30 ENGLISH NEUTRALITY. One more, interesting, but still less important question, practically, relates to the specific character of these vessels and their crews. Are they pirates? Piracy is defined to be the offence of depredating upon the high seas, without being authorized by any sovereign state. (Wheat. Ini. L., P. 2, c. 2, § 15.) These English sea-rovers claim, doubtless, to cruise under some kind of commission from the self-styled and unrecognized “ Confederate States.” I do not propose to discuss, with much seriousness, here, a question, which being in this place of little import, may hereafter, in a different discussion, become of the first magnitude; still, I am compelled to say that, by the law and practice of nations, it appears that no commission from an unknown, unrecognized authority can relieve the persons upon those vessels from the character of pirates, liable to punishment as such by any nation who may have the power and the will to enforce the penalties for that crime. Hautefeuille says (Des Nations Neutres, tit. 3, ch. 2): “ It is admitted by all nations, that in maritime wars every individual who commits acts of hostility without having received a regular commission from his sovereign, however regularly he may make war, is regarded and treated as guilty of piracy.” From what sovereign have the commanders of the Florida and Alabama received commissions ? Although, in view of what we now know has been done, it may be rash, I yet venture to assume that it is not from her Majesty; certainly not from the executive head of this nation. There is no government, such as they claim to represent, in existence—at least, having any such existence as would afford a legal protection to them in case some nation which has not conceded to them belligerent rights, should choose to seize and try them as pirates: “ For it is a firmly-established rule of British, American, and, indeed, all jurisprudence, that it belongs exclusively to governments to recognize new States; and that until such recognition, either by the government of the country in whose tribunal the suit is brought, or by the government to which the new state belongs, courts of justice are bound to consider the ancient state of things as existing.” (2 Phillimore 25 ; Rose v. Ilimnely 4 Granch, 272; Hoyt v. Gelston 3 Wheat. 324.) Nor would it avail these men to plead that they are not— according to the general description of pirates—enemies to all mankind; for in the case of the Magellan pirates, in 1851 (see the Jurist), the learned Dr. Lushington, of the High Court of
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=