6875. Were you then satisfied by the result of that search that there were no grounds for seizing the Echo?—I certainly found nothing, in my opinion, to convict her; at that time there was nothing detected on board her to warrant detention; had there been, I should have detained her of course.
6876. Did you or your master entrust to the captain of the Echo certain captured Spaniards, to take to the Havannah?—When I was about to sail from New Cestos, I allowed a prize crew of Spaniards, who had been captured in a prize, to go on board this vessel, to endeavour to get a passage back to their own country.
6877. Did you use any persuasion to Captain Soms to call at Sierra Leone, as he states in the papers you have seen?—I never was on board her in the first place, and I never saw Captain Soms; in the second place, the master, on returning on board the Wanderer, told me, that he had advised the captain of the Echo to go to Sierra Leone with the view of getting passengers; subsequently, when I heard that the vessel was captured, I recollect distinctly saying to the master, “Oh, they will think you have betrayed them into the hands of the Sierra Leone government.” The advice was given without my authority, and without my knowledge until afterwards; but I saw no harm in the advice.
6878. Could the Echo have incurred any culpability with regard to the slave trade between the time when you examined her and her seizure at Sierra Leone?—Very possibly.
6879. How?—She might have entered into an arrangement to carry away a cargo of slaves from another part of the coast; she might have equipped herself for slave dealing; it does not at all follow because she was apparently free from liability to capture when I was on board her, that she should not have done something subsequently that rendered her so.
6880. You do not consider your having declared her to be innocent to be a sufficient ground for saying that she was not guilty at Sierra Leone at a subsequent period?—It was certainly no sort of guarantee against the consequences of any future proceedings that she might choose to take.
6881. Sir R. H. Inglis.] It was not either a retrospective or a prospective guarantee; it was a guarantee only that on the 11th of December, when you visited her, she at that time had no primâ facie evidence of being engaged in the slave trade; is that your impression upon the subject?—It was no particular guarantee, but it was a certificate which the treaties, under the authority of which I searched her, declared that I was to furnish her with; it was a certificate to the effect that the treaty required.
6882. Chairman.] Was that certificate a security to her against any further search by any other man-of-war on the station?—It would probably operate against any further search, because they would not take the trouble to do it unless they had some new reason to suspect her; they would have no wish to cause unnecessary vexation.
6883. Is the certificate intended, in your view, to operate as a security against further trouble?—I think there are two motives for the certificate; one is, that there may be no concealment as to the ship which may have committed any wrong in the exercise of the right of search upon her; and secondly, to act as a sort of certificate with regard to others that may fall in with her; but if others have reason still to doubt her, in spite of that certificate, they are perfectly at liberty to search her again.
6884. Did you hear what became of the Echo afterwards?—I did not hear of her detention at Sierra Leone until the end of March, I think the 28th of March; I visited Sierra Leone a few days after I had boarded her, but before her arrival.