Part 38
_Defendant._ I have no wish; I am as safe in the hands of Englishmen as of any body.
_The following Jurymen were called and sworn:--_
1. John Foote. 2. William Jackson. 3. Robert Nagle. 4. Charles William Knight. 5. Michael Jones. 6. Richard Jessop. 7. William Hawksworth. 8. James Gillard. 9. Edward Findlay. 10. James Parker. 11. John Godfrey. 12. James Gordon.
(_The Jury were charged with the Prisoner in the usual form._)
Mr. Serjeant _Bompas_. Before I make the address which it will be necessary to make to the jury, will your Lordship allow me to apply on behalf of a witness, a gentleman who took the notes in short-hand of what took place before the Committee of the House of Commons? I, of course, do it with the consent of the counsel on the other side; it is, that he may be now examined, which will remove all question as to the propriety of the proceeding; that he may be now sworn and state that this blue book contains a correct account of what took place: that will, of course, be subject to such objections as may be made by my learned friend.
Mr. _Kelly_. My Lord, I understand that Mr. Gurney’s presence is required, for the purpose of justice in Wales, under an order from the Home Office. I perfectly agree, that it shall be taken upon his evidence that this blue book contains a true account of what took place before the Committee, subject to any objections as to the admissibility of the evidence, the matter standing as if Mr. Gurney had given his evidence in its proper order.
Mr. Joseph _Gurney_, sworn. Examined by Mr. Serjeant _Bompas_.
_Q._ Did you attend as short-hand writer before the Committee of the House of Commons, at which these proceedings were taken in short-hand?--_A._ I did.
_Q._ Is this book printed from your short-hand notes?--_A._ Mr. Zulueta’s evidence. I took the evidence of Mr. Zulueta; not the whole.
_Q._ Did you take the evidence of others?--_A._ Yes; of some others.
Mr. Serjeant _Bompas_. On behalf of the prosecution we admit that the other parts are taken from the short-hand notes: we shall want the evidence of Mr. Zulueta.
May it please your Lordship,
Gentlemen of the Jury,--It is my duty to call your attention to a case of very considerable moment. I am quite sure you will feel that all cases, in which the liberty and welfare of any person standing as a prisoner at the bar before you are concerned, are matters of considerable importance; but I cannot but think that this is one which will deserve your very particular attention. The case is, to you and to most persons, one of a novel description as a matter of trial. It is very rarely indeed, that offences under the Act to which your attention will be directed can be brought before a jury as the subject of their investigation. It necessarily will include a variety of facts, some of them being in some degree complicated; and it requires, therefore, that careful discrimination which I am quite sure you will be quite ready to give. To the prisoner, of course, it is of paramount importance, standing here before you upon his trial on such a charge as that which has been presented against Mr. Zulueta, and calls for the utmost possible attention. I do not consider that I should keep from you one thing which has been mentioned already in your hearing, that the prisoner at the bar is a person of wealth, and rank, and station. He is a merchant of the city of London. I am quite sure that that cannot make any difference in your consideration of the case, unless by increasing that interest which necessarily is excited by the respectability in life of the person who is standing before you on his trial, exciting you to greater vigilance to see that perfect justice is done as between him and the law. I am quite sure that you will see, that if he be innocent, you will, as you would in respect of every individual who stands before you upon his trial, take care that he shall not be convicted; but if, on the other hand, the evidence, when it is laid before you, shall satisfy your minds that he is guilty, it can in no manner or degree lessen the guilt of a person against whom such facts shall be produced, that he is in a station which should teach him better to obey the law of his country. So far as any such topic can be urged, on the one side or the other, to excite your utmost anxiety and most careful vigilance to ascertain the truth, I, on behalf of the prosecution, should feel that it is of great importance it should be exercised, because the truth, and that alone, ought to be, and I trust in all cases is, the object desired by the public prosecutor.
Gentlemen, the kind of charge is one that will require your very particular attention. The prisoner stands charged, “that he did illegally and feloniously man, navigate, equip, dispatch, use, and employ,” that is, that he did employ--that is the particular term to which I would direct your attention--“which in and by a certain Act of Parliament made and passed in the 5th year of the reign of his late Majesty King George the Fourth, intituled ‘An Act to amend and consolidate the Laws relating to the Abolition of the Slave Trade,’ was and is declared unlawful, that is, to deal and trade in slaves.” The other counts vary the charge in some degree, but in nothing that I believe will be material for your consideration, except that in the four latter counts he is charged with shipping goods on board the same vessel for the purpose of accomplishing the same object.
