10456. Captain Fitzroy.] Have you ever discounted any bill drawn by Pedro Blanco on Pedro Martinez &. Co. for goods delivered for them on the African coast at the Gallinas?—I have accepted bills drawn by Pedro Blanco and others from the Gallinas upon our house, and paid them to the order of several houses in Sierra Leone and houses in London. I have paid them in money that I had in my hands resulting from the general transactions of business, which I have explained. But discounting would be this, if I had paid those acceptances before they were due, and received some consideration for them; that I never did, but I might have done it in the case of these bills.
10457. Were those bills negociated through your hands in payment of goods delivered at the Gallinas?—No; they were drawn generally with the advice attached to them, saying, I have drawn a thousand pounds upon you for account of Blanco and Carvalho, or Blanco &, Co., at the Havannah.
10458. Mr. Wood.] By whose orders were you desired to honour it; was it by the order of Pedro Blanco at the Gallinas?—No; by the house at the Havannah or by the house at Cadiz; sometimes the one and sometimes the other. Blanco had a house some time ago in Malaga, as a general merchant, occupied in shipping the fruits of the country and oil to the United States, &c. &c. In answer to [Question 7961*], the following is stated:—“In one of these letters, dated Cadiz, 30th of November 1840, is a paragraph to the following effect: ‘In a letter, dated London, the 21st instant, which I have just received from Messrs. Zulueta & Co., merchants in London, I had the pleasure of receiving a bill drawn by you on them for 250l., which I this day place to their credit, waiting your advice of the same.’” There is here certainly a mistranslation of some kind, because it says that this man receives a bill upon us, and credits it to us, which is of course contradictory in the very terms of it, because if the bill was remitted to this man upon us, he would have debited it to us, and not credited it. But altogether there is some confusion about it; I suppose arising from the mistranslation of the documents, because the fact is this, the bill is one of the bills I have already mentioned, drawn from the Gallinas upon ourselves, to the order of a third party. It is a bill drawn at the Gallinas upon ourselves, on account of the credit, and therefore it could never have been received by the person in Cadiz. It must have been presented to us here, and in fact so it was; the bill is here. I wish to show that that letter is perfectly inaccurate.
10459. Sir T. D. Acland.] Can you give the Committee any information upon this: “The other letters,” nine of them, “were all on slave business: not a word of any innocent trade, but the whole directing how slaves were to be shipped on board various vessels.” How do you account for this vessel carrying letters upon slave business?—I account for it in this way: first of all, it is impossible for us to answer here what letters will be put on board a vessel at Cadiz; but there is very seldom any communication between Cadiz and the Gallinas; whatever letters there were must have gone by such random occasions as arose. As to the fact that whoever wrote those letters is engaged in the slave trade, the letters will speak for themselves.
10460. Chairman.] Those letters were not prepared in the expectation of the arrival of this vessel, because this vessel was not destined to that port, and was only driven there by stress of weather?—Most certainly. I will add one circumstance in proof of that. The vessel was supposed to have been lost, from the circumstance of a boat having been found upon the coast with the name of T. Jennings upon it, and it was supposed that it was a boat belonging to the vessel; it was, in fact, a boat from the vessel, but the vessel had not been lost; therefore the vessel was quite unexpected in Cadiz by every soul. It went there from stress of weather, and nothing more. Then it is said, in answer to [Question 7972*], “I think the papers are quite conclusive to the mind of any man that Zulueta was cognizant of what he was doing; but as far as it is an illegal transaction, it is not for me to judge; but the Judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court of Sierra Leone did think it illegal, and condemned the vessel; and moreover, the man who is put forward as captain and owner did not defend the vessel on her trial.” Now, as to the statement of his being a false owner, I have already stated that he was not. But then, again, with regard to the other part of the business, the man did not defend it, because he was prevented from defending it.
10461. How was he prevented from defending it?—He had not money to defend himself. It appears from the protest that the vessel was condemned without allowing Thomas Jennings to say any thing in her defence. I will deliver in the protest, which shows that that was the fact. (The same was delivered in.) As to his not having money, it is said that he might have raised money upon the cargo; but there is no one can entertain any doubt as to the palpable contradiction of such a statement, because to raise money upon a cargo, which was seized, over which he had no control, is to me quite unintelligible.
10462. Mr. Wood.] You have spoken of some bills drawn upon your house by Pedro Blanco, and you were understood to say that they were drawn some of them, in favour of Sierra Leone houses. Can you inform the Committee the names of the houses at Sierra Leone in whose favour they were drawn?—I have no objection to do so, but I feel loath to mention names. I could have mentioned many names; we are not the only correspondents in London of Blanco and Martinez. With regard to those houses at Sierra Leone, I should be sorry to introduce names, because I know the pain I have had from mine being introduced here, but still there is no secret in the thing.
10463. You have given the committee the names of parties drawing the bills, and on whose account they were drawn, and you speak of their being drawn in favour of Sierra Leone houses; have you any objection to furnish the names of the houses in whose favour they were drawn?—I say that I have no objection, except that I should not like to introduce names unnecessarily; but the bills are in my hands, and any gentleman can look at them who chooses; they are at the disposal of any body who likes to look at them.
[The Witness produced the bills.]