The Golden Hermione

[besilarius]

In the Age of Sail, all prizes taken by the Royal Navy belonged to the king. The king, God bless him, chose to share the results with the crews that captured the enemy ship.
Prize money was every sailor's dream.

During the Seven Years' War Sir Edward Hawke commanded the Royal Navy's blockade of the Spanish coast. On May 21, 1762, two of Hawke's ships, the frigate Active and the sloop Favourite, patrolling off Cadiz, captured the Spanish ship Hermione out of Peru

Hermione was carrying an immense treasure. After appropriate admiralty charges were deducted, the prize value of the ship was declared to be £519,705 10s, perhaps £400 million, in money of 2008 using the "average earnings" scale.

Naturally, this haul was divided up according to the prevailing prize rules. As a result, Hawke, who wasn't even present but was the commanding officer, came away with £64,964, the same sum awarded each of the captains of the two British ships, while lieutenants received £13,000 each, and so on down through the ranks to common seamen and marine privates, who each received £485, and "boys," who got half that; so even the boys came away with what would today be about £180,000, a tidy sum indeed. The yield was probably the most impressive in the history of the age of sail, and for generations afterwards seagoing men spoke of the chance of encountering another "Golden Hermione," a term that is preserved today for a breed of British rose.