The last execution for piracy in the United States was of slave trader Nathaniel Gordon in 1862 in New York, under the amended act.

It extended the original act to two years afterward and then to the end of the next session of Congress after that.

It also added three types of piracy: The act was made "perpetual" by the 17th United States Congress (Pub.

In November 1854, United States Attorney John McKeon arraigned James Smith, the captain of the American ship Julia Moulton, for having violated the Anti-Piracy Act of 1820 by hauling 645 slaves from Ambriz to the island of Trinidad.

[6] Despite his protestations that his real name was Julius Schmidt, a native of Hanover, Germany, and not a naturalized American citizen and thus not subject to American law, Smith became the first person to be convicted under the 1820 provisions, which called for a death sentence.