PROCEEDINGS
INSTITUTED AGAINST
PEDRO DE ZULUETA, JUN., ESQ.
From the moment I left the Committee of the House of Commons, on the 23d of July, 1842, I never again heard of this matter until Wednesday the 23d of August, 1843.
On that day, between two and three o’clock in the afternoon, I was sitting at my desk in the private room of Zulueta & Co.’s office, 22, Moorgate Street, in the City of London, when a clerk came into the room to announce that a gentleman of the name of Scoble wished to see me. “Do you know him? He says that he is not known to you.” Upon this I went out into the clerks’ office and found the individual, thus calling himself, standing outside the counter. I asked him his business, and he replied that he did not call upon his own business. He asked me, in a pointed and distinct manner, if my name was Pedro de Zulueta, which of course I instantly acknowledged. “I do not call on my own business, but to introduce a person who wishes to speak with you. Shall he see you here, or at your house?” “I should like to know first who he is; what is his name?” “You do not know him, his name is Brown.” “I do not recollect any person of that name,” I replied. “He is below, if you like to see him.” The first impression on my mind was that the whole was some ridiculous mystery about some great trifle, and I thought I could not dispose of it better or more quickly than by seeing the man, so suiting the action to the word, I said, “I will go and see who he is,” and opened the door which leads from the office into the landing-place at the top of the stairs. No sooner was I outside the door than the individual, calling himself Scoble, addressed me in a tone different from the insinuating manner in which he had done before—not rude, but solemn—“The fact is, Sir, that a true bill has been found by the Grand Jury against you for felony, and there is an officer below to take you into custody. I did not like to state this before the clerks.”
The first impression I received at hearing these words I cannot give any account of, but it certainly struck me as the whole thing being a trick. “What do you say, Sir?” I asked; and the assertion was repeated, adding that the charge was slave trading. Then I was still more confirmed that there was some trick in the case. I asked the policeman, who was within the house and apparently in the act of ascending the stairs, to be called up, which Mr. Scoble did, and both were shown by me into the private through the public office. My father was sitting in the next room, and when I tried to make him understand the case, seeing the policeman and Mr. Scoble, he received the same impression of the whole being a trick, which raised his indignation at the audacity, and made him address Mr. Scoble very angrily. Mr. Scoble was evidently anxious to leave the room; and the policeman, to whom he gave strict directions about what was to be done with me, having assured me that the thing was in earnest, that I must go with him, I opened the private door for Mr. Scoble, who left the office repeating his injunctions to the officer, that I must be taken directly to the station-house, where Sir George Stephen would immediately go.
We had never before heard Sir George Stephen’s name, and my father thought he might be a magistrate. He tried to ascertain from the policeman by whose authority he was acting, but we could not obtain from him any thing that we could understand. He waited until Mr. John Lawford, of the firm of Messrs. Lawford, of Drapers Hall, our solicitors, arrived, and then we proceeded to the Garlick Hill Police Station-house. There Sir George Stephen appeared: he did not know me, and asked which was Pedro de Zulueta. When my name was mentioned, I answered to it, and then he preferred the charge as will be found in the succeeding page.
Mr. Lawford spoke aside with Sir George Stephen, for the immediate and pressing question was the bail. Sir George expressed a firm determination to resist bail to any amount. Then the dreadful thought was, what was to become of my family, since it never has happened, that I have been absent without their being acquainted with all the circumstances; and I do not think I have slept one night out of my house while in town. The late hour made it quite unlikely that with opposition to the bail, and as counsel must be heard, that I could escape passing the night in Newgate. Mr. John Lawford, with the greatest kindness and feeling, expressed to me that such was his fear. My reply was, that they might do what they pleased with me, only that my wife should be seen to, for I was quite sure of the result of her hearing suddenly of such an occurrence, together with my not going home. Sir George coldly remarked, that “it must already be known at home, for he had sent there to take me, in case I had not been taken at the office.” The agony, which such a statement caused, was perceptible, and one of the officers in the room remarked, that I needed not apprehend any thing, as all the officers could do, would be to watch the house.
I was conveyed very late to the Court at the Old Bailey, where I sat until nearly nine o’clock in suspense as to what would be the result of the application for bail, and next whether the persons approved of could be found at so late an hour. It was not until late, that the former was granted; and after considerable difficulty, and the impossibility of finding one of the two bail offered, the other was accepted as sufficient by the Court, together with my own recognizance. I then went home at about half-past nine o’clock at night to my afflicted family in a condition, which, as I believe it unprecedented when all the circumstances of my case are considered, so I hope and trust may never fall again to the lot of any man who lives in that happy and undescribable feeling of habitual security, which in this country we so dearly value as the precious privilege and the certain possession of every man who has not contemplated and is not aware of a breach of the law. Thus will it have been reserved to me, in the British dominions, to experience this peculiar method of receiving a wound in the heart, which, although time and the sympathy which has been so kindly expressed may allay, I alone can know how unlikely it is that any lapse of time can altogether cure.
As I would not state a fact with any greater appearance of certainty than what I really possess, I ought to add, since I now have seen the name of Mr. John Scoble mentioned as that of the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, that as I never saw before or have seen since, that I am aware of, the Scoble, who acted in this to me ever memorable occasion, I cannot tell whether they are both one and the same person.