Mr. Kelly. Whether it was so or not it is quite immaterial, I need not say that the contents are perfectly innocent. It is clear, that before this time the house had employed Captain Jennings to treat for the purchase of this vessel. There was some demur about the price. This letter was written, in order, if possible, that the vessel might be obtained for the sum of 500l.; and in the way in which people bargain they tell them, that if they will not take that sum they will not buy it at all. That letter is written by Mr. Zulueta: I need not say that there is no felony in the member of a firm like Zulueta & Co. authorising Captain Jennings, or any other man, to offer 500l. for a vessel. Here the evidence with regard to the young man I am defending is a blank: it does not appear he interfered directly or indirectly in any way, or knew what was going on; but it appears that the vessel was ultimately purchased at that sum, dispatched to Liverpool, and the goods were loaded on board the vessel; and then the charter-party was made out, to which I will now call your attention, and which was signed by the prisoner Mr. Zulueta. Now you will see how my observations apply: it is in the usual form; it is printed, and the blanks, as you will see, are filled up, not in the handwriting of the prisoner nor any member of the firm, but in the ordinary course of business by the clerk whose duty it is to prepare the charter-parties; and it is signed, because it had to be signed. Mr. Pedro Zulueta was in the counting-house, and his father was out upon some other business, and Pedro Zulueta signed, “for Martinez & Co., of Havannah, Zulueta & Co.” These are the two papers in the handwriting of the prisoner—a letter to Captain Jennings, saying, offer 500l., if they will not take that no more will be given, and the charter-party by which the vessel is chartered from Captain Jennings to Martinez & Co., the house of Zulueta acting as agents, not buying the ship, not entering into the transaction as on their own account, but acting as agents for Messrs. Martinez—that is a paper partly written and partly printed, and the name is subscribed “for Martinez & Co., Havannah, Zulueta & Co.” Those are the only two documents in the handwriting of the prisoner: his evidence I will refer to more particularly by and bye. The evidence shows what I never denied, that the house of which he is a member are civilly responsible for all the house may do. That his house effected the purchase of a vessel at the time—that it was desirable that Captain Jennings should be the captain (and I will give you a reason for that presently)—and that the house caused goods to be shipped in it at Liverpool—and that from that time they heard no more of it, is not denied. It is perfectly clear, if the case rested there, it was merely this—that the house of Zulueta & Co., as agents for Martinez & Co., purchased the ship for Jennings, and that the purchaser made Martinez & Co. the mortgagees of the ship, so as to put them in possession of the property, but to leave Captain Jennings nominally the proprietor and captain; and then they shipped for their principals a quantity of merchandise, regularly passing through the Custom-house on board the vessel, and consigned to the coast of Africa. It is perfectly clear no sort of imputation can be thrown upon any one concerned in that transaction.
But, Gentlemen, let us see what are the circumstances upon which the prosecutor calls upon you to infer, not only that Zulueta & Co., and particularly the prisoner at the bar, purchased this vessel, and dispatched this vessel, and loaded the goods on board it, but that he did it not merely knowing, but for the very purpose, in the language of the indictment, “to accomplish the object of using them in the slave trade.” What is the evidence upon which they call upon you to infer that? First of all they do this, and I do pray your attention to this part of the case, because it is a point affecting, and vitally affecting, the safety of every manufacturer, every merchant, nay every tradesman in this country, who happens to deal in any goods, however lawful, but which may be shipped to the coast of Africa; they say this, you, young man, Pedro Zulueta, a member of this firm, you knew that these goods in this ship were to be used for the slave trade, and you dispatch the ship and goods that they may be used in the slave trade. Why, have you ever admitted you knew it? No, I have denied it, and have offered to deny it upon oath.—Have we proved you ever gave any secret instructions they should be used for that purpose? We give you notice that we call for your instructions, but before the Court and Jury we dare not call for them.