels were enemy property, both were quickly condemned in Charles’s favour and the vessels ordered to be sold with their cargoes at public auction.
Fanny may have speculated how well they might sell, especially the diverse goods making up their cargoes. The Lustorina carried some unusual items - “98 hides, 25 rolls of tobacco, 27 tons of fustic wood and 15 bags of coffee weighing 1600 pounds.”[7] Any assessment of the probable value of prize goods at auction had to take into account the market fluctuations for goods required for consumption. For example, if coffee and tobacco were locally in short supply, the prices paid would reflect the desirability of these items. The value of an unusual commodity such as 27 tons of fustic wood was harder to predict. In fact, Fanny may have been unfamiliar with this merchandise but would be interested to learn that fustic wood, which comes from a large tropical tree, was a good source for a light-yellow dye.[8] If the right merchant or his agent happened to be in Bermuda at the time of sale, this exotic item could have sold remarkably well.[9]
The Neustra Senora del Carmen was sold in August for £445. 8s.10d.[10] and in September the Bermuda Gazette printed a notice of distribution for the proceeds of the sale of her cargo. The practical Fanny was surely delighted by this increase in Charles’s finances. Moreover, these cases enhanced his naval reputation and were a gratifying addition to Charles’s record of successful prize captures in North American waters.[11]
Fig. 2: The State House, St George’s, built in 1624, where the Vice Admiralty Court ruled on prize cases.
The year 1807 did not bring Fanny and Charles the same good fortune. Charles detained the brig Joseph and James Esten, as Advocate General, argued in court that she was Spanish owned and should be condemned as a lawful prize. At stake were the vessel and its cargo of 244 hogsheads, 62 barrels and 47 saroons of sugar which the Charleston merchant, Lewis Groning, had apparently already purchased for $4500. Knowing the high value of the cargo no doubt increased Fanny’s hopes and trepidation as to the outcome of the case. Court documents show that the Joseph was claimed by American owners who were prepared to defend their rights to the vessel and her cargo and also expected compensation for “freight, costs, charges and damages, demurrage and expenses.”[12] To Fanny’s chagrin, the court determined that the vessel and cargo were American owned.
The loss of this case became very public knowledge when the Bermuda Gazette (18 April 1807) reported that “the American brig Joseph … which was detained by HMS Indian is cleared and sailed yesterday for Charleston.” This notice appeared just weeks before Fanny and Charles’s wedding day. A different outcome would have added a pleasing celebratory touch to their union. Later that summer, Fanny received more unfortunate news when the Bermuda court ruled against most of Charles’s claims regarding the American ship, the Eliza, and decreed that “the vessel and the greatest part of her cargo was [to be] restored to their owners.”[13]
Fig. 3: Pay out notice for the Jeune Estelle.
The cases of the Joseph and the Eliza showed Fanny the chanciness of prize adjudications and the gamble Charles sometimes took in capturing what seemed at sea to be a “good and lawful” prize. When the court did not condemn a captured vessel and cargo, Charles was the loser and became liable for multiple fees and costs. As his naval salary was not huge – only £246. 3s. 10d. per annum - covering unexpected expenses would have been a matter of immediate concern.
In contrast to the disappointing outcomes in 1807, Charles’s prize business in 1808 with the captured French privateer, the Jeune Estelle, went very well.[14] The adjudication was swift and uncomplicated, and the sale of the vessel and cargo proceeded with like rapidity.
The day before the auction on 27 July, Fanny’s sister Esther, who was married to Advocate General, James Esten, wrote to Charles in Halifax about the Jeune Estelle, saying that “the Prize Vessel and Cargo are to be sold tomorrow and are likely to fetch a good price - I have been a little nervous for you this last week, lest an Arrival of Provision should lower the sale of yours.”[15] Here is confirmation that those interested in prize money cast a critical eye on the local market’s supplies and demands in case they should affect what sale prices the prize auction might bring. As it turned out, the cargo of the Jeune Estelle sold for the handsome sum of £2,539. 11s. 4d. After the deductions for costs and fees, Charles received a quarter share amounting to £539. 16s. 11¾d. in Bermuda currency. By the time he was paid, Fanny was six months pregnant with their first child, so it was very pleasing to have extra money at hand as their family was about to increase.
Charles was posted into a frigate, HMS Cleopatra (32 guns) in September 1810. In December, he co-captured the American brig, the Stephen, and her cargo of “turpentine, staves, cotton and English dry goods.”[16] The Bermuda Vice Admiralty Court awarded only the cargo to the captors, and the case was further appealed to the Court of High Admiralty in London. Fanny was not able to fully monitor this case as she and the children had sailed to England with Charles in the Cleopatra in May 1811. Charles’s share of the meagre prize money, after all the costs of the expensive court proceedings had been deducted, was £63. 13s. 7d, and he did not receive it until two and a half years later.
Fig. 4: The Cleopatra (32 guns) in which Charles co-captured the Stephen, his last prize in North American waters.
So long as she remained in Bermuda, Fanny was able to brief Charles about his prize business there, be it the course of an adjudication, the arrangements for the auction of prize goods, or the state of the Bermuda market for basic foodstuffs and trade goods. This was important information that benefited Charles, especially as he needed to juggle the gains and the losses which his prize business generated overall. He also needed to factor in the result of his prize adjudications before the Halifax Vice Admiralty Court. There his cases had had mixed results. Although as a co-captor he received prize money from the condemnation of the Swedish ship, the Dygden, the American ship, the Ocean, and the Spanish schooner, the Rosalie, the court’s favourable ruling regarding his co-capture of the Sally was taken on appeal, where the decision was reversed, making Charles liable for part of the fees and costs.[17] There was another benefit resulting from Fanny’s practical attention to Charles’s prize matters. Her keen and assiduous interest in the process must have further cemented their ever-strengthening partnership.
Fanny did not record her personal responses to Charles’s prize activities, but she must have had a strong emotional stake in them. She had to bear with the hazards which Charles might face in the taking of prizes. She may also have pondered the consequences for the other parties involved. When the prize was an enemy vessel, perhaps she felt some empathy for the crew who were now prisoners of war and she would register regret when there had been fatalities, such as the French sailor killed during the taking of the Jeune Estelle.
Fanny might be excited by the arrival in Bermuda of a new capture by Charles but she had to endure the suspense of the adjudication of the case and then, if the outcome was favourable, the vagaries of its market value. However, it was surely satisfying for Fanny and Charles when prize money was paid out, both as an indicator of his success and as a welcome increment to their family income.
The next phase of Fanny’s life took place in England. From 1811-1814 she got to know the Austen family and became absorbed with raising her young daughters. She faced the challenges of making a home for her increasing family aboard HMS Namur, which, although a working naval vessel, was anchored in British waters off Sheerness, Kent. Her days of monitoring Charles’s prize business had been an intriguing part of her experiences first, as a fiancée, and then, as a naval wife, but that kind of supportive activity on her part had come to an end.
[1] Presumably, she was even in the position to enquire about the court’s timetable as it related to Charles’s prize cases.
[2] See the description in Sheila Johnson Kindred, Jane Austen’s Transatlantic Sister (JATS), 27.
[3] Charles Austen to Admiral Sir George Berkley, 23 October 1807, ADM 1/ 497, The National Archives (TNA) London, England.
[4] “St George’s Harbour,” by Thomas Driver, 1821. Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art.
[5] One of these vessels was a Spanish letter of marque, that is a privateer. See a reference to this is the note on Charles’s career in O’Byrne, A Naval Bibliographic Dictionary, 1849.
[6] Another vessel, the American brig the Friends Adventure, was captured by Charles and also sent into Bermuda in 1806 but, given the lack of court documents, it is impossible to know what became of it.
[7] High Court of Admiralty 49/48, TNA.
[8] The fustic tree, Maclura tinctoria, grows in the West Indies and in rain forests in Central and South America.
[9] Unfortunately, available records do not record what sum all these goods realized at auction.
[10] In the currency used, “£” stands for pound, “s” for shillings and “d” for penny. There were 20 shillings in a pound and 12 pence in a shilling.
[11]For an inventory of Charles’s prizes see my essay, “Charles Austen: Prize Chaser and Prize Taker on the North American Station,” Persuasions, 80, 193, note 6. After Spain became allied with Britain on 1 July 1808, Spanish vessels could no longer be taken as prize. This development must have disappointed both Fanny and Charles as he had recently accrued prize money from the Lustorina and Neustra Senora del Carmen, and in October 1806, from a Spanish schooner, the Rosalie. See RG8/IV/146, Library Archives Canada.
[12] Bermuda Vice Admiralty Court fonds, case files 1807, box 11, “Joseph.”
[13] HCA 46/8, TNA. Charles recorded a third capture in 1807, the American vessel, the Baltic, but the records of the case in the Bermuda Archives are incomplete.
[14] See my blog, “The Story of the Jeune Estelle,” posted 26 June 2020.
[15] Esther Esten to Charles Austen, 26 July 1808, MA 4500, Morgan Library and Museum, NYC, reproduced in JATS, 214-15.
[16] HMS Cleopatra’s logbook, 19 December 1810, ADM 51/261, TNA. The Cleopatra was in company with HMS Guerriere (38 guns) and HMS Atalante (18 guns).
[17] For a discussion of the Sally, see JATS, 23.