Trial of Pedro de Zulueta, jun., on a Charge of Slave Trading, under 5 Geo. IV, cap. 113, on Friday the 27th, Saturday the 28th, and Monday the 30th of October, 1843, at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, London / A Full Report from the Short-hand Notes of W. B. Gurney, Esq.

by Pedro de Zulueta; William Brodie Gurney

5018. Can you state the number?—I think the number was 13; but the reports of the whole of those cases are in the Parliamentary Papers.

5019. Were they bonâ fide American?—I believe not American, in any one case, but sailing under the American flag, and with American papers, supplied to them by American authority.

5020. Where?—Almost entirely, I think, without one exception, at Havannah.

5021. Supplied by the American consul?—Yes; but I considered that as they sailed with those American papers, however wrongfully they might have been given by the American authority, we had no right to interfere with them.

5022. Mr. Forster.] Have not some vessels belonging to the States been condemned?—Yes; since my time.

5023. You were not a party to the condemnation?—I was not.

5024. Mr. W. Patten.] But in those cases which you mention, you had not the slightest doubt in the world that they would have been condemned if they had not American papers on board?—Certainly they would, with the exception of one case, which seemed to be a sort of experimental seizure: it was known that almost every vessel on the coast under the American flag, at that time was a Spanish vessel in disguise; and this vessel seems to have been seized in the hope that the captain and officers might be able to prove, by some evidence found on board, that she was really Spanish; but though we had access to the papers, we found nothing that would have condemned her if she had been prosecuted in the court; there was a deficiency of papers on board; the captain, perhaps had either destroyed them or concealed them, and we could not get at the proof that would have enabled us to condemn her as being a Spanish vessel; but none of the cases I speak of were prosecuted; I would not allow them to be libelled in court.

5025. So that those cases do not appear upon the records of the court?—No; but I took the opportunity of examining the papers, and sending home all the particulars to the Foreign-office, and the papers are copied in the Parliamentary Returns.

5026. Mr. Forster.] Will those seizures be matter of complaint on the part of the owners?—I do not know that any of those seizures have been matter of complaint; some of the seizures made subsequently have been.

5027. Seizures of vessels belonging to the United States?—Yes; but none of those that came before me have been made matter of complaint.