Part 7
“The right and privilege heretofore exercised of suing in Vice-Admiralty Courts for the forfeitures or penalties incurred by the contravention of this law, are set forth in the 12th clause, notwithstanding any criminal proceedings that may have been instituted against the aiders and abettors of this trade. That the merchant in the case of the Dos Amigos had left himself subject to both sorts of proceedings there can be no doubt. In a case somewhat analogous to this, of recent occurrence, a British vessel, commanded by a British subject, the Augusta, dispatched by a London house, was captured by Lieutenant Hill, of Her Majesty’s ship Saracen, having merchandise on board adapted for the slave trading factories, and having a direct destination to one of these. The vessel was condemned at Sierra Leone, but no proceedings have been taken in the Vice-admiralty Court in England by Lieutenant Hill, to recover the penalties incurred by this breach of the law. The notoriety of this vessel at all the factories on the coast of Africa had its weight in the tribunal where she was ultimately condemned for aiding and abetting the slave trade. In no respect was the evidence against this vessel stronger than that against the Cape Coast merchant, yet that vessel was condemned by the authorities at Sierra Leone, and the merchant is defended by those at Cape Coast. The Augusta, a notorious slaver, had only been captured and sent to England a few months before under the name of the Gollupchik, and under Russian colours, and she was found again on the coast, under the British flag, the property of London merchants. The Spanish slave trader, who was captain of the Gollupchik, when captured by the Saracen, and sent to England was subsequently taken near Whydah by Commodore Tucker of the Wolverine, while I was passenger on board that vessel, in another slaver called the Liberal; and from this man I learned particulars entirely corroborative of the documentary evidence found on board the Augusta. The recent relinquishment of the slave trade on the part of Don Theodore Canot at his slave factory at New Sesters, one of the principal slave dealers on the Kroo Coast, led to the giving up of his books and papers to Lieutenant Segrim, of Her Majesty’s ship Termagant, with whom he entered into arrangements for renouncing his unlawful trade; and, on examining these books on board of Her Majesty’s ship Wolverine, I found that a London house had long been in the habit of supplying stores and merchandise to his slave factory from their vessels on the coast. On the 4th of December, 1839, there is an entry of the arrival at his factory, for the purposes of trade, of the English brig Enterprise.
“1st January, 1840. There is an entry of the arrival of an English brig ‘Corcyra,’ belonging to another house in London, for the purposes of trade, and of having purchased of him 50 guns, 100 cutlasses, 100 large kettles, and 100 bars of irons.
“13th May, 1840. There is an entry of the re-appearance of the captain of the ‘Enterprise,’ at his factory, and having purchased from him 83 cruces of rice, or about 2,000lbs. weight, for which he paid 63 dollars, and 84 dollars for 21 guns.
“1st July, 1840. There is an entry of the arrival of the English schooner ‘Gil Blas,’ of London, and of having purchased two pieces of cloth, eight bars of tobacco, and one gallon of rum.
“On the 5th of December, 1840, Don Theodore Canot placed himself under the protection of the British flag, renounced his traffic, and gave up 104 slaves to Lieutenant Segrim.
“Lieutenant Hill, of Her Majesty’s ship ‘Saracen,’ on the 14th January, 1839, visited the British vessel ‘Medora,’ and was informed by the master that he had just disposed at the Gallinas of 10,000 dollars’ worth of goods to the factories there.
“Lieutenant Segrim, of the ‘Termagant,’ recently boarded the British merchant vessel ‘The Guinea Man,’ and the master admitted having just sold 500_l._ worth of goods to the slave trade factories at the Gallinas.
“A British trader, a man of colour, who has an establishment at Accra, has one likewise at Little Popoe, where he is known to dabble in this trade.
“This man was an agent of a mercantile house in London; and information reached me of his having embarked for Popoe some time ago, in the neighbourhood of St. Paul’s, a number of slaves on board a British vessel then under discharge. On visiting this part of the coast in Her Majesty’s ship ‘Wolverine,’ on my way to Princes’ Island, we found at Great Popoe a British subject of colour holding a factory, from which Captain Tucker had information he had lately shipped a cargo of slaves. While at anchor off the shore, Captain Tucker addressed a letter to him on the subject, informing him of the report he had heard, and giving him to understand that, on any repetition of his illegal proceedings, he would destroy his factory and carry himself to Sierra Leone. He returned a submissive, and I must add a very proper answer, not denying the transaction alluded to, but promising faithfully in future to abstain from exporting slaves.
“I have noticed these circumstances, though not apparently bearing on the subject of this part of my Report, namely, the resources, trade, and government of our settlements on the Gold Coast, and the influence of the latter on the adjoining districts, in order to show the necessity there is for a new enactment to prevent the facilities that are now afforded by our commerce from supplying the slave trade factories with these commodities which are indispensable to the slave traders. It is evident that those factories are supplied with goods by British traders, and especially by London merchants, to a very great extent.” ...
