Why prize-court procedure mattered

Three courses were possible after Trent had been stopped. A prize court could have adjudicated the ship and its passengers under contemporary maritime practice, although Britain would still have objected. Fully executing Wilkes’s orders would have meant searching British diplomatic papers, an act of war. Fairfax instead took the envoys and released the ship without adjudication. No precedent supported that combination. The Union returned the envoys and avoided a public apology, while private messages allowed both governments to settle the crisis.