Note 195 — Chapter V · THE CONDITIONS OF THE CONTINENTAL NAVAL SERVICE

In the case of Continental prizes the Navy Board at Boston discovered collusions which were detrimental to the government. Ordered to buy the Continental prize “Thorn,” it writes to the Marine Committee that the agents and captains interested in the prize refuse to let it have the “Thorn” at a price to be fixed by three disinterested appraisers; and that “taking our chance, in the purchase by auction, amongst such circles of men in combinations is a miserable one.” In the same letter the Board writes also concerning the “Thorn” that “bets run high that she will sell for two hundred thousand pounds.”—Records and Papers of Continental Congress, 37, pp. 145, 147.