6925. Where can the guilty knowledge reside which shall condemn the vessel and the goods consigned, if the captain is supposed not to have possessed it?—The guilty knowledge, in my opinion, might be presumed. It is the duty of owners to take care that their ships are not turned into pirates or into smugglers, and if they are turned into smugglers or pirates, they must take the consequences; and so if they break other laws I conceive.
6926. Mr. Milnes.] Do you know other instances of ships being condemned, and the captains acquitted?—Yes; the Augusta, captured by Captain Hill, was a case of that description.
6927. Mr. Forster.] Is it not equally an offence on the part of the captain?—Undoubtedly so, if a guilty knowledge can be proved against him.
6928. You cannot prove a guilty knowledge in the case of the ship?—I think you may be able to show that the persons owning the ship or acting as agent for the owners may have had a guilty knowledge, where the master had no guilty knowledge.
6929. Mr. Milnes.] But you cannot legally sell the property of the captain when the captain himself is declared to be not guilty?—If the vessel was declared guilty by a proper court, undoubtedly that is a consequence of the condemnation.
6930. Would the individual property of the captain himself be included in the condemnation?—I believe the doctrine always has been, that the whole property on board the ship is vitiated by her being engaged in the slave trade. But these questions are all questions as to the construction of the Act of Parliament of the 5th of George the 4th, which I do not feel competent to interpret in this manner, although I see my way clearly enough to act upon it.
6931. Mr. Forster.] Do you consider that the mere conveyance as a common carrier of goods from the Havannah to the coast of Africa, is an act of slave dealing?—Not the common carrying of goods: but if she is carrying goods from Pedro Blanco to Mr. Canôt, I do not call that a common act of carrying. It is the act of carrying goods for a specific purpose between two persons engaged in a criminal trade.
6932. Mr. Milnes.] Could not Pedro Blanco and Mr. Canôt have mercantile communications which should be of an indisputably legal character?—They might, but they indisputably have no such commerce except in the smallest degree possible. There was some little palm-oil trade carried on by Mr. Canôt. I believe Mr. Canôt’s evidence was not taken upon the question, but Mr. Canot made no secret of the purposes to which that cargo would have been applied by him.
6933. Mr. Forster.] Supposing arsenic to be conveyed from London to Manchester, and there made an illegal use of, would you consider the carrier responsible in that case?—No, but I think that supposed case applies to the carriage of goods from England to the Havannah, and not from the Havannah to a slave factory in Africa. If you suppose the case of the person at the place to which the arsenic was sent, and the person who sends it, both being employed in poisoning people, I should think in that case the carrier would be culpable, supposing him to be aware of the fact.
6934. Do you consider it illegal for an English vessel to convey a cargo of merchandise from the Havannah to a person engaged in the slave trade on the coast of Africa?—Supposing they are sent by a person engaged in the slave trade.