Well now, gentlemen, in regard to the eighth section, the learned counsel who very ably addressed the Court on last Saturday, stated that intent had little or nothing to do with the offence; that he did not choose to be held to the _animus fruendi_, but that the charge was the _animus furandi_, and that when a person committed robbery it was but of very little consequence to what purpose he applied the proceeds of the robbery, or for whom he committed it. Now, with all due deference to the learned counsel, I think this is putting the case rather unfairly, because he is quietly assuming the very point we are discussing; for it is the fact of the _animus furandi_--the fact whether or not this is robbery--that we are discussing. We have distinctly said, and shown by the books, that that which he says is not the characteristic of the crime, is really its characteristic, and that intent in this, as in every other offence, peculiarly constitutes the crime. It is just because the taking is not for the party himself--is not an appropriation for his own purpose, and for his own ends, and for his own object, that there is a difference between piracy and privateering. And why is this so? Because the party who goes forth on a privateering expedition, goes forth under the sanction of a nation. It may be a nation only _de facto_, but still it is a nation. He goes by the authority of that nation, armed with a commission under its sanction, after having given the most ample security to be responsible to the nation itself for any act of misconduct on his part; that nation holding itself out to the civilized world as responsible for every excess on the part of the citizen to whom it grants letters of marque. Well, gentlemen, the taking of property on the part of the privateer is not for himself. The taking is in the name of the State. The title which the privateer has in the captured property is no title at all, nor does he pretend to claim it. The title is in the State, and up to the very moment of condemnation, although the property may have been acquired by his blood, and by his treasure, the State has the right to release it. So important is this fact of intention, as entering into the transaction, that it has been held that no excess on the part of a person carrying letters of marque from a regular Government could be punished as piracy--the Government being liable, and he himself being referred to his own Government for punishment. It has been even held in England, that where the act of taking a commission from a foreign prince was so unlawful in its character as to amount under the law to a felony, yet still the party having letters of marque, should not be charged with piracy.