Chapter 12 provides for the punishment of piracy; maltreatment of crews;

incitement of revolt or mutiny; seamen laying violent hands on commanders; abandonment of mariners in foreign ports; conspiracy to cast away vessels; plundering vessels in distress; holding false lights; attacking vessels with intent to plunder; breaking and entering vessels; destruction of vessels at sea; robbery on shore by pirates; arming vessel to cruise against citizens; piracy under color of foreign commission; piracy by aliens; voluntary surrender to pirates; plotting or corresponding with pirates and selling arms or intoxicants to any aborigines in Pacific Islands. The punishments provided for the offenses in these two chapters are generally severe but in harmony with what experience has shown to be appropriate for the crimes dealt with.

Besides these provisions, the Code, in Chapter 10, deals with the slave trade and peonage; in Chapter 2, with offenses against neutrality; and in Chapter 9, with offenses against foreign and interstate commerce, such as carrying explosives on passenger vessels.

Title LIII Merchant Seaman (7 Comp St. §§ 8380-8391) contains various provisions in respect of offenses and punishments of seamen; desertion; willful disobedience; assaults on officers; damaging the vessel; embezzlement of stores or cargo; smuggling; drunkenness; carrying sheath-knives; unlawful boarding; soliciting seamen as lodgers; and corporal punishment are there dealt with.

=7. Concurrent Jurisdictions.=--There is no doubt that Congress has the power to make all crimes committed within the admiralty jurisdiction punishable in the federal courts but it has not done so and is not likely ever to so enact. Neither is it likely ever to assert an exclusive jurisdiction over all or any such crimes except as may be in violation of a purely federal enactment. Where this exclusive jurisdiction has not been asserted, either in terms or by necessary implication, state laws are not superseded by federal, and the same act may be punished as an offense against the United States and also as an offense against the State; it may thus be within the jurisdiction of both federal and state courts or the one may have jurisdiction of it under one aspect and the other under a different phase. The rule of comity is the same as in civil cases; where there is concurrent jurisdiction, the court which first obtains it, will continue to act to the exclusion of the other. Where the defendant obtains an acquittal in one court of concurrent jurisdiction, the judgment is a bar to a subsequent trial in the other, since he is not subject, for the same offense, to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.

=8. Limitations of Prosecutions.=--The right of the government to prosecute for a crime is not barred by any lapse of time unless its statutes so expressly provide. In the federal courts, there must be an indictment within three years after the offense was committed, in most instances; for the slave trade, the term is five years; but these terms do not run while the offender is a fugitive from justice.

=9. Piracy.=--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. He is one who, without legal authority from any state, attacks a ship with the intention to appropriate what belongs to it; in other words, his offense is that of depredation on the high seas without authority from any sovereign state. All private, unauthorized maritime warfare is piratical because it is incompatible with the peace and order of the high seas. It is not necessary that the motive be plunder or that the depredations be directed against the vessels of all nations indiscriminately; it is only essential that the spoliation, or intended spoliation be felonious, that is, done willfully and without legal authority or lawful excuse. In cases of this piracy by international law, it is of no importance, for purposes of jurisdiction, where or against whom, the offense is committed; such pirates may be tried and punished and the ship captured and condemned wherever found. Apart from international law, any government may declare offenses on its own vessels to be piracy and such offenses will be exclusively punishable by it like other crimes. St. Clair _v._ U. S., 154 U. S. 134, may be examined in regard to an instance of statutory piracy; while the Ambrose Light, 25 Fed. 408, is a very learned and authoritative opinion on the modern views of piracy under international law.

=10. Barratry.=--This expression frequently appears in maritime law and includes any act done by the master or crew, with criminal intent, in violation of their duty to the shipowner and without his connivance. It is a general term applicable to many criminal acts and therefore not properly classifiable as a crime by itself. The most flagrant form is where the ship is burned, scuttled or stranded by the master or crew. In Marine Insurance it includes every wrongful act willfully committed by the master or crew to the prejudice of the owner, or, as the case may be, the charterer.

