_Mr. Evarts_: I would have no objection to taking that course if I had been prepared for it. In the presentation of the case, we rely on the statute of the United States--on the fact that the defendants are within the terms of the statute; and that the affirmative defence, growing out of the state of things in this country, does not apply in a Court of the United States, and under a statute of the United States, which still covers the condition of the persons brought in. Whether they are citizens or aliens, nothing has been shown which takes them out of the general operation of our laws. On the question of the ingredients of the crime of piracy--which is a particular inquiry, irrespective of the considerations connected with the state of war--I do not know that we need refer to anything which is not quite familiar. The cases referred to by the learned counsel for the prisoners--the United States _vs._ Jones, the United States _vs._ Palmer, and the United States _vs._ Tully--contain all the views in reference to the ingredients of the crime of piracy, or to the construction of the statutes, that we need to present. In the general elementary books to which the learned counsel have referred--the various books on the Pleas of the Crown--there are passages to which we shall have occasion to refer. _Judge Nelson_: The counsel for the Government should give to the counsel on the other side, before the summing up is commenced, all the authorities on which they intend to rely. _Mr. Evarts_: That we shall do, of course. _Judge Nelson_: We will take them now. _Mr. Evarts_: I refer to 1st East's Pleas of the Crown, 70-1. It is under the title of Treason, but it is on the point of the character of the crime as qualified by the influence on the party, of force, or of the state of the population by which the accused was surrounded. I read from page 70: "Joining with rebels freely and voluntarily in any act of rebellion is levying war against the King; and this, too, though the party was not privy to their intent. This was holden in the case of the Earl of Southampton, and again in Purchase's case, in 1710. But yet it seems necessary, in this case, either that the party joining with rebels, and ignorant of their intent at the time, should do some deliberate act towards the execution of their design, or else should be found to have aided and assisted those who did. * * * But if the joining with rebels be from fear of present death, and while the party is under actual force, such fear and compulsion will excuse him. It is incumbent, however, on the party setting up this defence, to give satisfactory proof that the compulsion continued during all the time that he stayed with the rebels." The case of Axtell, one of the regicides, is referred to. The defense was set up for him that he acted by command of his superior officer; but that was ruled to be no defence. I now read from page 104: