Now, gentlemen, what is the crime of piracy, as we have all been taught to understand it from our cradle? My learned friend has given one definition of what a pirate is, by saying that he is the enemy of the human race. And how does his crime commence? Is it blazoned, before he starts on his wicked career, in the full light of the sun, or is it hatched in secret? Does it commence openly and frankly, with the eyes of his fellow-citizens looking on from the time that the design is conceived, or does it originate in the dark forecastle of some vessel on the seas, manned by wicked men, to whom murder and robbery have been familiar from their earliest days, and who usually commence by murdering the crew of the vessel, the safety of which has been partly entrusted to them? And when the first deed of wickedness has been done which makes pirates and outcasts of the men who perpetrated it, what is their career from that moment to the time when they end their lives, probably on the scaffold? Is it not one of utter disregard to the laws of God and man, and to those of humanity? Is it not a succession of deeds of cruelty, of rapine, of pillage, of wanton destruction? Who ever heard of pirates who, in the first place, commenced the execution of their design by public placards posted in the streets of a populous city like Charleston, approved of by their fellow-citizens of a great and populous city, and not only by them, but by the people of ten great and populous States? And who ever heard of pirates who, coming upon a vessel that was within the limits of the commission under which they were acting, took her as a prize, with an apology to her Captain for the necessity of depriving him of his property, and claiming to act under the authority of ten great and populous States, and under that authority alone? And who ever heard of pirates doing what has been testified to in this case by the witnesses for the Government,--taking one ship because she belonged to the enemies of the Confederate States, to which they sincerely believed they owed the duty of allegiance, and passing immediately under the stern of another vessel, because they knew by her build and appearance that she was a British vessel, and not an enemy of their country, as they believed?