Piracy

“ FOREWORD Piracy embodies the romance of the sea at its highest expression. It is a sad but inevitable commentary on our civilization, that, so far as the sea is concerned, it has developed from its infancy down to a century or so ago, under one phase or another of piracy. If men were savages on land they were doubly so at sea, and all the years of maritime adventure—years that added to the map of the world till there was little left to discover—could not wholly eradicate the piratical germ. It went out gradually with the settlement and ordering of the far-flung British colonies. ”

“ At ten years of age we are all quite sure that piracy is a finer calling than trade, and the pirate a finer fellow than the Shylock who owns the ship—which, indeed, he may well be. But as we grow up (which some of the best of us never do) we realise that piracy is not the best way to establish the ownership of cargoes, any more than the ordeal is the way to settle cases at law, or the rack of proving a dogma, or the Spanish American method the way to settle differences between Liberals and Conservatives. ”

“ Thus, if a subject of either of these nations commit any act of hostility against a fellow subject on the high seas, under color of a commission from any foreign power, this act is piracy. So if any captain of any vessel, or mariner, run away with the vessel, or the goods, or yield them up to a pirate voluntarily, or if any seaman lay violent hands on his commander, to hinder him from fighting in defence of the ship or goods committed to his charge, or make a revolt in the ship, these offences are acts of piracy, by the laws of the United States and England. ”

“ Indeed, piracy must surely be the third oldest profession in the world, if we give the honour of the second place to the ancient craft of healing. If such a history were to include the whole of piracy, it would have to refer to the Phœnicians, to the Mediterranean sea-rovers of the days of Rome, who, had they but known it, held the future destiny of the world in their grasp when they, a handful of pirates, took prisoner the young Julius Cæsar, to ransom him and afterwards to be caught and crucified by him. ”

“ While the majority of offenses under maritime law only differ from like offenses on land in respect of locality, piracy is confined to the water. Pirates are enemies of all mankind and the offense is against the universal laws of society. There is a piracy, therefore, by the law of nations and those guilty of it are subject to pursuit, seizure and punishment by the vessels of every nation. There is also a statutory piracy which is punishable only within the limits of the jurisdiction which defines it. The pirate by the law of nations is an outlaw whom any nation may capture and punish. ”

“ Thus it came that, long after piracy ceased to be allowed at home, it continued in those far-away seas with unabated vigor, recruiting to its service all that lawless malign element which gathers together in every newly opened country where the only law is lawlessness, where might is right and where a living is to be gained with no more trouble than cutting a throat. ”

“ When the legislature of this Kingdom had ordered all their ships and goods, for the mere new-created offence of exercising trade, to be divided as a spoil among the seamen of the navy—to consider the necessary reprisal of an unhappy, proscribed, interdicted people as the crime of piracy, would have appeared, in any other legislature than ours, a strain of the most insulting and unnatural cruelty and injustice. ”

“ Piracy, by the law of nations, is punishable with death within the jurisdiction of any nation under whose flag the capture may have been made, for the pirate is the common enemy of mankind. Although it has passed the zenith of its perverse glory, and modern naval development has made it impracticable and impossible, vestiges of piracy remain in the Malay Archipelago and the China Sea. ”

“ To invite all nations, with the statute of piracy in our hands, to adopt its principles as the law of nations and yet to deny to all the common right of search for the pirate, whom it would be impossible to detect without entering and searching the vessel, would expose us not simply to the charge of inconsistency. ”

“ If the subjects of different States commit robbery upon each other upon the high seas, if their respective States be in amity, it is piracy; if at enmity, it is not, for it is a general rule that enemies never can commit piracy on each other, their depredations being deemed mere acts of hostility. ”

“ Nothing is so inimical to piracy as settled peace and good government. But nothing is so encouraging to piracy as prolonged unsettlement in international affairs and weak administration. So it was that the incessant Mediterranean wars acted as a keen incentive to piracy. War breeds war, and the spirit of unrest on [23] sea affected the pirate no less than the regular fighting man. Sea-brigandage was rampant. These daring robbers went roving over the sea wherever they wished, they waxed strong, they defied opposition. ”

“ Piracy flourished in its reckless dare-deviltry and wanton lawlessness about one hundred and fifty years ago, its most productive operations being confined to the Spanish Main, over whose vast paths the newly discovered wealth and hidden treasures of the New World were carried. The unprotected state of commerce permitted these piratical invasions with immunity and thus allowed this nefarious trade to flourish and develop unchecked and uncontrolled. ”

“ For in the days of George Saint Leger piracy was regarded as a perfectly legitimate and honourable trade—always provided that the acts of piracy were perpetrated only against the enemies of one’s country. A pirate, indeed, in those days, was synonymous with the individual who was termed a privateersman at the time of the Napoleonic wars. ”

“ This must be so, if there is anything in the idea that piracy is an offence against the law of nations.
There is not a case in our books where any man, under a commission emanating from any authority or person, was ever treated as a pirate, and so condemned, unless the actual intent to steal was proved. ”

