Viscount Sandon, in the chair.
Pedro de Zulueta, Jun. Esq. called in; and examined.
10370. Chairman.] You have seen some statements that have been made to this Committee upon the subject of a transaction in which your house was engaged; have you any observations to offer upon it?—I received from the Clerk of the Committee a letter accompanying a copy of certain evidences, which are Mr. Macaulay’s evidence of the 10th of June, the 14th of June, and the 15th of June; and Captain Hill’s evidence of the 29th of June, the 4th of July, and the 6th of July. I would beg, first of all, to refer to the letter which I had the honour to address to the Chairman. My reason for wishing to be examined before this Committee was, that the statements contained in the evidence which I have mentioned are all of them more or less incorrect, some of them totally so. I will begin by stating what has been the nature of our, I will not say trade, for we have not had a trade ourselves, but of our connexion with the shipment of goods to the coast of Africa. We have been established as merchants for upwards of 70 years in Spain, for nearly 20 years in this country, and we have had connexions to a large extent in Spain, and in the Havannah, and in South America, and several other places; among them we have had connexions or commercial intercourse with the house of Pedro Martinez & Co. of the Havannah, and with Blanco & Cavallo of Havannah. With them we have carried on a regular business in consignments of sugars and of cochineal, which they have made to us; and in specie received by the packets from Mexico and other places. We have several times acted for them here in this country, buying raw cotton for instance at Liverpool, and re-selling it very largely; that has been principally with Pedro Martinez & Co.
10371. They are general merchants?—They are general merchants, and their transactions with us have been of that nature. As general merchants we have bought stock here for them rather largely; and in the course of those transactions we have received orders from Don Pedro Martinez & Co. of the Havannah, and from Don Pedro Martinez of Cadiz, to ship goods for the coast of Africa; never from Pedro Blanco, and never from Blanco & Cavallo.
10372. Have you received orders from Pedro Martinez for shipments for the coast of Africa?—Yes; in the course of business we have received orders to ship goods upon the funds in our hands belonging to them; and we have shipped the goods described in the letter, and sent the bills of lading to Pedro Martinez; but beyond that we have never had any returns from the coast of Africa, nor any control of any kind from the moment the cargoes left the ports of this country.
10373. You have had no interest in the result of the venture?—No, nor any notice, nor any acquaintance, nor any correspondence with any one upon the coast; we have never had any kind of knowledge, either subsequently or previously, of the shipments, except the mere fact of buying the goods and shipping them.
10374. Your whole interest was a commission upon the transaction—Entirely. The extent of those transactions has been so limited in the course of nearly 20 years that we have been in this country, that the amount of the invoices that we have sent out has been something like 20,000l. or 22,000l. in the course of all that time. That is one part of the operations we have performed. The other operations are the acceptance of bills drawn by people on the coast; among them Pedro Blanco when he was there, upon ourselves, on account of Blanco & Cavallo, of Havannah, upon funds which Blanco & Cavallo had in our hands: for instance, the people at the Havannah, or in Spain, open a credit with us, and we accept the bills of the parties on that credit with us, just the same as we should do with any other correspondent in any other part.
10375. You would have funds in your hands, arising from some commercial transactions between you and the Havannah merchant or the Cadiz merchant; and Pedro Blanco, upon the coast of Africa, would draw upon the credit of those funds, being authorised by the Cadiz or the Havannah merchant?—Yes; and if Pedro Blanco had drawn 5s. beyond that, we should have protested, and in some instances we have protested. With regard to the vessel alluded to in this Report, the Augusta, our part in that concern has been simply that which appears from one of the letters: that is to say, Pedro Martinez, of Cadiz, had made choice of Jennings to buy the vessel, and lent him money to buy the vessel; because Pedro Martinez wanted him to have a vessel in the trade, for the purpose of taking his goods to their destination. I have now described the three kinds of operations in which we have been concerned, and our knowledge of all of them terminated with the execution of the orders of our correspondents. We had nothing more to do than to follow the orders of the purchaser in shipping the goods. With regard to the purchase of the vessel by Jennings; Jennings is a man who has been employed some time by Martinez; he has served Martinez as a chartered captain, and Martinez having been satisfied with his services, agreed to lend him that money on the security of the vessel, provided it did not exceed a certain amount; which was all the interference we had with it, just to see that a certain amount was not exceeded, 500l. or whatever it was.
10376. Then you were to furnish Captain Jennings with money for the purchase within a limited amount, say 500l., credit being given to him upon you by Pedro Martinez, of Cadiz?—That is just the point.
10377. Captain Fitzroy.] The Augusta being purchased by money advanced by your house for Martinez & Company of Cadiz; and she then became the property of Pedro Martinez?—No, she became the property of Jennings; the money was lent to Jennings, and he bound himself by giving security on the vessel to answer for the amount. It is a mercantile operation which is not unusual.