Inasmuch as barratry must be directed against or in fraud of the owner, it cannot be committed by a master who is a part owner of the ship, either generally or for the voyage. Thus in the old case of Marcadier _v._ Ins. Co., 8 Cranch 39, the master abandoned the voyage at an intermediate port for his own emolument and advantage, and, as a result, a quantity of cargo was spoiled. It was contended that he had been guilty of barratry. The Court found, however, that he was the owner of the ship and therefore incapable of committing the offense. In Ins. Co. _v._ Coulter, 3 Peters 222, it was held that gross negligence might be evidence of barratry:

And when it is considered how difficult it is to decide where gross negligence ends and ordinary negligence begins, and to distinguish between pure accident and accident from negligence, we cannot but think that the British courts have adopted the safe and legal rule in deciding, that where the policy covers the risk of barratry, and fire be the proximate cause, they will not sustain the defense that negligence was the remote cause.

This case contains a quaint quotation from the doctrine of Malynes "whose book unites the recommendations of antiquity, good sense and practical knowledge." The passage follows:

Barratrie of the master and mariners can hardly be avoided, but by a provident care to know them, or at least the master of the ship upon which the assurance is made. And if he be a careful man, the danger of fire above mentioned will be the less for the ship; boys must be looked unto every night and day. And in this case let us also consider the assurers; for it has oftentimes happened, that by a candle unadvisedly used by the boys, or otherwise, before the ships were unladen, they have been set on fire and burnt to the very keel, with all the goods in them, and the assurers have paid the sums of money by them assured. Nevertheless, herein the assurers might have been wronged, although they bear the adventure until the goods be landed; for it cometh to pass sometimes, that whole ships' ladings are sold on shipboard, and never discharged.

=11. Failure to Equip with Radio Telegraph.=--By Act of Congress approved June 24, 1910, 36 St. at L. 629, it is provided that it shall be unlawful for any oceangoing steamer, whether American or foreign, carrying passengers and carrying fifty or more persons, including passengers and crew, to leave any port of the United States unless equipped with efficient apparatus for radio communication in good working order, capable of communicating over a distance of at least one hundred miles, night or day, and in charge of a competent operator. To be efficient the apparatus must be capable of exchanging messages with stations using other systems of radio communication. A fine of not more than $5,000 is assessed against the master or other person in charge for violation of the act and as has been said (§ 5 _supra_) the fine is a lien upon the ship. Regulations for the enforcement of the act are made by the Secretary of Commerce. The act does not apply to steamers plying between ports less than 200 miles apart.

=12. Failure to Disclose Liens.=--By the Ship Mortgage Act, 1920 (see Appendix, Merchant Marine Act, Sec. 30), a mortgagor of a preferred mortgage is required, upon request of the mortgagee, to disclose the existence of any maritime lien, prior mortgage or other liability upon the vessel, known to the mortgagor, and to refrain, until the mortgagee has had an opportunity to record the mortgage, from incurring liens upon the vessel except for wages, general average and salvage. Disobedience to this injunction with intent to defraud is made a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than $1,000 and imprisonment of not more than two years, or both, and the mortgage debt is to become due immediately.

=13. Mutiny.=--This term is most often used with reference to an offense committed on shipboard, although technically it is not peculiar to shipping, but may be committed by soldiers and servants. Mutiny on shipboard is defined as follows: "A revolt or mutiny consists in attempts to usurp the command from the master or to deprive him of it for any purpose by violence or in resisting him in the free and lawful exercise of his authority; the overthrowing of the legal authority of the master, with an intent to remove him against his will and the like." Mere refusal of duty or disobedience by a seaman while liable to punishment by the master is not mutiny, and the conduct may be very aggravating and contumacious without amounting to mutiny. The Stach Clark, 54 Fed. 533.