The Court said that was not evidence.
He put it in a bag; it made the bag about half full; I cannot identify the bag.
Mr. Sayles then said they had no other witness for the defence, and he then proceeded to address the Court and jury on behalf of the prisoner. He commenced by describing the sensation created in this city by the intelligence of this transaction, and that the public press had given a description of and directed the eye of the community to this one man. He then suggested that this tragedy may have been perpetrated by river thieves who have been driven to the lower bay by the Harbor Police, and who, perhaps, committed a similar one on another sloop on the same night. Counsel said, in cases of admiralty this court had a limited and special jurisdiction, derived from the laws of Congress passed under the Constitution of our country, which gives power to define and punish felony and piracy on the high seas. This court, therefore, had so much power, and no more. It had no common law jurisdiction. (He then cited several authorities.) He claimed that a portion of that act of Congress was unconstitutional; that Congress had no right to define and punish felonies on the high seas; it has no power to take away the rights of individual States to punish the crime for which this man stands charged. It was committed beyond the jurisdiction of the court, and it had no power to punish for this felony. He then read a reported case where an act of piracy had been committed in Boston harbor, and in which it was held that it should be tried in the courts of that State.
The Court remarked that this was not a question for the jury, but should have been raised on demurrer, or might be brought up on a motion in arrest of judgment.
Mr. Sayles submitted that the jury were the judges of the law and the facts.
The Court.—Not on questions of jurisdiction. Those questions are always for the Court—for its decision.
Mr. Sayles contended that “on the high seas” meant either in the harbor of some foreign country, or beyond any portion of a coast where the sea ebbs and flows.
The Court remarked that this was the opinion of English lawyers, but did not apply to American laws.
Mr. Sayles said—We have adopted the English common law.
The Court.—Only to a limited extent.