"It being also doubted by many eminent civilians whether, during the Revolution, the persons who had captured English vessels, by virtue of commissions granted by James II., at his Court at St. Germain, after his abdication of the Throne of England, could be deemed pirates, the grantor still having, as it was contended, the right of war in him, it is enacted--11 & 12 Wm. III., c. 7, s. 8--'That if any of His Majesty's natural-born subjects, or denizens of this Kingdom, shall commit any piracy or robbery, or any act of hostility against others, His Majesty's subjects, upon the sea, under color of any commission from any foreign Prince or State, or pretence of authority from any person whatsoever, such offender or offenders, and every of them, shall be deemed, adjudged, and taken to be pirates, felons, and robbers; and they, and every of them, being duly convicted thereof, according to this Act, or the aforesaid statute of King Henry VIII., shall have and suffer such pains of death, loss of lands, goods, and chattels, as pirates, felons, and robbers upon the seas ought to have and suffer.'" When an Act of Congress, declaring the crime of piracy, was enacted, in 1790, it is perfectly apparent that those who drew up the Act were acquainted with _Hawkins' Pleas_, containing the 8th section, which is the recognized law of piracy by all nations, and from that book, then, took in this 9th section; because there was no exigency in our Government to call for it, and no reason for its introduction, except that it was found in a book familiar to those who were legislating for this country. In regard to the Act, there are some peculiarities which are very striking, and which bear strongly on this subject. The first is the fact that a commission, although from a foreign State, taken by a British subject or denizen of England, and committed against British commerce, protected the party against the charge of piracy,--because the thing was taken as prize, and for adjudication according to the principles of the laws of nations, for which national action the nation which took it was responsible. But, in the case and condition of James II., the English declared that he was no longer of England,--they declared him fallen from the Crown, and a foreigner. He had no dominions, and no place where the poor man could hold a Prize Court; and, if he could authorize a capture, there was no Court to adjudicate upon it; there was no sovereign to be responsible for the action of the Prize Court. He was a King without responsibility, and without the power of having Courts of Adjudication; and it was a necessity arising in the history of English law that that kind of action should be treated as piratical. The English adopted that, therefore, as the statute piracy. I refer your honors to Phillimore's International Law (vol. III., page 398), where all the discussion and reasons are