Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/554

 538 PIRACY claims are allowed, or disallowed as " not good,"" or are "paid" when a claim of equal value is made by the dealer. He then plays his first card, and the dealer or younger hand must then, before playing, make his claims. If, on the strength of his hand, the elder hand can count to 30 without playing, instead of calling " thirty," he calls " ninety ;" or if from strength of hand and by taking tricks he can reach 30 before the adversary takes a trick, he may call "sixty;" but in neither case can he do this if the < dealer has, on the strength of his hand, made a count. In like manner the dealer, while he 'cannot gain a pique, that is, count from 29 to 60, yet if he can, without playing and before the elder hand has made a score on the strength of his hand, count 30 on his hand alone, he wins a repique, which also adds 90 to his score. Whichever party gains the point must lay it upon the table. If he does not do so, or if he omits to claim any other point before playing, he loses the count. All other claims as to value of cards are, if ad- mitted, followed by showing the point claimed. A party making a claim to what he has not got counts nothing that hand. A party play- ing with more than 12 cards cannot score any- thing; playing with fewer than 12 is with- out penalty. In calling points, sequences, &c., make your highest claim first, that is, quatorze rather than threes, if you have both ; because if your first claim is " paid," or beaten, you cannot then claim the higher point. A card touching the board is played, unless it causes a revoke. A party dealing twice, and discover- ing it before seeing his own cards, may insist upon a deal by his adversary. A card once discarded cannot be taken back. The game is ordinarily played for 100 points. Sometimes the " Rubicon " game of six hands is played, in which if one party scores less than 100, his score is added to that of the winner, if he has scored 100 or more. PIRACY, robbery upon the sea. Spelman says that pirata once meant in England sea knight or soldier ; and he cites an instrument of the time of King Edgar, in which one of the witnesses styles himself archipirata, that is, as Spelman translates it, admiral. He also quotes Asser and another ancient chronicler, who write that the war galleys of Alfred and of William the Conqueror were manned by pirata. The legal definitions of pirate and piracy are derived from the civil law, whence they were transferred to the maritime and ad- miralty laws and the law of nations The civil law applied piratce, prcedones, and latrones to the same kind of offenders ; indeed, the latter terms were sometimes used interchangeably with the former. But the proper, and in fact the sole difference between the terms, was that prcedones and latrones described robbers upon land, while pirates meant robbers on the .sea. The writers upon the civil, the international, and maritime codes agree in defining piracy as robbery or depredation on the sea. Strictly I speaking, piracy is not an offence known to the ' common law. As it is a crime committed on the high seas, it is committed out of its juris- diction. Until the statute 28 Henry VIII. it was exclusively a civil law offence, cognizable only by the admiralty courts. But the proce- dure under the forms and rules of the civil law includes no trial by jury, and it was plainly an encroachment on the liberties of the English subject that his life should be forfeited with- out judgment by his peers, according to the law of the land. Furthermore, as the statute itself recites, there could be under the civil law no conviction for a crime unless the accused plainly confessed it, or it were directly proved by witnesses who saw it committed. The stat- ute therefore enacted that the offences which it contemplates should b'e judged in such shires and places as should be designated by the king's commission, and in the same form as if the alleged crime had been committed upon the land. This commission is directed to the ad- miral or his deputy, and to three or four oth- ers, among whom, says Blackstone, are usually two common law judges. The indictment is found and tried by grand and petit jury, and the trial follows, in other respects, the course of the common law. Yet it is to be observed that the court thus constituted is still essen- tially an admiralty court. The statute, said Chief Justice Mansfield, merely altered the mode of trial, but the jurisdiction of the court rests on the same foundation as before the act ; it is regulated by the civil law, and by mari- time customs, grounded on the law of nations. Piracy, therefore, can be said to be an offence at common law only when this term is taken in its most comprehensive sense, and so inclusive of the law of nations. In the United States, the cognizance of piracy is reserved by the constitution to the general government. The eighth section of the first article of that instru- ment gives to congress the power "to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations." Under this constitutional provision, and because the United States courts have no common law jurisdiction, the definition of pi- racy in our law is to be sought exclusively in the acts of congress, and it will be seen that they have materially enlarged the usual con- ception of the offence. The act of April 30, 1790, declared that murder or robbery com- mitted on the high seas, or in any river, haven, or bay out of the jurisdiction of any particular state, or any other offence which, if committed within the body of a county, would by the laws of the United States be punishable with death, should be adjudged to be piracy ; and if any captain or mariner should piratically and feloniously run away with any vessel, or any goods of the value of $50, or yield up any such vessel voluntarily to pirates, or if any seaman should by force attempt to hinder his command- er from defending the ship or goods commit- ted to his trust, every such offender should be