London, 31st July, 1841.
(signed)
R. R. MADDEN.
COPY OF A LETTER FROM MESSRS. ZULUETA & CO. TO LORD VISCOUNT SANDON.
My Lord,
London, 25 April, 1842.
A letter has been addressed to us under date of the 15th inst., by Mr. R. R. Gibbons, sending to us, at your Lordship’s desire, a copy of Dr. Madden’s Report on the Gold Coast of Africa, and its dependencies, and stating that this is done in consideration of “our being personally interested therein, but that we are to consider it as entirely confidential.”
In common with all other merchants in this city, we may of course be said to possess more or less of a professional interest in all matters which relate to commerce.
As having occasionally executed shipping orders for ports in the coast of Africa, on foreign account, of lawful merchandise, lawfully, and therefore publicly cleared at Her Majesty’s Customs, in lawful vessels, and as far as we, as mere shipping agents, could be supposed or expected to know, to the best of our knowledge, for no unlawful purpose, without any other interest or emolument in the operation antecedent or subsequent to the shipment than that of the simple and regular commission usually charged in, or legitimately connected with the invoice, and possessing no control, direct or indirect, over either vessels or goods, from the moment they left the shores of Great Britain, we may perhaps be supposed to feel a more direct interest in whatsoever throws light on the subject of trade with ports with which, in the course of our mercantile career, we may have had general business transactions, although they have not been either extensive or frequent.
Still more as shippers, in the form and capacity just described, and in no other, of a cargo consisting not only of legal, but even unsuspected merchandise on board the English schooner Augusta, Captain Jennings, the Report of Dr. Madden, as a document in which the capture of that vessel is alluded to, may also be supposed to form an interesting piece of information, whatever its merits may be in other respects.
Such is the nature and the extent of the interest which we acknowledge to possess in the Report of Dr. Madden, neither more nor less; and we submit that, in describing it as personal, a supposition is advanced which, considering the nature of that Report, we have reason to deem unfavourable to our characters, which the facts will not justify, and which we may say, even appearances will not warrant.
The Report brings together a number of transactions, not one of which have we even the remotest knowledge until the perusal of it, with the sole exception of the case of the Augusta. Now, as when looking at them together as a whole, and in conjunction with the other facts, most probably equally unknown to us, which in the course of the investigation now carried on before the Committee may be brought forward, there is no telling to what extent the association of our name with the matters of the Report may be carried, we have thought it right to explain to your Lordship what kind of interest we have no objection to be supposed to possess in the perusal of Dr. Madden’s Report, or in the inquiry now before the Committee. Beyond casual shipments in the manner described, and the acceptance of credits opened at our establishments by parties abroad, in behalf of parties resident in that coast, we have not even one single correspondent, or have we even consigned or sold, or in fact transacted any business whatsoever, or had any intercourse with individuals resident in those parts. We possess no interest in the trade with them, and even the agency for buying and shipping, which now and then we have had, is so insignificant, that we look with the most perfect indifference, as may easily be believed by any one who knows any thing of our business, as to any future legislation which may be the result of the present Parliamentary inquiry, or, indeed, as to any construction which may be put upon that now in existence. It is not, therefore, with the view of in any degree influencing the deliberations of the Committee, or of offering any remark on the facts or on the opinions contained in Dr. Madden’s Report, that we address your Lordship. Let the result of the labours of the Committee be what they may, and let the merits or the influence of Dr. Madden’s Report be what it may, whatever legislation may emanate from these proceedings, as a matter of business, it is of no moment to us, and therefore it is not our intention to throw the weight of a feather in the balance. Our sole object is to place our position in its true light; and the simple fact of our possessing no interest whatever, either personal or otherwise, in any branch of trade with the coast of Africa, much less with that lamentable branch of it which, much before the law was carried to even its present extent, our firm has shunned in all its branches and ramifications during an existence in business of more than seventy years, independent of the consideration of its illegality, without partaking in many of the views entertained by others concerning it, but from the principle of not wishing to derive profit or advantage from the sufferings of humanity, whether avoidable or unavoidable.
We have, &c.
(signed)
_Zulueta & Co._
HOUSE OF COMMONS. _Select Committee on West Coast of Africa._ R. R. GIBBONS, Esq. to MESSRS. ZULUETA & CO.
Gentlemen,
July 13th, 1842.
I am desired by Lord Sandon, the chairman of this committee, to forward to you copies of evidence taken before them, in which your house is mentioned; and I am to acquaint you that if you are desirous of making any statement thereon, either personally or by letter, the committee will be ready to receive the same.
