United States Statutes at Large/Volume 1/5th Congress/1st Session/Chapter 1
Chapter Ⅰ.—An Act to prevent citizens of the United States from Privateering against nations in amity with, or against citizens of the United States.
Repealed by Act of April 20, 1818, ch. 83, sec. 12.Citizens fitting out ships, or concerned therein, how pnnished and fined.
1794, ch. 50.Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That if any citizen or citizens of the United States shall, without the limits of the same, fit out and arm, or attempt to fit out and arm, or procure to be fitted out and armed, or shall knowingly aid or be concerned in the furnishing, fitting out or arming any private ship or vessel of war, with intent that such ship or vessel shall be employed to cruise or commit hostilities, upon the subjects, citizens or property of any prince or state with whom the United States are at peace, or upon the citizens of the United States, or their property, or shall take the command of, or enter on board of any such ship or vessel for the intent aforesaid, or shall purchase an interest in any vessel so fitted out and armed, with a view to share in the profits thereof, such person or persons so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be adjudged guilty of a high misdemeanor, and shall be punished by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding ten years: And the trial for such offence, if committed without the limits of the United States, shall be in the district where the offender shall be apprehended or first brought.
Construction of this act.Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That nothing in the foregoing act shall be construed to prevent the prosecution or punishment of treason, or any piracy defined by a treaty or other law of the United States.
Approved, June 14, 1797.