Benefit may be received by the captors or destroyers of vessels in three ways. 1. As prize bounty. A special reward is often given for destroying or capturing enemy vessels. Usually it is given only for destroying armed vessels of the enemy though in some cases, bounty has also been given for the destruction of merchantmen. It is a sum of money given from the treasury of the government irrespective of the value of the prize captured. In distributing it an effort is made to determine the strength of the opposing vessel, thus it is given either as gun money, a fixed amount for each gun on the enemy vessel or as head money, a fixed amount for each man on the enemy vessel at the beginning of the engagement. 2. As military salvage. A reward is usually given for the recapture and return of vessels belonging to citizens of their own or allied countries. This reward is of a similar nature to the salvage which is ordinarily paid for the recovery of shipwrecked vessels in time of peace. The amount paid is usually a certain proportion of the total value of the recaptured prize. 3. As prize money. This is the portion of the actual proceeds of the prize captured given to the captors. The amount of benefit in this case would of course depend on the value of the prize captured, and if the prize is destroyed there obviously is no prize money. Formerly money might also be received as ransom, that is a prize would be released by the captors on the giving of a ransom bill which obligated the master of the prize to continue to a certain port, to refrain from future voyages during the war, and to pay a fixed sum of money as ransom. Thus ransom would partake of the nature of prize money and be divided in the same way. The practice was abolished in England in 1782 by statute[21] but seems to have been allowed later in special cases[22] though each succeeding prize statute repeated the prohibition. It is now illegal unless specially authorized by Order in Council under the naval prize act of 1864.[23] _NOTES._ Chapter V, Part 2. [1] See ante, p. 26. [2] Op. cit. iii, 77; see also Blackstone, op. cit. i, 257. [3] On the relation of the individual to the state see Westlake, Principles of International Law, Cambridge, England, 1894, p. 258; Rousseau, The Social Contract, English translation from French, by Tozer, London, 1909, p. 106. The theory associated with the name of Rousseau appears to have been first enunciated by Giustino Gentili in 1690, see C. M. Ferrante, Private Property in Maritime War, Political Science Quarterly, 1895, xx, 708. [4] Blackstone, op. cit. i, 259. [5] Phillimore, op. cit. iii.