A few days since our Government published another general order, or document, directing that a certain number of prisoners, captured in arms against the United States, and when fighting under regular enlistment the army of the Confederate States, should be released as "prisoners of war," because the Confederate States had released a similar number. That was an exchange of prisoners of "war," and another virtual acknowledgment that the Confederate States constitute a Government. Remember that these "prisoners of war" had, if they were citizens of the United States, violated the law in the first section of the statute under the eighth and succeeding sections of which this prosecution is founded. One class were fighting on land against the United States, and the penalty is death by the statute. The defendants here fought on water; and there is the same penalty, if either is liable to the penalties of the statute. Both classes fought under the same flag and received their commission from the same Government. If one class are "prisoners of war" in the opinion of the Government of the United States, so must the other be. It is impossible to recede from the consequences of the virtual recognition of belligerent rights involved in the exchange of these captives, under the chosen designation of "prisoners of war." How, then, doth the dignity of our Government suffer by this prosecution! It evinces an indecision, a caprice, a want of consistency and character on the part of the Government. It is an unfortunate, and I hope an unpremeditated one. The good name of the nation is involved, unnecessarily, by the mere fact of arraignment of these defendants under an indictment; but your verdict of "not guilty" may yet save it. The Jury will and must accept the construction which the Government has in fact put on the law, viz., that it does not apply, and was never intended to apply, to such a state of affairs as the present revolution has brought about.