The Sham Privateer Commission

An American citizen served as first lieutenant on a foreign-owned armed ship. The ship sailed under a commission from a man who called himself a general of a rebel government that no country recognised. The crew stopped a Danish merchant ship at sea. They planted Spanish papers aboard it to make the seizure look lawful. They put the Danish crew ashore on an island and sailed the captured ship to an American port. The accused said the commission made this a lawful wartime capture, not piracy, and that the American law did not cover a foreign ship robbing another foreign ship.