—Did you receive any information from Martinez & Co. that they might be used for that purpose? No. We give you notice to produce all the letters from Martinez & Co., and his counsel comes forward and says—Here is every document, here is every account, every scrap of paper at all relating to this transaction,[15] and I offer you the oaths of every body in the counting-house, without examining them myself, that this is all that can be found. No, says the prosecutor, it suits us better to charge you with a felony, and call for documents which might or might not support the charge; but when you have got them here we will not read them before the Jury, we will not lay them before the Jury, but we will do this—in order that Sir George Stephen, sitting near Mr. Serjeant Bompas and instructing him from his own grossly perverted views of the facts and the truth, to misrepresent and to colour almost every material document to be given in evidence in the cause, in order to give them a reply, they say “you may produce them.” That is what they do. This, then, is a case in which they say we will call for your instructions to the captain, because we say, although there was nothing in your handwriting found in the vessel, except this innocent letter offering 500l. for the purchase of the ship, and the charter-party signed by the house, there were some secret instructions. We call for all the letters, we will not use one, but we leave you to prove there were none such. We say, you were informed by Martinez & Co. that they were to be so used, and we give you notice to produce the letters; we will not call for them, we leave it to you: and if we were to read twenty different letters, all the letters from Martinez & Co. to Zulueta & Co., you would have from Mr. Serjeant Bompas, with Sir George Stephen behind him suggesting—Oh, there were secret instructions behind! How do we know there was not a letter behind, which contained secret instructions? That is the way that a case for felony is to be conducted; and therefore I beseech you not to look at what my learned friend urges upon you, but look at the facts. The facts are, that this young man offered 500l. for the vessel, and that this young man signed the charter-party, and those facts he admitted before the Committee of the House of Commons; he admitted that this ancient and honourable house, without a stain upon its character, purchase the ship, and charter the ship, and ship the goods, as the agents of Martinez & Co., to the coast of Africa. Then, when they have to prove the guilty knowledge that this was done for the purpose of these goods being used in the slave trade, after going through this farce of calling for papers they dare not use, they say this—We cannot prove that this young man ever thought, or wrote, or sent, about the slave trade; we cannot prove he ever said a single word to Captain Jennings that he was to use the ship or goods in the slave trade; we cannot prove that their correspondents ever wrote or said a word to them upon the subject; but I will tell you what we will do, he was never at the Gallinas, but Captain Denman was at the Gallinas, Captain Hill was at the Gallinas, Colonel Nichol was at the Gallinas, and we will prove by them that the slave trade is carried on to a considerable extent there; we will prove through them, that there are such persons there as Rolo, Alvarez, and Ximenes; and we will prove that those three persons are notorious slave dealers; and we trust that the Jury will say, here are goods sent to the coast of Africa—and it is true, because goods are constantly sent there, British produce to the amount of millions is sent there, and forms a great part of our commerce, but it is sent to that part of the coast where these three honourable gentlemen will say that nothing but the slave trade is carried on—and it will then lie upon him to show that they were not intended to be so used.
[15] Pointing to a mass of books and papers on the table.
Now, Gentlemen, if Mr. Zulueta had known as much of the Gallinas as Captain Denman does, who has been cruizing about there since 1835, or as much as Captain Hill knows, who has been upon that coast for several years past, or as much as Colonel Nichol, who has been there twenty years; if he had ever been there or lived there to see the kind of commerce carried on, and to know that there is no lawful commerce at all, but that there is the slave trade only, I should say that you put a man living in England in a very peculiar situation, to which I will call your attention in a moment, but it would raise the question in your minds, whether he might not suspect that these goods might be sold for money, and the money applied in the purchase of slaves, or the slave trade be promoted by the transaction. But, Gentlemen, I beseech you to remember this; they have not proved this, and the contrary appears, that this young man—and I speak of the father as well—that neither he nor his father were ever on the coast of Africa. “Oh, but” says my learned friend, Mr. Serjeant Talfourd, in a question put on re-examination to Captain Denman, “could a person who had traded for twenty years to the Gallinas be ignorant that nothing but the slave trade was carried on there?” If