The second section relates to misprision of treason; and declares, without limitation, that any person or persons, having knowledge of any treason, and not communicating the same, shall be guilty of that crime. Here then is an instance of that limited description of persons in one section, and of that general description in another, which has been relied on to support the construction contended for by the friends of the resolutions. But will it be pretended that a person can commit misprision of treason who cannot commit treason itself? That he would be punishable for concealing a treason who could not be punished for plotting it? Or, can it be supposed that the act designed to punish an Englishman or a Frenchman, who, residing in his own country, should have knowledge of treasons against the United States, and should not cross the Atlantic to reveal them?
The same observations apply to the sixth section, which makes any "person or persons" guilty of misprision of felony, who, having knowledge of murder or other offences enumerated in that section, should conceal them. It is impossible to apply this to a foreigner, in a foreign land, or to any person not owing allegiance to the United States.
The eighth section, which is supposed to comprehend the case, after declaring that if any "person or persons" shall commit murder on the high seas, he shall be punishable with death, proceeds to say, that if any captain or mariner shall piratically run away with a ship or vessel, or yield her up voluntarily to a pirate, or if any seaman shall lay violent hands on his commander, to prevent his fighting, or shall make a revolt in the ship, every such offender shall be adjudged a pirate and a felon.
The persons who are the objects of this section of the act are all described in general terms, which might embrace the subjects of all nations. But is it to be supposed that, if in an engagement between an English and a French ship-of-war, the crew of the one or the other should lay violent hands on the captain and force him to strike, that this would be an offence against the act of Congress, punishable in the courts of the United States? On this extended construction of the general terms of the section, not only the crew of one of the foreign vessels forcing their captain to surrender to another, would incur the penalties of the act, but, if in the late action between the gallant Truxton and the French frigate, the crew of that frigate had compelled the captain to surrender, while he was unwilling to do so, they would have been indictable as felons in the courts of the United States. But surely the act of Congress admits of no such extravagant construction.
His colleague, Mr. M. said, had cited and particularly relied on the ninth section of the act; that section declares, that if a citizen shall commit any of the enumerated piracies, or any acts of hostility, on the high seas, against the United States, under color of a commission from any foreign Prince or State, he shall be adjudged a pirate, felon, and robber, and shall suffer death.
This section is only a positive extension of the act to a case which might otherwise have escaped punishment. It takes away the protection of a foreign commission from an American citizen, who, on the high seas, robs his countrymen. This is no exception from any preceding part of the law, because there is no part which relates to the conduct of vessels commissioned by a foreign power; it only proves that, in the opinion of the Legislature, the penalties of the act could not, without this express provision, have been incurred by a citizen holding a foreign commission.
It is most certain, then, that the act of Congress does not comprehend the case of a murder committed on board a foreign ship-of-war.
The gentleman from New York has cited 2 Woodeson, 428, to show that the courts of England extend their jurisdiction to piracies committed by the subjects of foreign nations.
This has not been doubted. The case from Woodeson is a case of robberies committed on the high seas by a vessel without authority. There are ordinary acts of piracy which, as has been already stated, being offences against all nations, are punishable by all. The case from 2 Woodeson, and the note cited from the same book by the gentleman from Delaware, are strong authorities against the doctrines contended for by the friends of the resolutions.