Gentlemen, it is now happily a matter of history of some considerable period back, that there was a contest in this kingdom by those who were anxious to put an end to what they rightly considered one of the greatest crimes staining human nature. On the 25th of March, in the year 1807, was accomplished that victory, I may say for humanity, by which, as far as the laws of this country could accomplish it, this kingdom was separated from that course of crime, which probably is almost the greatest blot that rests upon human nature; I mean, that that Act was passed which is called “the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.”
Gentlemen, you are aware that before that time persons of wealth--for persons of wealth alone could engage in such an occupation, and unfortunately that which was called the slave trade was a source of great wealth--before that time no doubt persons of wealth engaged in that trade. That Act, as far as regarded any public Act, of course extinguished them; but from time to time, from that time to this present moment, though not of course engaged in public or in the immediate visible commerce which was the subject of condemnation by that Act, it has been more or less continued, and the course of the law has been from time to time by more and more stringent penalties as far as possible to put an end to it as respects this country; and it is impossible that you should not be aware that one great object of this kingdom in all its negotiations with all foreign countries is, as far as possible, to create one great combination among all the civilized part of mankind, uniting in extinguishing that which is a crime on the part of all engaged in it; and therefore it has become above all other things the duty of this Government, as far as relates to any individuals living within this kingdom, to the utmost possible degree to put an end to any connection with it of any sort or kind, and to prevent any persons who continue in this kingdom, and are subject to its law, from being in any way whatever connected with that which is considered a crime of the greatest magnitude; and it is with that view that the Act of Parliament which you have heard mentioned in the indictment, the Act of the 5th of George the Fourth, chap. 113, was passed, in order as far as possible to extinguish all connection of any individuals in this kingdom with the slave trade, and by a severe penalty to put an end to any such transactions. Indeed, when we consider the penalty, it is such as shows that the Legislature intended to render the punishment most severe: it is a penalty which subjects every person connected with that trade to transportation for fourteen years. But every single individual who, through any connection with that trade, is torn from his friends in Africa, and sent in the miserable way in which they must necessarily, if they survive the horrors of the voyage, be removed from that country to an interminable life of slavery--every individual suffers double and treble the penalty which is inflicted upon the criminal engaged in the trade; and therefore I feel satisfied that we shall not consider that penalty too severe, provided only the offence is fully proved: and the severity of the punishment ought to excite, I admit, to the utmost degree, your watchfulness to see that it is fairly and satisfactorily brought home to any man, because I take it any person on behalf of the prosecution who calls the attention of a jury to the enormity of any crime, does it under the most anxious caution that, in proportion as the crime is great, so the jury ought to extend their utmost care and attention to see that it is fairly and satisfactorily made out.
Gentlemen, you are aware that in cases of this kind the transactions must necessarily extend over some considerable time. The distance of the place to which the transactions ultimately relate, the difficulty of obtaining from Africa the various documents necessary to be produced to ascertain the guilt or innocence of the party, necessarily occasions the lapse of some considerable time; and in the present case it will be necessary for me to refer to transactions that extend over several years. In this particular case a trial took place in respect of the vessel in Africa, and afterwards in England, which necessarily occupied some considerable time; and no doubt the necessity of obtaining the requisite documents occasioned the delay for a still further lengthened period.
Gentlemen, the charge made against the prisoner is, that he employed a vessel in order to accomplish, that is for the purpose of accomplishing, the dealing in slaves, and that he sent goods for the purpose of accomplishing that object, namely, the trading in slaves; and the nature of the charge, which I will mention generally before I enter into the particulars of the evidence, is this, that the prisoner at the bar employed a vessel--and you will of course hear the manner and mode in which that was done, and observations will occur to you on the detail of the facts--that he sent goods in that vessel to supply persons who are merchants in slaves, individuals holding slaves in Africa, to enable them to keep the slaves while they were there, and to provide the means for bartering those slaves, so as to enable them to transmit them to Cuba, or the Havannah, as the case may be. Of course it need not be said for one moment that openly and publicly in this kingdom no man could do that, which to the eyes of all would appear to be dealing in slaves; it would be the object of attention of every man: and it is necessary I should detail the evidence I have, in order to show first, that this vessel named the Augusta, and the goods which were shipped on board that vessel were in fact for the purpose of supplying a factory situated at the Gallinas, a port on the Coast of Africa, and that the prisoner at the bar knowingly and willingly was the person who had employed the vessel, knowing that it was employed for that purpose. Of course the persons who were employed, the persons more deeply interested, were persons residing abroad; but we charge (and before you convict the prisoner you must be satisfied of that fact) that he knew the object, and lent himself to that object, and shipped the goods with that view.