it was so, if he had thought so, it is not by his inferences—whose honourable zeal in putting down the slave trade has carried him so far as to make him a defendant in two or three actions, which may come on to be tried in this country—however honourable his motives and feelings (and I admire the zeal he feels upon the subject, political as well as private zeal)—it is not what he knows which is to determine whether Mr. Zulueta is to be convicted of felony. But it is not that to which I was about to call your attention. If my learned friend, Mr. Serjeant Talfourd had reflected when he used that expression in the question he put, “Do you think that a person trading twenty years there could be ignorant of the nature of the trade carried on?”—he would have seen it was wholly inapplicable to the case of Messrs. Zulueta & Co. In the first place, this young man has not been a third part of twenty years in the house; in the next place, the house has not traded to the extent of 20s. to the Gallinas, they have never had any communication with it. Mr. Serjeant Bompas opened among many other things which he has left unproved, that he would show that was untrue, and that he had had dealings with them. If that was so, it would have been easy to do it; but they find he never had any dealing with the place; he had no letter or bill from the place, or any article or thing of any sort or kind from any person there, which could convey to his mind whether it was a slave trading place, or a place where a great deal of commerce was lawfully carried on—nothing of the kind. I pray your attention to what it is my learned friend has founded this observation upon. All that Zulueta & Co. have done, as you will see by the evidence before you, is, that they have received directions from their foreign correspondents to ship goods to the Gallinas, and have put those goods on board a vessel, and then dispatched that vessel, and shipped those goods for the Gallinas; and from that time forth they have heard no more of them. Now, I beg to ask you, their correspondence taking place with Martinez &. Co. at the Havannah or Cadiz, but having no correspondence with the Gallinas, unless their curiosity led them, as it did me this morning to look at the map or globe to find the place—and they looked in vain, unless they looked at a pretty large map, to see whether it was a river, or an island, or city, or what place it was—how should they know any thing about it? I agree we did not want Captain Denman’s evidence, for that they had shipped goods for twenty years, and traded there in the ordinary sense of the word, if they had had correspondents there and dealt on their own account with them, and sent them goods from time to time, and had goods in return, or written letters to them, and had letters in return, they might through them have obtained some information of the nature of the business carried on there. But, it is no such thing. What this young man said in his evidence before the Committee turns out to be true; if it had not been so, they had abundant means to contradict that evidence: and Sir George Stephen, whose zeal spares no expense, no effort, would have satisfied you that they had written letters to the Gallinas, and had sent goods there. All that appears is, that from time to time—the transactions being really a drop of water in the ocean of their great mercantile dealings—they have out of 400,000l. in ten or twenty years shipped goods to the amount of 22,000l., which have gone to the Gallinas. But how should they have known it was for the purposes of the slave trade? Suppose any one of you were a dealer in muskets (for they are some of the goods shipped on board this vessel) and that a person in Spain writes to you, saying, I want a thousand muskets for a place called Gallinas, on the coast of Africa—would you dream, if you prepared the muskets and sold them, and made out the proper papers and dispatched them according to the order—would you dream, that you were committing a felony? That is what it comes to.
Just see how the case stands—Captain Denman knows, and Captain Hill knows very well, that shipments to the Gallinas may be something suspicious, because they say, as far as their experience goes, there is no lawful trade there, and that they are all slave traders there; but how is any body in this kingdom who has never been there, and never corresponded with the place, to know that?
What is the next fact? Captain Hill proves—though it was with the greatest reluctance he ever gave an answer in favour of this young man whom he is endeavouring to send to Botany Bay—at last, he let out by accident that there are places, on the coast of Africa, to which British produce in large quantities is sent, where the trade is perfectly proper, and where goods lawfully are sent and disposed of; and that at many of those places there are persons, who trade largely, and to a very great extent in British produce, who also deal in slaves.
