"There is another objection urged against the admission of this vessel to the privileges and immunities of a public ship, which may as well be disposed of in connection with the question already considered. It is, that Buenos Ayres has not yet been acknowledged as a sovereign independent Government, by the Executive or Legislature of the United States, and therefore is not entitled to have her ships-of-war recognized by our Courts as national ships. We have, in former cases, had occasion to express our opinion on this point. The Government of the United States has recognized the existence of a civil war between Spain and her Colonies, and has avowed a determination to remain neutral between the parties, and to allow to each the same rights of asylum, and hospitality, and intercourse. Each party is, therefore, deemed by us a belligerent nation, having, so far as concerns us, the sovereign rights of war, and entitled to be respected in the exercise of those rights. We cannot interfere to the prejudice of either belligerent, without making ourselves a party to the contest and departing from the posture of neutrality. All captures made by each must be considered as having the same validity; and all the immunities which may be claimed by public ships in our ports, under the laws of nations, must be considered as equally the right of each, and as such must be recognized by our Courts of Justice, until Congress shall prescribe a different rule. This is the doctrine heretofore asserted by this Court, and we see no reason to depart from it." Your honors, by referring to the case of The Bello Corunnes, 6 Wheaton, 152, will see the doctrine laid down distinctly, that acts may be piratical for all civil purposes which would not authorize the conviction of the perpetrators criminally as pirates; _e.g._, a citizen of the United States, taking from a State at war with Spain a commission to cruise against that power, contrary to the 14th art. of the Spanish Treaty;--and the Court held, in that case, that that would involve the consequences of a piracy, for the purpose of condemnation of property; but it would not be criminal piracy, under either the law of nations or of the United States. On the general subject of privateers I had a reference to Vattel, but I do not think it necessary to read it, because the authorities on that subject cover it so fully.