a commission. The subject has been repeatedly discussed in the Supreme Court of the United States, and the doctrine of the law of nations is considered to be, that private citizens cannot acquire a title to hostile property, unless seized under commission; but they may still lawfully seize hostile property in their own defence. If they depredate upon the enemy without a commission, they act upon their peril, and are liable to be punished by their own sovereign; but the enemy are not warranted to consider them as criminals, and, as respects the enemy, they violate no rights by capture.

The practice of cruizing with private armed vessels, commissionated by the state, has been hitherto sanctioned by the laws of every maritime nation, as a legitimate means of destroying the commerce of an enemy. This practice has been justly arraigned as liable to gross abuses, as tending to encourage a spirit of lawless depredation, and as being in glaring contradiction to the more mitigated modes of warfare practised on land. Powerful efforts have been made by humane and enlightened individuals to suppress it, as inconsistent with the liberal spirit of the age. In the treaty between the United States and France in 1778, it was stipulated, that "No subject of the most Christian king shall apply for or take any commission or letters of marque for arming any ship or ships to act as privateers against the said United States, or any of them, or against the subjects, people, or inhabitants of the said United States, or any of them, or against the property of any of the inhabitants of any of them, from any prince or state with which the United States shall be at war; nor shall any citizen, subject, or inhabitant of the said United States, or any of them,

apply for or take any commission or letters of marque for arming any ship or ships to act as privateers against the subjects of the most Christian king, or any of them, or the property of any of the inhabitants of any of them, from any prince or state with which the United States shall be at war; nor shall any citizen, subject, or inhabitant of the said United States, or any of them, apply for or take any commission or letters of marque for arming any ship or ships to act as privateers against the subjects of the most Christian king, or any of them, or the property of any of them, from any prince or state with which the said king shall be at war; and if any person of either nation shall take such commission or letters of marque, he shall be punished as a pirate.

"It shall nor be lawful for any foreign privateers, not belonging to the subjects of the Most Christian King, nor citizens of the said United States, who have commission from any other prince or state at enmity with either nation, to fit their ships in the ports of either the one or the other of the aforesaid parties, to sell what they have taken, or in any other manner whatsoever to exchange their ships, merchandises, or any other lading; neither shall they be allowed even to purchase victuals except such as shall be necessary for their going to the next port of that prince or state from which they have commissions."

President Jefferson, in his message to Congress on the 3rd of December, 1805, in referring to the acts of privateers off the American coast, "some of them without commissions, some with illegal commissions, others with those of legal form, but committing piratical acts beyond the authority of their commissions,"

apprised Congress that he had equipped a force to capture all vessels of this description, and "to bring the offenders in for trial as pirates." In 1812, eight days after the declaration of war against England, Congress passed a law, limiting and defining the rights of privateers, and endeavoured, as far as practicable, to assimilate them to national vessels. The first section gives to the President the power to annul, at pleasure, all commissions which he might grant to privateers under the act of June 18, 1812. "Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, that all persons applying for letters of marque and reprisal, pursuant to the act aforesaid, shall state in writing the name, and a suitable description of the tonnage and force of the vessel, and the name and the place of residence of each owner concerned therein, and the intended number of the crew," "&c. Sec. 3. "And be it further enacted, that, before any commission of letters of marque and reprisal shall be issued as aforesaid, the owner or owners of the ship or vessel for which the same shall be requested, and the commander thereof for the time being, shall give bond to the United States, with at least two responsible sureties, not interested in such vessel, in the penal sum of 5,000 dollars; or, if such vessel be provided with more than 150 men, then, in the penal sum of 10,000 dollars; with condition that the owners, officers, and crew who shall be employed on board such commissioned vessel, shall and will observe the treaties and laws of the United States, and the instructions which shall be given them according to law for the regulation of their conduct."

The subsequent sections of this Act compel the privateers to bring all captures into port for adjudica

tion by the Court of Admiralty; prohibit their sailing without special instructions from the President; compel the captains to keep journals of everything that occurs from day to day, to be transmitted to the government; and make it the duty of the commanders of public armed vessels of the United States to examine such journals when meeting with privateers at sea, and to compel their commanders to obey their instructions.

This law was intended to restrain and modify the evils of privateering, and in 1846, when the American Government became involved in war with Mexico, President Polk, in his annual message to Congress on the 8th of December of that year, held the following language:

"Information has recently been received at the Department of State that the Mexican Government has sent to Havana blank commissions to privateers and blank certificates of naturalization, signed by General Salas, the present head of the Mexican Government. There is also reason to apprehend that similar documents have been transmitted to other parts of the world. As the preliminaries required by the practice of civilized nations for commissioning privateers and regulating their conduct have not been observed, and as these commissions are in blank, to be filled up with the names of the citizens and subjects of all nations who may be willing to purchase them, the whole proceeding can only be construed as an invitation to all freebooters to cruise against American conimerce. It will be for our courts of justice to decide whether, under such circumstances, these Mexican letters of marque and reprisal shall protect

those who accept them, and commit robberies upon the high seas under their authority, from the pains and penalties of piracy. If the certificates of naturalization thus granted be intended to shield Spanish subjects from the guilt and punishment of pirates, under our treaty with Spain they will certainly prove unavailing."

Although the Government of the United States has the merit of having been the first power in modern times which has endeavoured to put down this relic of the private wars, which disgraced the middle ages, it is curious to notice that during the short war between the United States and Great Britain, the legislature of the State of New York so far departed from these humane and enlightened views as to pass an act (Laws N. Y., 38th Session, c. 12, Oct. 21, 1814) "to encourage privateering associations, by authorizing any five or more persons, who should be desirous to form a company for the purpose of annoying the enemy in their commerce by means of private armed vessels, to sign and file a certificate, stating the name of the company and its stock, &c., and that they and their successors should thereupon be a body politic and corporate with the ordinary corporate powers."

Various attempts have been made by treaty to put an end to the system of privateering. In the treaty of amity and commerce between Prussia and the United States, in 1785, it was agreed that in case of war neither party should grant commissions to any private armed vessels to attack the commerce of the other-a stipulation which it seems difficult to consider binding or likely to be observed, and which in point of fact was not renewed with the renewal of the treaty. A similar