Here, again, I beseech you to turn your attention to the facts and forget the statement. You may be manufacturers of guns or gunpowder, or commission-agents living in the country, who for the purpose of shipment purchase those goods; in either case a party comes and says, I want a thousand muskets and two tons of gunpowder to be shipped to a certain place on the coast of Africa. I ask you—are you first to consult the map to ascertain the place, and having ascertained where it is, are you to go to somebody you may hear of—Captain Hill or Captain Denman—and inquire, whether they have been upon the coast of Africa, and can tell you the character of the trade carried on there? Are you next, the person being a Spaniard or Portuguese, to inquire whether they ever deal in slaves, and if you find they do, are you to say, I will execute no order you give me? That would annihilate two-thirds of the commerce of Great Britain, and would prevent the most useful transactions of commerce which can occur upon the coast of Africa. It is, therefore, I say, in a charge of this momentous character, it is not to be determined upon suspicion. You are not to hang or transport a man upon vague suspicion; you must show that the crime has been committed; you must have before you direct evidence to prove that he must have known—not that he might have known—by inquiry, if it had been duly answered, and in the mean time the orders would be lost—not that he might have learnt, or that the result of the inquiry might be that the goods might by possibility be unlawfully employed—you must have direct evidence that they were shipped for that purpose. The statute does not say, that every one who ships goods to a slave colony shall be guilty of slave dealing; the Act does not say, that whoever ships goods to a place where the slave trade is principally carried on shall be guilty of slave dealing; the Act does not say, that any body who shall ship goods without taking care that they shall not be employed in slave dealing shall be guilty of felony; the Act does not say, that any one who ships goods which may be employed in the slave trade shall be guilty of felony—God forbid that it should say that!—but the Act says, if a man ships goods for that object, if he ships goods with the intent—which as far as in him lies he seeks to carry into effect, that they may be used in the slave trade—that is a felony. Where, in God’s name, is there a particle or scintilla of evidence to that effect here? Where Captain Denman tells you it is a well-known slave trading colony, and that he knew it before he went there? Did you know it? I apprehend, if my learned friend knew it before he was instructed in this case, he knows geography, as he does every thing else, much better than I do. My learned friend says, you are not to shut your eyes to what you are doing. No; I agree if a man commits a crime, or does a mischief, he is not to shut his eyes to the consequences of it. I deny, once for all—and I appeal to the learned Judges whether I am not correctly stating the effect of the law—whether a man, who has no intention to do an unlawful act in the shipment of goods, is bound to make any inquiry as to what is to be done with goods, which, in obedience to the orders of a foreign correspondent, he ships to any place on the face of the earth. He is not bound to make inquiries; if he was, it would throw impediments in the way of commerce more injurious than the slave trade itself in any part of the world. Again, they speak of Messrs. Martinez being slave traders, and they speak of the admission that appears upon the evidence of Mr. Zulueta, that he knew that Martinez & Co. had been engaged in the slave trade. I will show you, when I come to refer to this evidence, which is all-important in this case, that there is nothing of the kind—he speaks of the knowledge he had; he gave his evidence in 1842, and you will find, when you look on a little further, he had learnt it since the transactions in 1840.
Now, suppose he did know it—suppose a commission-agent knows that a foreign correspondent of his house is extensively engaged in the slave trade—he knows, at the same time, he is extensively engaged in a lawful trade in sugar, tobacco, and other commodities—I ask you, whether if that foreign correspondent, by letter, desires him to freight a ship with a quantity of goods, and he does so, he is to be treated as a felon? whether, because a trader in both ways—a trader lawful and unlawful—may use his goods unlawfully, and the shipper knows it and cannot prevent it, he is to be treated as a felon or wrong doer? I deny it: if it were so, the first mercantile houses in the country would consist of none but felons. It would be in vain to suggest houses—though one rose before my mind, whose extent of transactions is equalled only by the honour and integrity of their character, that house trading largely as it does with the Havannah and the Brazils, where all the extensive merchants are slave dealers, that house must sacrifice two-thirds of its trade—and all that loss must accrue to Great Britain, because that trade may enable those who carry it on to carry on also a trade in slaves. It is quite intelligible, that that was the very object of the inquiry before the Committee, where Mr. Zulueta, Captain Hill, and Captain Denman, and a score of other persons were examined before the Colonial Secretaries under both governments, and some of the most practical men of the present day—it was for the purpose of determining and reporting to the House, whether it would be desirable to extend the criminal law of the country, and prohibit the trade altogether with places