I have, &c.
(signed)
_R. R. Gibbons._
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON WEST COAST OF AFRICA.
_Veneris, 10º die Junii, 1842._
MEMBERS PRESENT.
Sir T. D. Acland. Mr. Aldam. Lord Viscount Courtenay. Lord Viscount Ebrington. Mr. Evans. Captain Fitzroy. Mr. Forster. Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Metcalf. Mr. Milnes. Mr. W. Patten. Mr. Stuart Wortley.
LORD VISCOUNT SANDON in the chair.
_Henry William Macaulay_, Esq. called in; and further examined.
5003. _Chairman._] Will you state what has been your connexion and acquaintance with the coast of Africa?--I went out to Sierra Leone first in the early part of the year 1830 as a merchant, and at the latter end of the year 1831 I was appointed one of the judges in the court of Mixed Commission; I then left business and devoted myself entirely to the business of the court; and I ceased to act as a judge on the 31st of December, 1839.
5004. Since what time have you been at home?--I remained on the coast a short time to recover my health. I was too unwell to move for some months, and then went to the Island of Ascension, from which I came home in the latter end of the year 1840.
5005. Will you state what the court of mixed commission consists of?--The Portuguese court consists of a British commissary judge and a Portuguese commissary judge, who have to decide upon every Portuguese case; in case of any difference of opinion between the two principal judges, the British commissioner of arbitration and the Portuguese commissioner of arbitration draw lots as to which of the two the case is to be referred to for final decision. In the same way, in the Spanish court, the British commissary judge meets the Spanish commissary judge, and in case of difference of opinion, the case is left to either the British or Spanish commissioner of arbitration, as the lot may determine.
5006. Are there any judges for other nations?--The courts at Sierra Leone are the Portuguese court, the Spanish court, the Brazilian court, and the Dutch court; but no court during my time has been perfect in the number of its judges except the Brazilian court.
5007. You mean by perfect, that the British judge has had to sit alone?--The treaties require that after a certain time, in the absence of any foreign judge, the British commissioner of arbitration shall act as the foreign commissary judge.
5008. Who is the British commissioner of arbitration; is he a distinct person from the British commissary judge?--Yes; the British court is always perfect.
5009. What does it consist of?--It consists of the British commissary judge and the British commissioner of arbitration; and the treaties point out how any vacancy, either by death or absence, is to be supplied; the governor in the first instance, attends for the absent judge, whoever he may be, and after him, the chief justice, and then the colonial secretary. It is left to those three officers; but I presume that if those three should all be ill, or their places be vacant by death, the office would then descend to the person next in seniority in the colonial government there; but we never went lower than the colonial secretary. The Brazilian court has been the only one perfect, and the British commissioner of arbitration has always sat in my time for the Portuguese and Spanish commissary judges. No case at all has occurred in the Dutch court.
5010. In case a vessel taken under the colours of any other nation were brought into Sierra Leone, how would that case be decided?--There are other treaties than those I have mentioned. A French case is sent to the French authorities under the French treaty, and in the treaties with all other nations that have treaties on the model of the French treaty, the vessels are handed over to their own judicial authorities.
5011. Within Sierra Leone?--The treaty points out where they are to be taken; if a French vessel is taken, it is sent to Goree.
5012. Then no vessels are brought in for adjudication to Sierra Leone but Dutch and Portuguese, and Spanish and Brazilian vessels?--Not for adjudication by the mixed commission; but there is the vice-admiralty court, which under the late act relating to Portugal, for the suppression of the slave trade, takes cognizance of vessels under that flag which are captured; and may take cognizance of any vessels under any flag that are captured in British waters, wherever they are taken, whether at Sierra Leone, or the Gambia, or any British settlement on the coast, and that has been rather frequent of late.
5013. The mixed commission court has jurisdiction over all cases which are brought within the limits of the treaty with Portugal, and the Vice-Admiralty Court in the Portuguese cases, over which we have assumed jurisdiction by Act of Parliament, that is to say, all cases of vessels captured south of the Line?--Yes; it is optional still for the captor to prosecute a Portuguese vessel, captured under the Act of Parliament, before the admiralty court, if he chooses, instead of bringing her before the mixed commission court, but the process is so much more summary with us, and the expense so much less, that that option is seldom taken.
5014. Will you proceed to explain what is the process which is pursued when a slaver is brought into Sierra Leone for adjudication?--Whenever a vessel appears in the harbour under any of the flags of which we can take cognizance, the marshal of the court goes on board, and he receives from the prizemaster who is on board an account of the capture, which he fills into a printed form, and he sends one of those printed forms to each of the judges, and one to the governor, immediately; in fact, generally before the vessel comes to anchor, and then the court is made aware of the vessel being in the harbour, and is prepared to make arrangements for the landing of the slaves, if there are any, generally the morning after its arrival, if it comes in the evening, or if it comes in early in the morning, the same day. The proctor for the captor brings the papers of the vessel before the court, and they are always accompanied by a declaration of the captor. All the forms of the court are very much the same as those of the Admiralty Court in England. If there are slaves, the proctor petitions for the admission of the vessel into court, and generally accompanies that by a petition to land the slaves; and since I have been there, in every case of inquiry the slaves were landed and handed over to the superintendent of the African department pending the investigation, and held in their character of slaves during the time that the vessel was passing through the court. The proctor then produces his witnesses, and they are examined upon printed interrogatories, which have been used ever since the court was formed. These questions are framed with a view to make out a case, and they always do prove slave dealing wherever it has existed, if the witness answers truly; and in an ordinary case, where slaves are on board, no defence is ever attempted, it is out of the question. Then as soon as the evidence is given, generally by the captain and one of the officers of the captured vessel, the proctor prays for publication; and when the monition which issues in the first instance, calling upon any persons to bring forward a claim if they have any against the capture, or to show cause why the vessel should not be condemned, is returned, trial is prayed for, and it takes place on an early day after arrival of the vessel; in an undefended case, and where the capture has been made properly by the man-of-war, the vessel is condemned, the slaves are emancipated at the same time; a commission of appraisement and sale issues, which directs the particular officer of the court who has the duty of conducting the auctions to expose both the vessel and the goods, and any thing that may be on board, to public auction, after due notice given. Those things are then sold, and the proceeds are divided equally between the British Government and the foreign government, and the proceeds are then paid into the commissariat, which settles with the Government at home, and they pay the money, or set it off against any claim they may have against the foreign government; but the foreign government has a claim to one-half the proceeds of the vessels and cargoes.
5015. Is there any large proportion of cases in which condemnation does not follow, and under what circumstances principally has condemnation not been the consequence?--There have been vessels restored for being seized, for instance, Portuguese vessels from the southward of the Line, contrary to treaty. In two cases there were vessels restored with upwards of 8,000_l._ damages against the captors in each case, making 16,000_l._; and there was again one case of the Pepita, which I remember, when it was proved that the slaves had been embarked under circumstances that would not justify condemnation under the treaty; she was restored with damages. There have been several cases under the equipment article since the new slave treaty came into force, where vessels have been restored because the equipment was not deemed sufficient to warrant condemnation. There have been also vessels taken on the suspicion that black persons on board were slaves, who have been proved to be domestics, and not bought for the purpose of the traffic. There have been a variety of condemnations; but in any case where the treaty would not warrant condemnation, the vessel has been restored; and where the treaty required it, restored with damages.
5016. Have there been a considerable number of restorations; can you state, from statistics, the number?--I have statistics for two years; from the 1st of January to the 31st of December 1838, one vessel only was liberated.
5017. What number were condemned?--Forty-one; during the year 1839 there were two liberated, and 45 condemned; and in addition to those, there was a very large number of American vessels which were seized, with American papers on board, and which I refused to receive into court at all; there were some in 1838, and there was a large number in 1839.
5018. Can you state the number?--I think the number was 13; but the reports of the whole of those cases are in the Parliamentary Papers.
5019. Were they _bonâ fide_ American?--I believe not American, in any one case, but sailing under the American flag, and with American papers, supplied to them by American authority.
5020. Where?--Almost entirely, I think, without one exception, at Havannah.
5021. Supplied by the American consul?--Yes; but I considered that as they sailed with those American papers, however wrongfully they might have been given by the American authority, we had no right to interfere with them.
5022. Mr. _Forster_.] Have not some vessels belonging to the States been condemned?--Yes; since my time.
5023. You were not a party to the condemnation?--I was not.
5024. Mr. _W. Patten_.] But in those cases which you mention, you had not the slightest doubt in the world that they would have been condemned if they had not American papers on board?--Certainly they would, with the exception of one case, which seemed to be a sort of experimental seizure: it was known that almost every vessel on the coast under the American flag, at that time was a Spanish vessel in disguise; and this vessel seems to have been seized in the hope that the captain and officers might be able to prove, by some evidence found on board, that she was really Spanish; but though we had access to the papers, we found nothing that would have condemned her if she had been prosecuted in the court; there was a deficiency of papers on board; the captain, perhaps had either destroyed them or concealed them, and we could not get at the proof that would have enabled us to condemn her as being a Spanish vessel; but none of the cases I speak of were prosecuted; I would not allow them to be libelled in court.
5025. So that those cases do not appear upon the records of the court?--No; but I took the opportunity of examining the papers, and sending home all the particulars to the Foreign-office, and the papers are copied in the Parliamentary Returns.