Soon after my arrival at Mozambique, my attention was called to the very arbitrary measures which the Portuguese authorities can adopt when it suits their purpose, showing that it is not want of power, but want of inclination, which prevents them stopping the slave-trade, and encouraging legitimate commerce. A merchant at Mozambique had a serious difference with the Governor-general, the subject of their quarrel being the French Free Labour Emigration. It appears that the merchant, having a high character for probity, had been entrusted by the French agents with the division of the head money, which was allowed to the authorities at Mozambique for the generous supply of slaves for this traffic.
The merchant acquitted his task to the satisfaction of all parties, retaining, for himself, a certain portion, to which he was entitled by agreement, as one of the promoters of this very successful scheme. During the absence of the merchant from Mozambique the Governor-general had divided the plunder, and he refused to account for the amount which was due to the merchant as his share of the transaction.
On the merchant’s return, he became again the person in whom all parties placed confidence, and he therefore re-imbursed himself from the Governor-general’s share in the next slave cargo which was supplied to a French Free Labour Emigration ship.
The Governor-general was furious, while every one applauded the justice of the merchant. Shortly afterwards, a vessel belonging to the merchant was about to sail; the Governor-general refused her permission to leave the harbour, and would assign no reason. The merchant threatened to sell the vessel to the English consul, much under her value, and to communicate the whole of the circumstances attending the transaction, unless the Governor-general allowed his vessel to sail. The Governor-general was obstinate, but at last relented. During his fit of obstinacy the uncontrollable rage of the other party caused him to make the circumstances of the case known to the English consul, who thus got a deeper insight into the slave-trade as carried on at Mozambique, and was timely prevented forwarding the application of the honest Portuguese merchant to the British government for the appointment of H.M. Vice-Consul at Mozambique, for which he had been strongly recommended to me, both verbally and in writing, by the officer commanding Her Majesty’s naval forces at the Cape of Good Hope. It requires a residence at Mozambique to unmask the slave-dealers there. One casually visiting the place is hospitably entertained, and those deepest engaged in the traffic are the loudest in their apparent denunciations of it. Thus our naval officers have been misled, and made to believe that parties there were opposed to the slave-trade when they were actually conversing with the prime movers of the whole scheme.
From the seizure of Mr. Sunley’s brig off Angoxa, and the tacit manner in which legal trade is carried on between Angoxa and Zanzibar by the Arabs, under the protection of their immediate dreaded neighbour, the Imâm of Muskat, it will be seen that a different policy is pursued by the Mozambique government towards a prince who has taught them to fear him, and the great English nation, whom they look upon as a good-natured people, inoculated with a Quixotic idea of improving the moral, intellectual, and physical condition of a race which they consider irreclaimable, and so degraded that they treat them as the brutes which perish. The sacrifices made by Great Britain in this cause are ever a subject of ridicule with the Mozambiquers; and they never lose an opportunity of retaliating in their own way upon those persons belonging to the English nation who may unfortunately fall into their power. Each individual is made answerable for the wrongs which they perseveringly assert have been heaped upon them by the suppression of the slave-trade, and even this feeling is carried out to the natives of India who may be under our rule or our protection.
I heard, from time to time, of some arbitrary measure adopted towards the Banyans, who are natives of India, trading in their sailing vessels called dhows, from various places on the Malabar coast to that of the coast of Africa. These men come over in their dhows from Goâ, which is a Portuguese settlement, and from the British settlement at Bombay, and also from Cutch, where there is a British resident, in the season of the N.E. monsoon, which blows from the month of April to that of September or October. They bring over to Mozambique what may be called the refuse of the European goods sent out to the Indian market, where they find a ready sale.
In exchange, they take back principally ivory, which, being resold in India, finds its way to Europe and America, as the best Indian transparent ivory, which is really obtained at Zanzibar and Mozambique. The profits derived from the trade which they carry on with Mozambique, to which place all the ivory of the province generally finds its way, are so considerable that the Banyans are induced to submit to great exactions and considerable injustice. They have no appeal, and must either put up with the robberies to which they are liable, or entirely abandon the trade.
It may be easily imagined that they rejoiced on seeing a British consul established at Mozambique; and they testified their satisfaction at my arrival in a variety of ways, more especially those who were sailing their dhows under the British ensign. They complained to me generally of the exorbitant tariff, and that they had been led to believe, year after year, that it would be altered. They complained of the unjust manner in which the duties were levied, and the robberies to which they had to submit from the officials in the Custom-house, against whom they dare not complain without incurring considerable delays in their business, and for which there was no redress; that the only means left to them was by bribing the officials, which was a great burden on their fair gains; and ended by saying, that if some protection was not afforded them, they would be compelled to abandon the trade altogether, as numbers had already done. These men were so intimidated by the Portuguese officials, that they feared to state even to me, their consul, the particulars of their losses, saying that, in the event of anything happening to me, they would be marked by the officials, and ruined; and they only prayed that I would generally supervise their affairs, and, in the event of any flagrant act of injustice occurring while at the port, that I would afford them that protection which they were always led to expect from a British functionary. It was with my mind thus prepared that the following piratical affair was brought under my notice:—
The Cutch dhow, “Ari-passa,” on a trading voyage, arrived at Zanzibar, in the African dominions of the Imâm of Muskat, in the month of July, 1857, which port she left on the 14th July, bound for Port Mozambique, with instructions to call at Ibo on the passage down. On leaving Zanzibar, her passport was duly visé by Colonel Hamerton, the British consul at that port, and all her papers were correct.