where the slave trade was carried on, or with persons notoriously carrying it on. Nobody ever dreamt, but Sir George Stephen, that it was illegal to trade with a slave dealing place, or a notorious slave dealer; it is only illegal where you know the trade you carry on is to promote the slave trade, and you know that to be the object. That was one of the objects of the Committee, to ascertain whether it was desirable to prevent the trading with slave dealers, or slave trading places. I may not regularly refer to their opinion; but they made a Report in 1842, and no law is passed at all affecting transactions of that nature—the only Act is that, which, for another purpose, I called my Lord’s attention to, and which made that illegal, not illegal before, namely, the trading by British subjects in foreign ports—not making it criminal to trade with slave traders or slave trading places. Then let us see the result. You are called upon, where the shipment is innocent, and the employment of the ship is innocent, you are called upon to destroy this man, because he has put his name to one or two innocent documents, and because they say it was so notoriously a slave trading place that he must have known that they were to be so used. My answer is in a single sentence—he knew nothing of the kind; they have not proved it; they have proved that Captain Hill, and Captain Denman, and others, conversant with the spot, knew it; they have not proved that Mr. Zulueta knew it—the evidence is entirely a blank upon the subject. If he thought of it at all, and I think that a man is bound to inquire about the matter, he would probably think this—there are a great number of houses in the city of London executing large commissions for the African trade, and a great deal of British commerce goes to the coast of Africa is lawfully disposed of, and promotes the civilisation of Africa; and I have every right to suppose that this goes for a lawful purpose; if that is not so, it must be shown to be for an unlawful purpose. If that is not fair in the mouth of Mr. Zulueta’s house, it is not fair in the mouth of any firm trading in that way with the coast of Africa; and unless it had been shown that Mr. Zulueta himself was personally informed of, or knew, the character of this place, what is proved by Captain Denman or Captain Hill has nothing to do with the question—so much for that part of the proof, from which you are called upon to infer that the prisoner shipped these goods to accomplish this wicked object, because it is proved the slave trade was carried on there.
Now, Gentlemen, let me say one word more of Captain Denman: he does not show, in the correct sense of the words, that the slave trade is extensively carried on there; he may be right in saying there is no produce there; but is there no mode of receiving goods and selling them for money, though no goods are exported? There are various towns or villages, one of nine hundred inhabitants, and others of various numbers, and native chiefs also; there are also Europeans, principally Spaniards—I should like to know, whether the native chiefs, and the Spanish population, and the nine hundred, the population of Tiendo, do not lawfully, for pieces of money or doubloons, buy British produce lawfully? It may be said, that they can only get this money by the slave trade; that is, by having previously dealt in slaves; but where is that to stop? If you are to trace the money from hand to hand, in order to ascertain whether, since a bank note was made or stamped, or the money coined, it has not been the medium of some illegal transaction, there is an end to all commerce. It may be, that these men, Rolo and Pedro Blanco, may have sold a thousand slaves for dollars, and may have paid a debt to Rolo, and with that Rolo may have paid somebody else, who may have bought the goods of Mr. Zulueta—I wish to know, whether Mr. Zulueta for that is to be accused of dealing in slaves, or shipping goods to dealers in slaves? There is nothing of the kind, as far as regards that part of the evidence, relating to the character of the place, or as relating to the character of the parties there. My answer to that is, that, however well known to Captain Denman and Captain Hill, it was unknown to Pedro de Zulueta; that he neither knew the place nor the persons, but that there was such a place to which his house had, without a suspicion, shipped considerable quantities of goods for their foreign correspondents—and it would be hard and cruel to say, that because other people possess a knowledge that he does not, he is to be charged as a felon—because he did not know what other parties, who had passed the latter part of their lives upon the spot, knew.
But, Gentlemen, a great deal has been said upon the mode in which this was to be carried into effect; and they say, because this vessel was bought really by Martinez & Co., and with their money—but Captain Jennings was made the captain, and Captain Jennings was made the apparent owner; therefore, that is a mark of suspicion, that is a concealment, that is putting a false colour upon the transaction—and therefore you are to infer that the transaction was with some guilty intent with respect to the slave trade. Upon that, in the first instance, I would say, this is not an indictment against Mr. Zulueta for putting an English captain on board a foreign ship, and treating it as an English ship—such a proceeding is not, that I am aware of, contrary to the law at all; and it can only be important in this case, if the nature of the transaction is such as necessarily to lead you to infer that the object of the transaction was connected with the slave trade.