“ For, it is idle to say that there are no crimes which may be committed at sea which are not piracy, and that there is no protection needed for our own commerce against our own citizens which does not fall within the international law of piracy. ”

“ But if American colonial piracy presents a smaller array of legal documents than American colonial privateering, it makes up for it by its rich abundance of picturesque narrative and detail. The pieces here brought together show us piracy off Lisbon and in the East Indies and at Madagascar, at Portobello and Panama and in the South Sea, in the West Indies, and all along the Atlantic coast from Newfoundlandxiv to the coast of Guiana. They exhibit to us every relation from that of the most innocent victim to that of the most hardened pirate chief. ”

“ A more effective blow will be given to piracy on the coast by a partial transfer of the more valuable freights to foreign vessels than by any measures of repression which either Government can carry out, for piracy will, in fact, cease to be profitable.... ”

“ It is needless to dwell upon the evil effects of piracy; but before venturing an opinion on the most effectual means of suppression, I propose briefly to give an account of such pirate communities as I am acquainted with. ”

“ East says, "The offence of piracy, by the common law, consists in committing those acts of robbery and depredation upon the high seas, which, if committed upon land, would have amounted to felony there." ”

“ The piracy of the Eastern Archipelago is entirely distinct from piracy in the Western world; for, from the condition of the various governments, the facilities offered by natural situation, and the total absence of all restraint from European nations, the pirate communities have attained an importance on the coasts and islands most removed from foreign settlements. ”

“ Global piracy and counterfeiting continue to thrive, in part due to large marketplaces that deal in infringing goods. This year's Special 301 Report notes the following virtual and physical markets as examples of marketplaces that have been the subject of enforcement action, or may merit further investigation for possible IPR infringements, or both. ”

“ On the coasts of Kyūshū and other islands facing towards the continent piracy also sprang up and flourished apace. It was indeed an era of piracy all over the world. The Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch traders of this period were almost always ready to turn an honest penny by seizing an unfortunate vessel under the pretence that it was a pirate. The whole coast of China, according to the accounts of Pinto, swarmed with both European and Asiatic craft, which were either traders or pirates, according to circumstances. ”

“ To a trading nation nothing can be so destructive as piracy, or call for more exemplary punishment; besides the national reflection it infers, it cuts off the returns of industry, and those plentiful importations that alone can make an island flourishing ”

“ Even recognised associations of merchants frequently indulged in practices which can only be characterised as piracy. Commerce, in fact, was deeply imbued with the spirit of lawlessness, and in these circumstances it is probable that the depredations of pirates did not excite the same alarm nor discourage trade in the same degree as would be the case in more law-abiding times. ”

“ Piracy is effected by any unauthorised act of violence, be it direct application of force or intimidation through menace. The crew or passengers who, for the purpose of converting a vessel and her goods to their own use, force the master through intimidation to steer another course, commit piracy as well as those who murder the master and steer the vessel themselves. ”

“ If piracy be a crime against public law, it is so. The recognition and the application of the doctrines of common humanity to this great struggle,—that they should be regarded as the determining point upon this great question—it seems to me your honors will never hesitate in admitting. ”

“ With a post such as is proposed to be established, our measures for the suppression of piracy (after the punishment of Seriff Houseman and the Balagnini) would advance step by step, as our knowledge increased, and with alternate conciliation and severity, as the case might require. By detaching the recognised governments from the practice, and gradually forming among the chief men a friendly and English party opposed to piracy, we should, I doubt not, speedily obtain our principal object of clearing the sea of marauders, and ultimately correct the natural propensity of the natives for piracy. ”

“ Where force decides right, no sovereign is possessed of paramount authority to sweep this pest from his shores; no vessel is safe, no flag is respected. The trade is thus confined to desperate adventurers only, to whom the existence of piracy is more advantageous than the unmolested security of navigation, as the danger which it creates drives away all competitors of a less daring character, and gives them a monopoly of these ports. It is too true, also, that European traders have materially contributed to the strength of the pirates, by the supply of arms and ammunition. ”

“ But though an examination of the State papers collected by the Americans themselves furnishes abundant proof of too many unblushing acts of piracy committed by vessels built and equipped in American ports, and frequently manned almost exclusively by citizens of the United States, there is no reason to suppose that their lawless acts were committed by the consent or knowledge of the American government. ”

“ Piracy was the growth of maritime adventure, and developed with the advancement of commerce. The Phœnicians and Greeks were especially apt in the interstate wars which frequently degenerated into rapine and plunder, and with them piracy became a recognized enterprise. ”

“ Despite what the anti-piracy adverts before films may claim, there is a distinct difference between piracy, which is the infringement of copyright law, and theft, which is the taking of property with the intent to permanently deprive the rightful owner of it. ”

“ But piracy, under the plea of retaliation, rapidly spread among the ships of other nations. The Normans, Scotch, Irish, and Welsh fitted out their marauders, pillaging not merely every vessel they could successfully cope with at sea, but also various towns along the coast. The whole Channel swarmed with pirates, and the spoils of rapine were too often preferred to the slower acquisitions of honest industry by those who thought themselves powerful enough to be robbers ”