Instructions to privateers similar to Elizabeth's proclamation of 1585 were issued in 1625.[1] In instructions of 1628[2] the king's tenth of prizes is referred to. During the civil war the two contending parties each issued proclamations authorizing letters of marque. In 1643 an ordinance of parliament provided that captures made by privateers after adjudication in the admiralty court and payment of tenths and customs should belong to the captors.[3] Similar acts were passed in 1644 and 1645.[4] More extensive provisions were made in an act of 1648.[5] Prize bounty of ten pounds per gun for every enemy vessel destroyed was for the first time granted in an act of this same year.[6] An elaborate parliamentary enactment of 1649 provided for division of prize between the captors, the state, the sick, wounded and the relatives of the slain. A man of war captured by a state ship was divided, one half to the officers and crew, and one half to the sick and wounded. If the enemy vessel was destroyed a gun money or bounty of ten to twenty pounds for each gun on the destroyed ship was distributed in the same manner. If the vessel captured was a merchant ship, one third went to the captors, one third to the state and one third to the sick and wounded. In the case of a privateer making the capture, one third went to the officers and crew, one third to the sick and wounded, one sixth to the owner and one sixth to the state. Recaptures were to be returned to the original owner on the payment of one eighth salvage. The customary Admiral's one-tenth was to be paid into the state treasury and used for the purchase of medals.[7] Piracy was extremely prevalent at that time. Adherents of Prince Rupert plundered British vessels without scruple. A successful effort to stop such depredations was made in 1650. The authorizing act provided for division of the captured pirate vessels at the rate of one half to the state, one third to the owner and one sixth to the officers and crew.[8] In a declaration of 1652 the admiralty forbade the old custom of pillage on deck, demanding that the prize be brought in to port intact,[9] but the order seems to have proved impossible of execution and after the Restoration the old custom was revived. An ordinance of 1660 authorized the capture as prize of vessels breaking the provisions of the navigation act and provided for the division of such prizes, one half to the captors and one half to the state.[10] The navigation act of 1663[11] provided for the adjudication of such prizes in the vice admiralty courts of the colonies. The division of the proceeds was to be one-third to the colonial governor, one-third to the king and one-third to the captors.