"But, Captain," said Mary, "I am not willing to allow that the Bible is on your side. It shocks me to hear you say so."
"Well, Miss St. Clair, I must turn you over to brother Gracelius, who is well posted up in Bible matters. He will be able to show you that piracy is a Bible institution."
"Yes, my young sister," said Mr. Gracelius, who had not been inattentive to the conversation, while he was enjoying an excellent cup of coffee. "The Scriptures do most certainly sanction the institution of piracy."
Here Mr. Gracelius took from his pocket a small Bible, and proceeded to say: "On such a question, I am strongly disposed to pass by all ethical and metaphysical dissertation, and appeal at once to the only standard of right and wrong which can prove decisive. It is the responses of the sacred oracles to which we must after all appeal."
"I could wish, Mr. Gracelius," said Albert, "that you would discuss this question rather upon the foundation principles of morality, than by arguments from a volume which sanctions war, slavery, death penalties, and a host of other evils, by the very confessions of Christians themselves."
"I perceive," said Mr. Gracelius, "that you, sir, have never yet learned the true grace of God through regeneration, or you too would bow submissively to the teachings of the sacred Scriptures, and acknowledge them as the highest standard of right and morality. I cannot, therefore, hope to seriously affect your mind by an appeal to the Bible. But Miss St. Clair, being a Christian, will feel the force of such high authority."
"Truly, Mr. Gracelius," said Mary, "I do take the Bible as my highest standard of truth; and it is from the principles taught by the Bible that I have the assurance that piracy is awfully criminal. And I am utterly astonished that a man of your apparent piety, and who so well understands the doctrines of Christianity, can for a moment think that the Bible justifies such crimes."
"My dear young sister," said the minister, "you are begging the question when you call piracy a crime, for that is the very thing you are to prove. But let us see what piracy is:
"In order to clear away rubbish, and to arrive at once at the point, let me remind you that it is simply the essential character of piracy which we are discussing. Piracy itself is nothing more than the appropriating of the products of another's labor and skill, without his consent or contract. The absence of the contract, or the consent of the producer, does not alter the nature and extent of the pirates' right. The case is analogous to that of parents and children. A father has a right to the productions of his child's labor during his minority, without the contract or consent of the child, and he may even transfer that right. But I grant that this does not justify the father in doing anything to the detriment of the child, either morally, intellectually, or physically. And, beyond doubt, this is the true light in which Christianity would have pirates regard their relations. The capture of a vessel, and the treatment of prisoners, involve a great responsibility. Nothing more should be done than is absolutely essential to the maintenance of the peculiar institutions of piracy. It is not the relation of the pirate to the producer or prisoner which is sinful, but infidelity to the solemn trust which that relation creates. It does not follow, because he has a right to the produce of another's labor or skill, that he has also a right to inflict unnecessary violence on his person, or take from him all means of livelihood. Whenever it can be done, without jeopardizing the well-being and interests of our society and institutions, we ought to spare the prisoner's life, make him comfortable while in our hands, place him as soon as possible where he can return to his home, and leave him means enough to keep him from starving or absolute destitution.
"To include in the idea of piracy, that also of robbery and murder, is to confound two things entirely distinct, and which really have no sort of connection. If I take from another that which I have no right to by the laws of the society or government under which I live, then I am a robber; for that alone is property which the law makes property, as one of your own great statesmen has very properly said; and if I take life, when not essential to maintain my own rights under the laws of that government which I recognize in my social obligations, I am a murderer. I therefore insist upon it, that, in discussing this subject, we regard as appropriate to the question only the essential elements of piracy, and not its abuses; for piracy may exist without inflicting these aggravated wrongs.