‘Prize Papers’ captured during the American War of Independence published online.

To mark the 250th anniversary of the opening of the British Vice-Admiralty Court in New York more than 150 sets of ships’ papers from the time of the American War of Independence have been published online for the first time.

This extraordinary collection of Prize Papers includes personal letters, ship logs, crew records and business papers seized by British forces more than two centuries ago. The records join thousands of others on a dedicated Prize Papers Portal enabling anyone to freely access the records.

The Prize Papers are a vast collection of letters, papers and objects that came from ships captured in wars around 1600–1860. They were used to judge if a vessel (called a ‘prize’) had been taken legally.

The Prize Papers digitisation project is an incredible 20-year international collaboration between The National Archives in the UK and the University of Oleddenburg, Germany to digitise, and provide open access to, Prize Papers records of the English High Court of Admiralty, spanning 1652–1815.