Gentlemen, to give you an account of the progress of this vessel, I must direct your attention so far back as the year 1839. In the year 1839 a vessel, the Augusta as she has been since called, was then trading under the name of the Gollupchick, under Russian colours, fully equipped for slave trading. At that time she was captured by a gentleman, who will be called as a witness before you, Captain Hill, and taken into Sierra Leone as a vessel trading in slaves, of which there was no doubt. I have stated to you that she was sailing under Russian colours. At that time the captain on board was named Bernardos, one of the three persons named in this indictment, though not present. He was the captain, and the crew were entirely Spaniards. The Russians, you probably know, have not settlements requiring the dealing in slaves. She was taken to Sierra Leone to be condemned, it being believed that the Russian colours were employed merely as a pretence. The court before which she was to be tried was a mixed commission of Spanish and British. That court considering that they had no right to try the case of a vessel trading under Russian colours, she was not then condemned; the case was not there inquired into. It is sufficient to say that she was brought over from Sierra Leone to England with her crew, and with a number of the British crew who had taken her in there. Bernardos being the captain of her, he and his own Spanish crew came to England in that vessel. She was then perfectly equipped as a slave trader. Upon her coming to England the Russian consul claimed her as a Russian vessel. She was then sold at Portsmouth. She was sold to a person of the name of Emanuel, who purchased her for 600_l._, paying 30_l._ as the auction duty; the expense therefore would be 630_l._ Upon her being sold, part of the balance of the purchase-money was paid to Bernardos, which had been expended on account of the vessel.
When this vessel was brought to this port, a letter was written by Mr. Zulueta: the contents of that letter I have no means of knowing; we can do no more than give evidence of the writing of that letter. I shall show a letter was written; it will be for the prisoner at the bar or not to produce that letter. She was sold, as I have mentioned, to Mr. Emanuel; and upon that we have a letter written by the prisoner at the bar, Mr. Zulueta, to Thomas Jennings, in respect of the purchase of that vessel, and I will call your attention to that letter. The letter is dated London, the 20th of August, 1840. It is a letter that was found in the vessel when she was subsequently captured by Captain Hill. The letter is in these terms, dated “London, 20th August, 1840,” directed to “Thomas Jennings”--Thomas Jennings is one of the three persons indicted: he was the person who was captain of the vessel, and was captured in the vessel subsequently--“Sir, in reply to your letter of yesterday, we have to say that we cannot exceed 500_l._ for the vessel in question, such as described in your letter, namely, that excepting the sails the other differences are trifling from the inventory. If you cannot therefore succeed at those limits, we must give up the purchase, and you will please act accordingly. Zulueta and Company.--Captain Jennings, Portsmouth.” The purport of this letter is, that Zulueta and Company would purchase the vessel if they could get her for 500_l._, but that they would give no more than 500_l._ for the vessel. Gentlemen, in fact I shall be able to prove to you that this being dated the 20th of August, 1840, very shortly after that, I believe on the 29th of August, Messrs. Zulueta paid for that vessel 650_l._; and the way in which they paid that for it was this--they gave a check to Bernardos, the captain of her when she was captured under the name of the Golupchick, whom I shall prove to have received the money at the bank in London, and to have gone down to Portsmouth, and together with Jennings to have gone to Emanuel, and paid this money to Emanuel for the purchase of the vessel. There will, I believe, be no doubt whatever that that money came from the prisoner at the bar, Mr. Zulueta; for I shall be able to show that that very same money received by Bernardos, the very same notes amounting to 650_l._ were paid to Emanuel at Portsmouth. There will be therefore no doubt that the money was paid by the prisoner at the bar.
Gentlemen, the vessel remained for some time at Portsmouth; she remained there, I believe, till the beginning of October. There will be no doubt what was her object. Immediately after her purchase--almost immediately after--I shall be able to show you, by its having been found in the vessel, that there was a letter written by Bernardos--
Mr. _Kelly_. Surely you are not going to read letters found in the vessel, without connecting the defendant with the vessel or with the letters.
Mr. Serjeant _Bompas_. If you object to the letter, I will state the ground on which I conceive it is evidence.
Mr. _Kelly_. I object to no letter written by Mr. Zulueta or any of his clerks; but letters found months after, when all his connection with the vessel had ceased, surely you cannot read.
Mr. Serjeant _Bompas_. I shall show that this letter was on board the vessel at Portsmouth on the 25th of September, 1840--a letter written by the man who received the money for the purchase of her to the captain, who was to conduct her to Africa: of course there are two facts here which it will be necessary I should prove; first, that her destination was the Gallinas; and secondly, that her object was to assist in the dealing in slaves: and it shall be my object to show, or I shall fail and you will give your verdict for the prisoner, that this was with the knowledge of Mr. Zulueta.
