there any modern principles of right and justice by which such persons
are still to claim consideration? That there were such principles
formerly, when the whole system of war was barbaric and unmerciful,
cannot be doubted, unless such enemies were to be condemned when
others equally bad were to be excused; but those reasons have now
disappeared. Universal opinion is against these principles; numerous
treaties have condemned the practice; the municipal laws of several
states have made it punishable in their own subjects; America has even
attempted, in two cases, to bring it in as piracy; and the highest
authorities have pronounced it a crime.

Are not then the foundations of the laws that governed this case
changed? It may be going too far to declare it piracy by the Law of
Nations, but is it asking too much, in calling upon our maritime
tribunals to proclaim the practice contrary to the Law of Nations; to
deprive these privateers of the protection of neutrality, when in
their native waters, and to subject the nation that permits them to
fit out in, or issue from their ports, to the danger of reprisals,
from the offended belligerents.

This I suggest as an example of the application of the principles of
right and wrong, as at present understood, to the investigation of the
continued soundness of an accepted precept of law. In the judgments of
Lord Stowell there are many such examples; and _guided_ as he was by
precedent and authority, he could not be said to have been _led_ by
anything but the principles of universal justice. At no time does he
appear for a moment to have hesitated in putting aside precedent, when
the true doctrine was unsatisfied. Mr. Justice Story acted on the same
plan. The granting of salvage for the recapture of neutral
property--the denial of the right of the Danish Government to