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In the case named the court considered whther
Congress had sufficiently discharged its duty to
define the particular crime. The judges differed
on this point; and it would appear that that act was
allowed to expire and in place of it, during the following year, (to quote Kent) "it was again declared, and essentially to the same effect, that if any
person upon the high seas or in any open roadstead
or bay or river where the sea ebbs and flows commits
the crime of robbery in and upon any vessel or the
lading thereof or the crew he shall be adjudged a
pirate". Congress here clearly laid it down that
a piracy and a robbery were equivalent teras. The
last statute to which I shall refer, and which I
also mentioned in court during the argument, is
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1 Vict., c.88 "An Act to amend certain Acts relating
to the crime of Piracy". Section 2 of this act
provides that "whosoever with intent to commit or
at the time of or immediately before or immediately
after committing the crime of piracy in respect of
any ship or vessel shall assault with intent to
murder any person xxx**xxxxxxkt being on board of or
belonging to such ship or vessel or shall stab, cut
or wound any such person or unlawfully do any act by which the life of such person may be endangered,
shall be guilty of felony and being convicted thereof
shall suffer death as a felon." The language of this legislation evidently contemplates that violence on
a ship may occur where there is an intent to commi t
the crime of piracy either immediately before or
immediately after such crime. Violence it self does