Trial of the Officers and Crew of the Privateer Savannah, on the Charge of Piracy, in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York

by A. F. Warburton

A. No, sir; I do not think they had any regular uniform. Captain Baker had a uniform, with metal buttons on his coat. I did not notice what was on the buttons.

Q. He had on such a dress as he wears to-day?

A. Something similar to that. He was the only one who had a uniform.

Q. Do you know anything as to the exchange of prisoners between the forces of the United States and of the Confederate States on any station where you have been?

A. No, sir.

The defence here closed.

The District Attorney stated that the prosecution had no rebutting evidence to offer.

Judge Nelson: Before counsel commence summing up the case to the Jury, they will please present the propositions of law on both sides.

Mr. Lord: I was going to ask my friends on the other side to give us their authorities, so that we shall know what we are to go to the Jury upon. We would then be able to lay our views before the Court and to divide the labor of summing up—some of us addressing ourselves entirely to the Court.

Mr. Evarts: I would have no objection to taking that course if I had been prepared for it. In the presentation of the case, we rely on the statute of the United States—on the fact that the defendants are within the terms of the statute; and that the affirmative defence, growing out of the state of things in this country, does not apply in a Court of the United States, and under a statute of the United States, which still covers the condition of the persons brought in. Whether they are citizens or aliens, nothing has been shown which takes them out of the general operation of our laws. On the question of the ingredients of the crime of piracy—which is a particular inquiry, irrespective of the considerations connected with the state of war—I do not know that we need refer to anything which is not quite familiar. The cases referred to by the learned counsel for the prisoners—the United States vs. Jones, the United States vs. Palmer, and the United States vs. Tully—contain all the views in reference to the ingredients of the crime of piracy, or to the construction of the statutes, that we need to present. In the general elementary books to which the learned counsel have referred—the various books on the Pleas of the Crown—there are passages to which we shall have occasion to refer.