"If a citizen of the United States should commit acts of depredation against any of the citizens of the United States, it might at least have been a question whether he could be guilty of piracy if he acted under a foreign commission and within the scope of his authority. He might say that he acted under a commission; and not having transgressed the authority derived under it, he could not be charged criminally. But the 9th sec. declares that this shall be no plea, because the authority under which he acted is not allowed to be legitimate. It declares to the person contemplated by this section, that in cases where a commission from his own Government would protect him from the charge of piracy, that is, where he acted within the scope of it or even where he acted fairly but under a mistake in transgressing it, yet that a _foreign_ commission should afford him no protection, even although he had not exceeded the authority which it professed to give him. But it by no means follows from this that a citizen committing depredations upon foreigners or citizens, not authorized by the commission granted by his own Government, _and with a felonious intention_, should be protected by that commission against a charge of piracy. Another object of this section appears to have been to declare that acts of hostility committed by a citizen against the United States upon the high seas, _under pretence of a commission issued by a foreign Government, though they might amount to treason, were nevertheless piracy and to be tried as such_." Your honors will find another very interesting history in reference to this statute in _Phillimore's International Law, 1st vol., sec. 398_. Phillimore says: