Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New YorkWarburton, A. F. (Adolphus Frederick)
History
Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York
Warburton, A. F. (Adolphus Frederick)
Piracy -- United States; Privateering -- United States; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
I may refer also to Mr. Pinckney's speech in the Convention of South
Carolina which adopted the Constitution, same volume, p. 331; to the
formal ratifications of the Constitution by the different States of the
Union, same volume, p. 318; and I may have occasion to refer to Grotius
in connection with the discussion of the general state of war. The
citations will be--book 1st, chap. 1, secs. 1 and 2; chap. 3, secs. 1
and 4; and chap. 4, sec. 1.
MR. LORD'S ARGUMENT.
_Mr. Lord_, of counsel for the defence, said:
May it please your honors,--The distribution of duties which counsel
for the defence have made among themselves is, that I shall briefly
present the propositions of law, somewhat irrespective of the wide
political range which my friends seem to think is to be involved. I
shall not pursue even the field which Mr. Larocque has opened, knowing
that he has cultivated it to a far greater degree than I have, and
therefore I will leave it to him to till. My friend, Mr. Brady, will
address the Jury on any questions of fact that may be supposed to be
involved.
Before I enter upon the discussion, and with the view that this case
may be relieved from one prejudice which probably every man has felt on
first hearing of it, I beg leave to set ourselves all right on the idea
that there is something different in a private armed ship from a public
armed vessel, in the law, and in the view of the people of the country.
I desire to read on that subject a letter from Mr. Marcy to the Count
de Sartiges.
_Mr. Lord_ read the letter, and continued:
Therefore in this discussion, so far from a private armed vessel being
regarded with disfavor, it is regarded, and has to be regarded, with
all the favor which would belong to it as a regularly commissioned
cruiser, belonging to the State, and not to the individual.
I now approach, with all the brevity due to your valuable time, the
question of jurisdiction. It seems to me to be very clear indeed that
after Harleston and the crew, of the Savannah were taken by the Perry,
he was confined as a prisoner, as one of a crew of a piratical vessel,
for an act charged as piratical, on board the United States ship-of-war
Minnesota, by order of its commander. That Harleston was taken by the
said commander into the District of Virginia, within a marine league of
its shores, where the said ship remained; and the said Harleston and
the other prisoners could have been there landed and detained for
trial. If the facts are so, the Circuit Court of this District has no
jurisdiction, and the prisoners should be acquitted.
The evidence of our friend, Commodore Stringham, on that subject,
leaves us no doubt as to the character of the arrest. After seeing the
Perry close in to Charleston, she having been ordered by him to cruise
further off, and he, wondering what she was doing there--he says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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