FUNCTION AND ORGANIZATION OF PRIZE COURTS 37 
Duke to be “armed vessels” and prize bounty was therefore due 
for their capture or destruction.! The same view was taken 
regarding enemy sailing vessels whose crews were armed with 
rifles; and they did not cease to be “armed vessels” in the sense 
of the prize bounty act when they were abandoned by their 
crews before the destruction was complete.” 
Where an enemy warship was scuttled and blown up by her 
own crew in order to avoid capture by a British squadron, Sir 
Samuel held that the destruction was brought about by the pres- 
ence of the squadron and that the claimants were therefore en- 
titled to prize bounty.* But where an English warship, the Cano- 
pus was lying aground and in a disabled condition in the harbor 
of Port Stanley (Falkland Islands) and which fired upon two 
enemy cruisers which came within its range and drove them 
away, and the cruisers were pursued by a British squadron 
and destroyed along with other German warships in the Battle 
of Falkland Islands in a portion of the sea well out of sight of 
land, Sir Samuel held that the Canopus did not form part of the 
squadron and that having been detached for other duties, she 
did not take part in the chase or engagement and consequently 
her commander, officers and crew were not actually present at 
the destruction of the German warships within the meaning of 
the Naval Prize Act and were not therefore entitled to participate 
in the bounty.* 
Likewise where certain destroyers took no part in the action 
but came up at the moment when the enemy ship was sunk, they 
were excluded from a share in the prize bounty.’ 
And where the destruction of enemy warships was brought 
about by joint military and naval action, Sir Samuel held that 
prize bounty being a purely naval reward no award of bounty 
could be made. In this case a number of German and Austrian 
warships had been destroyed by the British and Japanese land 
and naval forces in the course of the bombardment of Tsingtau, 
but there was no evidence to show whether the vessels were sunk 
by the British or Japanese forces. Sir Samuel regarded the latter 
circumstance as immaterial; even if the destruction had been 
wrought by the British forces alone, he said, prize bounty was 
not allowable for the reason that the destruction was not the 
1 The Espeigle and other vessels, X Lloyd 364. 
3. M. Submarine Vessel E 12, X, ibid., 387. 
$ The Meteor, VI Lloyd 47; II Br. & Col. Pr. Cas. 313. 
¢The Falkland Islands Battle, VI ibid., 71; II ibid., 383. 
5 The Kénioin Luise. VI Lloyd 413.