The Curious Case of Ambrose Light

Earlier this week, we made reference to 1885’s U.S. v. The Ambrose Light, etc. (25 F. 408), the last major piracy case in the U.S. As so little information about this case is available online (Pustelnik started a brief Wikipedia entry just this week) that we’ve actually received inquires about this case, let’s celebrate the 124th anniversary of the seizure of the Ambrose Light by exploring the case which established the U.S.’s legal definition of piracy.
In 1885, a rebellion was underway in Columbia, with rebels holding the ports of Panama, Sabanilla, Santa Maria and Barranquilla, and U.S. Navy gunboat Alliance was searching the Caribbean Sea for a Columbian insurgent named Preston, who ordered an attack on the city of Colon, causing loss and injury to Americans. On April 24, twenty miles west of Cartagena, Alliance came upon the brigantine Ambrose Light, flying a strange flag featuring a red cross on a white field. After Alliance sent shots across Ambrose Light’s bows, the brigantine raised a Columbian flag. While Preston was not aboard, the prize crew discovered a cannon, ammunition and 60 armed soldiers below deck. The Ambrose Light had papers purporting to commission her as a Columbian man-of-war, which Commander Clarke of Alliance deemed irregular and reported her under seizure. Admiral Jouett, commander of the North Atlantic squadron, directed the vessel to be taken to New York for adjudication as prize.
Commander Clarke was proven correct in questioning Ambrose Light’s papers, as proofs showed that the ship belonged to Mr. Colente, a military leader of the insurgents at Barranquilla. The ship was assisting the rebels blockade and siege the port of Cartagena, held by the established government of the United States of Columbia, and her captain was instructed to fight any Columbian vessel not showing the white flag with the red cross.
U.S. v. The Ambrose Light was a property case (“a suit in rem for the condemnation of the vessel only”), dealing solely with the issue of whether the ship should be returned to Mr. Colente. Any criminal charges facing the captain and crew for acts of piracy were not matters addressed by this court.
The U.S. Attorney in this case was Elihu Root, who would soon go on to be a successful corporate lawyer, Secretary of War from 1899 to 1904 under Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, Secretary of State during Roosevelt’s second term and, in the middle of his term as U.S. Senator from N.Y., Mr. Root would win the 1912 Nobel Peace Prize for bringing nations together via arbitration and cooperation. Mr. Root would go on to do all these things after losing this case.
Mr. Root argued that Ambrose Light should be forfeited as piratical under the law of nations as she was not sailing under the authority of an acknowledged power. Frank F. Vanderveer, attorney for the claimants, argued that “being actually belligerent, she was in no event piratical by the law of nations; but if so, that the subsequent recognition of belligerency by our government by implication entitles her to release”.
As Ambrose Light was owned by the Columbian rebel who signed her commission and none of her officers or crew were American, the question of whether her cruise was considered lawful warfare or piratical was determined by the law of nations. Judge Brown wrote “liability of the vessel to seizure, as piratical, turns wholly upon whether the insurgents had or had not obtained any previous recognition of belligerent rights, whether from their own government or from the political or executive department of any other nation; and that, in the absence of recognition by any government whatever, the tribunals of other nations must hold such expeditions as this to be technically piratical”.
Judge Brown embarked on an overview of international treatment of rebel blockades, commerce raiding and merchant shipping, spanning from the Revolutionary War to the present. After observing that neither Columbia nor any other government recognized the insurgents as belligerents, which allowed Ambrose Light to be lawfully seized, “as bound upon an expedition technically piratical”, Judge Brown then moved on to the issue of whether the ship should be condemned as a prize by establishing if the Columbia insurgent forces were a government de facto and thus entitled to belligerent rights, which would provide the rebels with the protection of international laws of armed conflict.
On April 9, the Columbian government sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Bayard notifying the U.S. that Columbia decreed the ports of Sabanilla and Santa Maria closed to foreign commerce and that rebel vessels operating against Cartagena were irregular and unlawful. Bayard replied on April 24 that “a decree by a sovereign power closing to neutral commerce ports held by its enemies, whether foreign or domestic, can have no international validity, and no extraterritorial effect in the direction of imposing any obligation upon the governments of neutral powers to recognize it” and that “vessels manned by parties in arms against the government, when passing to and from ports held by such insurgents, or even when attacking ports in possession of the Columbian government, are not pirates by the law of nations, and cannot be regarded as pirates by the United States”.
The claimants used this letter to establish that the rebels were entitled to belligerent rights. Recognition of belligerent rights may be express (i.e. made by a proclamation of neutrality), implied (i.e. a declaration of blockade (see the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in 1862’s Prize Cases)) or tacit (i.e. allowing use of your ports as a harbor for prizes). Judge Brown writes that the necessary implication of Sec. Bayard’s letter is “a recognition of the existing insurrection as constituting a state of civil war. It assumes that the Columbian government, as respects the ports in question, is a belligerent; that the insurgents hold these ports as a de facto power…that they are in arms against the latter government; and it is declared that our government will not recognize any attempt by the Columbian government to close these ports by virtue of its own sovereignty as lawful or valid; nor any closure, except by means of an effectual blockade, i.e., by acts of war. In saying that it would recognize no rights of the Columbian government at those ports, except belligerent rights, our government implies belligerent rights in those who hold those ports adversely”. As the U.S. could not assert that Columbia had no rights but belligerent rights and simultaneously deny belligerent rights to the party Columbia is fighting, Judge Brown concluded that the U.S. asserted by implication rebel de facto authority and the existence of a state of war.
The best example of this logic can be seen in how Confederate States of America Naval vessels were treated by European states during the Civil War (or, as Judge Brown referred to it, “the case of the late Confederate rebellion”). Despite neither the U.S. nor Europe recognizing the Confederate government, the U.S.’s blockade of southern ports created a state of war, with the Confederacy’s de facto power entitling it to belligerent rights. Accordingly, Confederate ships were not seized as piratical and were given access to neutral ports.
The distinction between acts of war and piracy is essentially determined by establishing whether there is a military purpose for the ship’s actions or if the ship is acting like a robber who happens to be at sea. Under the law of nations, piracy is depredation upon the high seas without authority from any sovereign power so long as the intended spoliation was felonious, which requires the act to be done willfully, with intent to injure and without legal authority or lawful excuse. As the Ambrose Light’s actions were within the scope authority lawfully granted her by a recognized belligerent, she did not commit any piratical acts.
Accordingly, Judge Brown ruled that the Ambrose Light was not a privateer, and discharged the vessel from custody upon payment of clerk’s, marshal’s and prize commissioner’s fees. Similarly, in the separate criminal case, the crew would be exonerated by a Federal court which, relying on the government’s implicit recognition of their status as belligerents, overturned a N.Y. state court’s verdict.
In dicta in the penultimate paragraph, Judge Brown suggests that the government would be wise to avoid irritating its allies in the future by neither expressing neutrality nor recognizing belligerency until some occasion makes it necessary. And finally, in addition to this case establishing a definition of piracy, U.S. v. The Ambrose Light can be appreciated if only for proving the retroactively ironic spectacle of losing counsel Elihu Root, who would later serve as Secretary of War in 1903 when U.S. gunboat diplomacy engineered Panama’s independence from Columbia, arguing that rebels in Panama are operating outside the bounds of international law

Summary

We come away from this case with 1) a definition of piracy and 2) an understanding of how insurgents are granted legal legitimacy:

1) Depredation upon the high seas without authority from any sovereign power is piracy by the law of nations so long as the intended spoliation was felonious, which requires the act to be done willfully, with intent to injure and without legal authority or lawful excuse.

2) Recognition of rebel belligerency by other governments grants insurgents with a quasi-sovereignty for war purposes, making them lawful combatants. Recognition may be express (i.e. by proclamation), implied by acts of war (such as a blockade) or tacit by acquiescence in the exercise of belligerent rights.