Prize law, international diplomacy and the treatment of foreign prizes in the seventeenth century: a case study

Abstract

According to Halvard Leira and Benjamin de Carvalho, the decision of European states to establish consulships in foreign ports was responsible for the intertwinement of diplomacy and privateering at the end of the seventeenth century. Based on a case study – the arrest of Swedish prizes in the Netherlands in 1644 – this contribution will explain that the connection of diplomacy, privateering and prize law existed long before states appointed consuls to control the activities of their own privateers. Already in the first half of the seventeenth century, the state’s direction of foreign policy, the activities of diplomats and military and political developments decided the outcome of prize cases. Governments always had to make compromises between the implementation of prize law and the maintenance of their political interests.