Throughout naval history during times of war, battles, blockades, and other patrol missions would often result in the capture of enemy ships or those of a neutral country. If a ship proved to be a valuable prize, efforts would sometimes be made to capture the vessel and to inflict the least amount of damage that was practically possible. Both military and merchant ships were captured, often renamed, and then used in the service of the capturing country's navy or in many cases sold to private individuals, who would break them up for salvage or use them as merchant vessels, whaling ships, slave ships, or the like. As an incentive to search far and wide for enemy ships, the proceeds of the sale of the vessels and their cargoes were divided up as prize money among the officers and the crew of capturing crew members, with the distribution governed by regulations that the captor vessel's government had established. Throughout the 1800s, war prize laws were established to help opposing countries settle claims amicably.
 Private ships were also authorized by various countries at war through a letter of marque, which legally allowed a ship and commander to engage and capture vessels belonging to enemy countries. In those cases, contracts between the owners of the vessels, on the one hand, and the captains and the crews, on the other, established the distribution of the proceeds from captures.
 The Quasi-War was an undeclared war fought mostly at sea between the United States and French Republic from 1798 to 1800. France, plagued by massive crop failures and desperately in need of grain and other supplies, commissioned numerous French privateers, who both legally and illegally captured cargo from merchant vessels of every flag engaged in foreign trade with Britain. Approximately 300 American ships were captured by the French Navy and privateers under a letter of marque that was issued by the government of France. International law mandated that a ship captured during wartime by a belligerent was lost to the owner and that no compensation was to be made by the country who seized a vessel unless provided for by a treaty that ended that war.
 The First Barbary War (1801–5), was the first of the First Barbary War and the Second Barbary War fought between the United States and the North African Berber Muslim states known collectively as the Barbary States. For years the Barbary Corsairs had harassed and captured British, French and American shipping, often capturing vessels seizing cargoes and holding crews for large ransoms or enslaving them. Refusing to pay tribute President Thomas Jefferson sent a fleet of ships to the Mediterranean shores of North Africa to deal with the constant threats to U.S. and other ships.
 The French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against the French Republic and Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1792 to 1815, involving many often-large-scale naval battles resulting in the capture of numerous ships. Among the most notable of such battles were the Battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Copenhagen involving hundreds of ships and many thousands of seamen and officers.
 The Battle of Copenhagen was a naval battle involving a large British fleet under the command of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, defeating and capturing many of the Danish-Norwegian fleet anchored just off Copenhagen on 2 April 1801. Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson led the main attack.
 The Battle of Trafalgar was fought on 21 October 1805 off the Spanish coast, near Cape Trafalgar, involving the allied fleets of Spain and France against the Royal Navy of Britain. Britain's answer to Napoleon's threat, it proved to be the turning point of the Napoleonic era and is regarded as the last great sea battle of the period. The battle involved dozens of sailing warships and vessels many of which fell to capture while many were also met with what is considered a worse fate in the storm that followed.
 Napoleonic Wars (continued)
 The War of 1812 was fought between Great Britain and the United States whose young navy made a notable stand at sea against the largest and most formidable navy in the world at the time. The causes of the war were regarded differently between the two countries. The U.S. was appalled at Britain for seizing their ships and impressing American citizens into its navy, while Britain maintained that it had the right to search neutral vessels for property or persons of its foes. The ships of the two countries were involved in many engagements along the Atlantic coast, the Great Lakes, the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indies with numerous vessels being destroyed or captured on both sides.
 The Navy of Chile website lists 26 Spanish prizes during the War of Independence. The most famous are probably:
 For vessels captured by Chilean Letter of marque ships, see list of prizes
 At the onset of the Mexican–American War on 12 May 1846, Commodore John D. Sloat was in command of the Pacific fleet. The Pacific war against Mexico lasted only eight months with few casualties. The Pacific fleet consisted mainly of ten ships: two ships of the line, two frigates, two sloops-of-war, and four sloops. As the Mexican navy was very small few vessels were ever captured.
 During the First Schleswig War (1848 – 1850) the Royal Danish Navy first supported the Danish Army's advance south against the rebels in Schleswig-Holstein, and later blockaded the German ports.
 During the American Civil War the Union blockade at first proved to be ineffective at keeping ships from entering or leaving southern ports, but towards the end of the war, it played a significant role in its victory over the Confederate states. By the end of the war, the Union Navy had captured many Confederate ships, moreover had also captured more than 1,100 blockade runners while destroying or running aground another 355 vessels. Using specially-designed blockade runners, private business interests from Britain, however, succeeded in supplying the Confederate Army with goods valued at $200 million, including 600,000 small arms. Rhat extended the war by two years and cost the lives of 400,000 additional Americans.
 During the Second Schleswig War in 1864 the Royal Danish Navy blockaded the German ports. While the Danes suffered military defeat on land during the conflict, their navy succeeded in maintaining the blockade throughout the war.
 The Chincha Islands War (1864 – 1866) was a mostly naval conflict between Spain and her former South American colonies Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia.
 The Ten Years' War was fought between Cuban revolutionaries and Spain. Breaking out in 1868, the war was won by Spain by 1878.
 The War of the Pacific (1879 – 1883) was fought between Peru and Bolivia on one side, with Chile on the other. Chile emerged victorious.
 (Ship names / Information forthcoming)
 The 1894–95 First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan over dominance of Korea. The war ended in Japanese victory and great Chinese loss of territory and prestige.
 The Spanish–American War lasted only ten weeks and was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific theaters. American naval power proved decisive, allowing U.S. expeditionary forces to disembark in Spanish controlled Cuba which was already under constant pressure from frequent insurgent attacks. It is the only American war that was prompted by the fate of a single ship, the USS Maine, then berthed in a Cuban harbor, which exploded while its crew lay asleep.