New Hampshire. Admiralty Court.

When hostilities broke out between Great Britain and the America in 1775 privateers set out from American ports with letters of marque issued by either the state governments or the Continental Congress. These privately owned and outfitted ships cruised in search of enemy vessels and bring them into port for private gain. There a prize court would determine if a legal capture had been made, and then either condemn the vessel to be sold and the prize money distributed to the privateer or release the vessel.

Prize court procedure during the American Revolution was a mixture of British Admiralty tradition, individual state laws, and the Continental Congress trying to exert its jurisdiction. With the start of the Revolution and the dissolution of British authority, state courts began to try prize cases using the procedures of the colonial Admiralty courts, but with the addition of juries. Another modification to prize procedure in Massachusetts and New Hampshire was the allowance of an appeal to the superior court. In contrast, the Continental Congress attempted to establish its jurisdiction over prize cases in 1775 by establishing the Federal Appellate Prize Court. For cases from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, appeals to Congress were allowed only when the privateer that made the capture had been charged by Congress not by the state. It was into these murky waters that the brigantine Lusanna sailed in September 1775.

The Lusanna, a seventy-ton brigantine, was owned by Elisha Doane of Massachusetts, and sailed with his son-in-law Shearjashub Bourne as supercargo. Shortly after leaving port in September 1775 the ship ran into a severe gale off the New England coast. Forced into Halifax to make repairs, a British warship seized her. After being detained for several months, Bourne was able to clear the vessel to sail by taking out a new registry in Halifax, and by March 1776 he was in London attempting to sell the Lusanna 's cargo.

While waiting to complete his sales, Bourne agreed to charter the Lusanna to carry a military cargo to Gibraltar, this time changing her registry to London. Having learned that another of Doane's vessels, the Industry, had been taken by British warships in late 1775 and condemned by the Admiralty court in Massachusetts, Bourne appealed for a reversal to the British Admiralty, posing as an American loyalist who had fled the colonies during negotiations. Though unable to obtain the reversal, he created a paper trail that identified him as a supporter of the crown. Finally, in the spring of 1777 Bourne set out for Halifax with a cargo and several bills of exchange from the merchants Lane, Son, and Fraser. His plan was to reach Halifax where he would obtain cash for the bills of exchange, and then while appearing to depart for another British port sneak into Massachusetts instead. Bourne's plan went horribly awry, however, when she was captured en-route by the American privateer McClary out of Portsmouth, N.H.

In the prize case that followed in the New Hampshire maritime court, Bourne and Doane unsuccessfully tried to defend their ship. Ironically, it was the documents that Bourne had obtained in order to protect Doane's interests in England that lead the jury to condemn the Lusanna as a lawful prize. Doane and Bourne asked to appeal the decision to the Continental Congress, but were denied on the grounds that the McClary was a New Hampshire privateer. After they appealed to the New Hampshire Superior Court which upheld the lower court's ruling, they once again attempted to appeal to Congress, only to be denied by New Hampshire. Doane finally petitioned Congress directly to review the case, and following a trial in 1783, the Federal Appellate Prize Court reversed the New Hampshire decision and restored the property to Doane and others involved.

From the guide to the Lusanna, Prize Case Records, 1777 - 1778, (American Philosophical Society)