Nearly £14 million in compensation was enough to make anyone's scalp prickle, but compared with more than £200 million in insurance payouts, it was still manageable.
And since the money would be charged to the state, they and the backers behind them wouldn't have to pay it themselves. They couldn't help letting out a long sigh of relief.
But this wasn't the outcome Prince Albert wanted. When the costs and losses from the war so far were added in, Britain's total losses for the conflict would exceed £41 million.
If the earlier £27.55 million had been tuition fees, then this £14 million was sheer misfortune.
Besides, most of the merchant ships that had entered the combat zone were hardly innocent. Many had probably used the British flag and their powerful guns as cover for unsavory dealings.
Out on the vast ocean, destroying evidence was almost laughably easy. There were no reconnaissance satellites in those days, and finding the truth was like looking for a needle in the sea.
From ancient times to the present, before committing a crime, the wicked had never cared first about how serious it was. They cared about whether they could escape punishment or find some way to evade the penalty they deserved.
So during the Mediterranean naval war, there had been no shortage of murder, robbery, and corpse disposal. Some British men had even set their sights on their own countrymen. After all, as long as no one found out, there would be no problem; even if their victims escaped, they could blame the Austrians.
War was the perfect shield for people like that. This was one reason the British later took the initiative to ban privateering commissions.
Some people thought it was because warfare had grown increasingly professional, and civilian ships could no longer