In May 1779, as Minister of the United States at the Court of France, Franklin signed a commission for Captain Stephen Marchant of Boston, on the privateer, the _Black Prince_, to operate off the north coast of France. The _Black Prince_ was so named for her sleek lines, her black sides, and her reputation as one of the swiftest vessels ever to run a cargo. Franklin’s instructions to the captain were brief and explicit. He was to bring in all the prisoners possible “to relieve so many of our countrymen from their captivity in England.” He only found out later that Captain Marchant was a figurehead. The real commander of the _Black Prince_ was a twenty-five-year-old Irishman named Luke Ryan, with a dazzling record as a smuggler—an honorable profession in an Ireland reduced to starvation by repressive English trade regulations. The success of the _Black Prince_ was phenomenal—twenty-nine prizes, including a recapture, in the space of two months and eleven days. Franklin gave commissions to two sister privateers, the _Black Princess_ and the _Fearnot_. Their combined efforts produced a total of 114 British vessels of all descriptions, brought into free ports, burned, scuttled or ransomed. They created havoc with coastal trade in the English, Irish and Scotch seas, embarrassed the British Admiralty, caused marine insurance rates to soar. Franklin was proud of his three privateers and must have had a vicarious thrill in their exploits. His own role in the affair became increasingly worrisome. Each prize was judged in the local marine court of the port where it was brought. Sometimes there were delays, resulting in the loss of perishable cargo and voluble cries of protest from the crews who saw their prize money diminishing daily. In due time Franklin, as Judge of the Admiralty, received the bulky and voluminous report, handwritten and of course in French. It was up to him and Temple to appraise the contents if the venture was to be kept going. Unfortunately, much as the privateers disrupted English shipping, the number of prisoners was far fewer than Franklin had hoped. Sometimes there was no room for prisoners on shipboard, or, when there were captive ships to man, not enough men to guard prisoners. Franklin proposed that the privateer captains get sea paroles from those they set free, but the British stubbornly refused to honor the paroles in prisoner exchange. There were also numerous British seamen who gladly joined the privateer crews, finding their free life far preferable to the cruel discipline of the British Navy.