Meanwhile the General Court had prepared and adopted the legislation necessary to establish a navy. It had drafted proper naval forms; and it had appointed a number of naval officers. A partial pay-table was established on February 8.[394] This on April 12 was succeeded by a new one, which generally raised wages, and which provided for a number of new offices. A captain was now to receive a monthly wage of £8; a first lieutenant, £5, 8s.; a second lieutenant, £5; a master, £4; a mate, £3; a surgeon, £7; and an ordinary seaman, £2. Each vessel was to be provided with 115 officers and seamen. No better proof of the rawness of the naval service is needed than that afforded by the regulation that recruits, whether officers, seamen, or marines, should furnish themselves with “a good effective Fire Arm, Cartouch Box, Cutlass, and Blanket.” The captains were ordered to recommend to the Council a list of inferior officers and to enlist the proposed number of seamen and marines. Captors were given one-third of the proceeds of prizes.[395] On April 27, 1776, the General Court fixed the respective shares of the proceeds of prizes for officers and seamen: a captain was to receive six shares, and “all the Cabbin Furniture;” a first lieutenant, five shares; a drummer, one and one-fourth shares; a seaman, one share; and a boy, one-half a share.[396] On April 29, in order to encourage enlistment, an advance of one month’s wages was voted to recruits. On the same day it was decided that “the Uniform of Officers be Green and White, and that the Colours be a white Flagg, with a green Pine Tree, and an Inscription, ‘Appeal to Heaven.’”[397] On July 26 the Council appointed a prize agent in each of the three admiralty districts, whose duty was to represent the state in receiving, trying, and selling prizes.[398] At times the prize agents assisted in fitting out vessels. During the first half of 1776 the law of November 1, 1775, establishing privateering, was three times amended and remodelled.[399] The law was thereby accommodated to the resolutions of the Continental Congress fixing the kinds of property subject to capture, and the respective shares of captors and recaptors. Doubts which had arisen as to the proper construction of the original act were now removed. The procedure before admiralty courts was made more specific. In cases of captures made by Continental vessels, appeals were permitted from state admiralty courts to the Continental Congress; in all other cases, appeals were allowed to the superior state courts. In each of the three admiralty districts in Massachusetts additional towns were named where court might be held. The towns named for the Middle district were Boston, Salem, Ipswich, and Newburyport.