Mr. _Kelly_. Show that by proper evidence, but do not read letters which are not evidence.
Mr. Serjeant _Bompas_. I have a right to read this letter; you may object, if you please.
Mr. _Kelly_. I do object, because it is impossible with effect to object to it hereafter. Here is a gentleman on his trial for felony: I do not object to the reading of any letters from his house of business, though they may not have been written by himself; I do not object to any letter being read which was written by Mr. Zulueta himself, or any letter which my learned friend, Mr. Serjeant Bompas, can undertake to say Mr. Zulueta had seen or known; but letters written by third persons, over whom he had no manner of control--letters written by a person included in this indictment, but not on his trial, and which I have no means of explaining--cannot be evidence. Mr. Zulueta has no means of explaining this letter, the writer of which was unknown to him: and I submit that it would be more fair, and more according to the ordinary course of business in this country, if my learned friend were to arrive at the facts, which he says he can prove, by that which is properly evidence, and to leave the reading this letter to a separate discussion on any argument which may then be raised as to its reception in evidence.
Mr. Serjeant _Bompas_. I do not object to my learned friend interposing in objection to the reference to this letter, because I am willing to admit that it is desirable to exclude every effect which might be produced by the reading of a document which may be objectionable; and while it is my duty to open that which I feel to be evidence against the prisoner, I will not open any thing as to which I feel a substantial doubt. The letter I am now proposing to put in is a letter written by Mr. Bernardos, the man who received the money after that first letter I have mentioned, and after all which occurred with respect to the purchase, and it has reference to certain objects in respect of his destination, and giving him--not instructions in the sense of ordering him--but directions and instructions as to the course of that voyage. My object is to show, that at the time the vessel was at Portsmouth, the destination was fixed, and he received direction in that respect from a person whom I have so connected with Mr. Zulueta as to show that that man Jennings was the purchaser with the money of Zulueta of this very vessel, Jennings being the captain, and ultimately one of the owners; and I shall show directions from Mr. Zulueta. I cannot conceive how that can be objected to.
Mr. _Kelly_. I undertake to say not a shadow of doubt shall remain on your Lordships’ minds that this is not evidence when the facts are before the Court. To be opening the contents of the letter, under such circumstances, I submit is not justified.
Mr. Justice _Maule_. Brother Bompas, I do not think this is so clearly evidence that it should be opened to the Court. It is very difficult to decide whether a document is evidence or not till the facts are brought before us.
Mr. Serjeant _Bompas_. Gentlemen, I am quite willing to be wholly under the control of the learned judges in the conduct of this case. I would not myself, as I think I ought not, to open that which is really substantially doubtful, and if I had felt this so, I would not have mentioned it at all.
Mr. _Kelly_. I am quite sure that my learned friend would not have done so if he had felt that it was open to objection. I am quite sure that my learned friend from the first desired that nothing should be stated, which in his opinion could not be brought home to the defendant himself.
Mr. Serjeant _Bompas_. After the observation of Mr. Kelly, I will say no more with respect to this. I have to prove two things; first, what was the object of this vessel. I have to prove what it was intended to do. It may or may not in many instances be shown that there was the hand of Mr. Zulueta in what was done; but if I show to your satisfaction that he was aware of the circumstances, and was one of the parties, it is not necessary that I should show that his was the hand by which every individual act was done: therefore, I beg to keep these two things quite distinct. I shall show what was the object and destination of the vessel; and undoubtedly I shall show you, or I fail in this case, that he was conscious of the object and intention of the employment of the vessel.
Gentlemen, upon the vessel, at the time she was at Portsmouth and when she was sold, there were on board her part of the equipments which had previously existed of the Gollupchick. In order in one way to equip a vessel directly for slave trading--to put her in a situation in which she could take slaves in--it is necessary that there should be the means of very considerable supplies of water. There are commonly leagers. It is not necessary there should be leagers, unless when the occasion requires the carrying an extraordinary supply of water; where that is required, it is necessary there should be the means of carrying such a quantity of water in the vessel; and there were on board this vessel leagers--that is, large vessels containing many hundred gallons of water, ten or twelve or fourteen feet in diameter. At Portsmouth several of the leagers then on board were taken to pieces, and the staves and heads left on board the vessel. You are aware that it would be quite impossible for such a vessel, with leagers, or any fittings up of that kind, to leave this kingdom in order to go to a place on the coast of Africa, where it is known the slave trade is carried on; it would be quite obvious what their object was; and these vessels were accordingly taken to pieces, and the materials left in the vessel.