98
In the case named the court considered whether
Congress had sufficiently discharged its duty to define the particular erime. 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 mere the ses ebbs and flows commits the crime of robbery in and upon any vessel or the lading thereof or the crew he suall be adjuiged a pirate." Congress here clearly laid it down that
The a piracy and a robbery were equivalent terme.
lant statute to which I shall refer, and which i
also mentioned in court during the argument, is
1 Vict., c.80 *ån act to amend certain acts relating
to the crime of ✅iracy". 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 snip or vessel small assault with intent to murder any person being on board of or belonging to such snip or vessel or maall stat, 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 avidently contemplates that violance on
a ship may occur where there is an intent to commit
the crime of piracy either immediately before or
immediately after such crime.
Violence itself does
not