10426. Mr. Wood.] What is the firm of the house at Havannah?—Pedro Martinez & Co.; the Cadiz house is Pedro Martinez only, without the company. Blanco & Carvalho was the firm some time ago: it is now Blanco & Co.
10427. Are the answers which you have given in relation to one of these houses equally applicable to both of them?—There is some difference between them: but in regard to the general business of both of them, what applies to the one applies to the other. I have the same general business with both, and the smallest part of the business has been the shipment of goods, whether to Havannah or to the coast of Africa. The shipments apply to Martinez only.
10428. Have you shipped English manufactured goods direct to the coast of Africa, on behalf of both those houses?—Such goods as were in the Augusta I have shipped for one party only. With regard to the house of Blanco & Carvalho, and the house of Pedro Martinez & Co., with both of them I have carried on a general large business. But to Blanco & Carvalho I never shipped a single piece of goods of any kind, except some sugar mills to the Havannah; and with regard to the house of Pedro Martinez, we have shipped such goods as those by the Augusta.
10429. From your general knowledge of the trade of the house of Pedro Martinez & Co., is it your opinion that the goods which you so shipped to the coast of Africa were destined to be employed in the slave trade?—I do not know; they may be, for any thing that I know.
10430. Has it come within your knowledge that the house of Martinez & Co. are exporters from Africa of the native produce of Africa?—No, because I never tried to get any knowledge of their transactions there of any sort.
10431. Have you ever received consignments from them, or on their behalf, of palm-oil, gold dust, or ivory, from the coast of Africa?—Never; we never have received any thing from the coast of Africa whatever. With regard to all these transactions, it will perhaps appear strange to the Committee that I should not know more of the coast of Africa, having shipped things there; but if we had shipped to the amount of 100,000l. to the coast of Africa, or carried on any considerable trade there, we should certainly have known more about the coast of Africa; but in transactions of a very large amount, an invoice occasionally of about 2,000l. or 3,000l. of goods was a thing that we sent as a matter of course, and did not trouble our heads about, especially as the remuneration we got was a mere trifle, not of itself worth pursuing, if it had not been for the general business we had.
10432. Chairman.] Is there any other part of the evidence which has been given that you wish to observe upon?—It is asked here, in [Question 5086], “Who was he?” the answer is, “The name is mentioned in the Parliamentary Papers as being connected with the purchase of a slave vessel, Mr. Kidd; and it is mentioned in connexion with that of Mr. Zulueta of London.” Now, as to Mr. Kidd, the very first thing I ever knew or ever heard of his name was to see it here. I never heard of his name at all. I never had a letter from him or through him, or knew any thing of the man whatever. That is with regard to myself. With regard to my partners, I can say the same; I have been making inquiries about it. My father knew there was such a man upon the coast, but I did not know even that, though I have managed all this business. Our house never had a letter from the man, or knew any thing about him.
10433. You have no connexion with Mr. Kidd in any way?—No, nor any knowledge of him. Then in the next answer it is said “Zulueta the gentleman in London to whom the vessel was sent, and who sold her again to her former Spanish owner, is a name well known on the coast in connexion with the slave trade.” Now what is known on the coast I really cannot pretend to say; but I believe that not many persons can say that which I can say, that neither myself, nor my father, nor my grandfather, nor any body in our firm, has ever had any kind of interest of any sort, or derived any emolument or connexion from the slave trade. My father had at one time an interest in a bankrupt’s estate at the Havannah, upon which he was a creditor. There were some slaves on the estate, and they formed part of the property assignable to the creditors, and my father got the slaves assigned to him; because the other gentlemen and the creditors were not of the same opinion, he got them assigned to him, and made them free; and that is all the connexion we have ever had with any slaves in the world. I do not know how far that may be considered irrelevant to the point, but I state it because we are here mentioned three or four times as connected with slave dealers, as a name well known in connexion with the slave trade. That sort of statement is rather a difficult thing to deal with.
10434. If it is meant to insinuate by these observations that you ever had any other connexion with the slave trade, than being the shipping agent of goods which were sent to a man who was a dealer in slaves, you entirely deny it?—I assure the Committee, that although I have a general notion as to what interest Blanco and Martinez have in slaves, yet, if I was put upon my oath to make any particular statement, I really could not, because I do not know it. Of course I believe it; but my personal knowledge amounts only to that which the knowledge of what we read in a newspaper amounts to.
10435. There was nothing upon the face of the transactions which you had with those parties which spoke of a connexion with traffic in slaves?—Nothing whatever. It is well known, that, fifty years ago, it was in the ordinary course of business in Cadiz to insure operations in slave trading. My house at that time were underwriters, and it was notorious that a policy of that kind would never enter the doors of our house; and nobody would come to offer such a thing to us upon any terms. It is notorious, both here and in Spain, that we set our faces distinctly against having any interest of any kind in the slave trade.