Q. Did you attend as short-hand writer before the Committee of the House of Commons, at which these proceedings were taken in short-hand?—A. I did.
Q. Is this book printed from your short-hand notes?—A. Mr. Zulueta’s evidence. I took the evidence of Mr. Zulueta; not the whole.
Q. Did you take the evidence of others?—A. Yes; of some others.
Mr. Serjeant Bompas. On behalf of the prosecution we admit that the other parts are taken from the short-hand notes: we shall want the evidence of Mr. Zulueta.
May it please your Lordship,
Gentlemen of the Jury,—It is my duty to call your attention to a case of very considerable moment. I am quite sure you will feel that all cases, in which the liberty and welfare of any person standing as a prisoner at the bar before you are concerned, are matters of considerable importance; but I cannot but think that this is one which will deserve your very particular attention. The case is, to you and to most persons, one of a novel description as a matter of trial. It is very rarely indeed, that offences under the Act to which your attention will be directed can be brought before a jury as the subject of their investigation. It necessarily will include a variety of facts, some of them being in some degree complicated; and it requires, therefore, that careful discrimination which I am quite sure you will be quite ready to give. To the prisoner, of course, it is of paramount importance, standing here before you upon his trial on such a charge as that which has been presented against Mr. Zulueta, and calls for the utmost possible attention. I do not consider that I should keep from you one thing which has been mentioned already in your hearing, that the prisoner at the bar is a person of wealth, and rank, and station. He is a merchant of the city of London. I am quite sure that that cannot make any difference in your consideration of the case, unless by increasing that interest which necessarily is excited by the respectability in life of the person who is standing before you on his trial, exciting you to greater vigilance to see that perfect justice is done as between him and the law. I am quite sure that you will see, that if he be innocent, you will, as you would in respect of every individual who stands before you upon his trial, take care that he shall not be convicted; but if, on the other hand, the evidence, when it is laid before you, shall satisfy your minds that he is guilty, it can in no manner or degree lessen the guilt of a person against whom such facts shall be produced, that he is in a station which should teach him better to obey the law of his country. So far as any such topic can be urged, on the one side or the other, to excite your utmost anxiety and most careful vigilance to ascertain the truth, I, on behalf of the prosecution, should feel that it is of great importance it should be exercised, because the truth, and that alone, ought to be, and I trust in all cases is, the object desired by the public prosecutor.
Gentlemen, the kind of charge is one that will require your very particular attention. The prisoner stands charged, “that he did illegally and feloniously man, navigate, equip, dispatch, use, and employ,” that is, that he did employ—that is the particular term to which I would direct your attention—“which in and by a certain Act of Parliament made and passed in the 5th year of the reign of his late Majesty King George the Fourth, intituled ‘An Act to amend and consolidate the Laws relating to the Abolition of the Slave Trade,’ was and is declared unlawful, that is, to deal and trade in slaves.” The other counts vary the charge in some degree, but in nothing that I believe will be material for your consideration, except that in the four latter counts he is charged with shipping goods on board the same vessel for the purpose of accomplishing the same object.
Gentlemen, it is now happily a matter of history of some considerable period back, that there was a contest in this kingdom by those who were anxious to put an end to what they rightly considered one of the greatest crimes staining human nature. On the 25th of March, in the year 1807, was accomplished that victory, I may say for humanity, by which, as far as the laws of this country could accomplish it, this kingdom was separated from that course of crime, which probably is almost the greatest blot that rests upon human nature; I mean, that that Act was passed which is called “the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.”
Gentlemen, you are aware that before that time persons of wealth—for persons of wealth alone could engage in such an occupation, and unfortunately that which was called the slave trade was a source of great wealth—before that time no doubt persons of wealth engaged in that trade. That Act, as far as regarded any public Act, of course extinguished them; but from time to time, from that time to this present moment, though not of course engaged in public or in the immediate visible commerce which was the subject of condemnation by that Act, it has been more or less continued, and the course of the law has been from time to time by more and more stringent penalties as far as possible to put an end to it as respects this country; and it is impossible that you should not be aware that one great object of this kingdom in all its negotiations with all foreign countries is, as far as possible, to create one great combination among all the civilized part of mankind, uniting in extinguishing that which is a crime on the part of all engaged in it; and therefore it has become above all other things the duty of this Government, as far as relates to any individuals living within this kingdom, to the utmost possible degree to put an end to any connection with it of any sort or kind, and to prevent any persons who continue in this kingdom, and are subject to its law, from being in any way whatever connected with that which is considered a crime of the greatest magnitude; and it is with that view that the Act of Parliament which you have heard mentioned in the indictment, the Act of the 5th of George the Fourth, chap. 113, was passed, in order as far as possible to extinguish all connection of any individuals in this kingdom with the slave trade, and by a severe penalty to put an end to any such transactions. Indeed, when we consider the penalty, it is such as shows that the Legislature intended to render the punishment most severe: it is a penalty which subjects every person connected with that trade to transportation for fourteen years. But every single individual who, through any connection with that trade, is torn from his friends in Africa, and sent in the miserable way in which they must necessarily, if they survive the horrors of the voyage, be removed from that country to an interminable life of slavery—every individual suffers double and treble the penalty which is inflicted upon the criminal engaged in the trade; and therefore I feel satisfied that we shall not consider that penalty too severe, provided only the offence is fully proved: and the severity of the punishment ought to excite, I admit, to the utmost degree, your watchfulness to see that it is fairly and satisfactorily brought home to any man, because I take it any person on behalf of the prosecution who calls the attention of a jury to the enormity of any crime, does it under the most anxious caution that, in proportion as the crime is great, so the jury ought to extend their utmost care and attention to see that it is fairly and satisfactorily made out.
Gentlemen, you are aware that in cases of this kind the transactions must necessarily extend over some considerable time. The distance of the place to which the transactions ultimately relate, the difficulty of obtaining from Africa the various documents necessary to be produced to ascertain the guilt or innocence of the party, necessarily occasions the lapse of some considerable time; and in the present case it will be necessary for me to refer to transactions that extend over several years. In this particular case a trial took place in respect of the vessel in Africa, and afterwards in England, which necessarily occupied some considerable time; and no doubt the necessity of obtaining the requisite documents occasioned the delay for a still further lengthened period.