Then upon the question that this commission is only by color of authority from an unrecognized power, and that the authority to grant such a commission is disputed, I refer to the case of _Davison_ vs. _Certain Seal Skins_ (2 Paine's C.C.R. 332), which was a case of salvage of property after a piracy alleged to have been committed by Louis Vernet, at Port St. Louis, in the Eastern Falkland Islands, by taking them from a vessel,--he wrongfully and unlawfully claiming and pretending to be Governor of the Islands, under Buenos Ayres. The Court says: "Robbery on the high seas is understood to be piracy by our law. The taking must be _felonious_. A commissioned cruiser, by exceeding his authority, is not thereby to be considered a pirate. It may be a marine trespass, but not an act of piracy, _if the vessel is taken as a prize_, unless taken feloniously, and with intent to commit a robbery: the _quo animo_ may be inquired into. _A pirate is one who acts solely on his own authority, without any commission or authority from a sovereign State_, seizing by force and appropriating to himself, without discrimination, every vessel he meets with; and hence pirates have always been compared to robbers. The only difference between them is that the sea is the theatre of action for the one, and the land for the other." By referring to this case, pp. 334, 335, your honors will find that Buenos Ayres had no lawful jurisdiction over the islands, and that our Executive Government had so decided; but Buenos Ayres avowed the acts of those claiming to act under her authority, and our Government discharged the prisoners who had been captured as pirates, disclaiming, under those circumstances, to hold them personally criminally responsible. The next proposition which I state is this: "That, by the public law of the world, the law of nations, and the laws of war, the commission in evidence, supported by the proof in the case as to the color of authority under which it was issued, would afford adequate protection to the defendants against a conviction for piracy; and being an authority emanating neither from a foreign Prince nor foreign State, nor from a person merely, the offence charged in the last five counts of the indictment, is not within the purview of the 9th section of the Act of 1790, and the defendants cannot be convicted under either of those counts, if they acted in good faith under that commission." I refer your honors to the case of the _Santissima Trinidad_, 7 Wheaton, 283, to the opinion of Judge Story, in which he says: