“Eight days after his examination above mentioned, the boy Caffiero re-appears as a witness (viz., April 18th) with a story entirely new, and which, if credible, would be extremely material; because he affects to speak of facts which had before rested on the hearsay evidence of Villalunga, but of which facts Caffiero now, after the lapse of eight days, represents himself to have been an eye-witness. On this his re-appearance, however, he carefully abstains from giving any date, either day of the week, or month, or even season of the year. This cautious avoiding of dates may not unfairly be attributed to the variance between himself and Villalunga, in their respective journals of the illness of Fenic’s children. Caffiero now says, ‘I knew Salvo and Catalina Fenic, and went on board ship with them; I do not recollect the day. We went on board a three-masted ship. I do not recollect to what nation it belonged. We remained on deck and did not go below. We remained on board about one hour. Fenic, the father, took us on board; he rowed the boat himself; he ate and drank on board, and then brought a bundle of clothes on shore.’
“Until this time, neither he nor Villalunga said anything about a bundle of clothes.
“This boy’s second evidence thus proceeds:—‘I did not understand the language of the people on board the ship; they appeared to speak like Jews or Moors. I did not go on board more than once. When we landed on the wharf, the Maltese,’ i.e. Fenic, ‘gave me some money, a pistoreen, and told me not to say anything to anybody about our having been on board.’
“The effect which this was designed to produce is obvious, viz., that the ship visited was in quarantine, and Fenic, the Maltese, was conscious that he had committed an offence against the quarantine laws which rendered it necessary for his own safety that he should bribe this boy to secrecy. This story is full of incongruities; it is not probable that a man should select for his Sunday excursion, to eat, drink, and make merry, a ship in quarantine; it is more improbable still that Fenic should gratuitously place himself in extreme peril, by taking with him (to be witnesses of his offence) children of the artless ages of 10, 11, and 13, on an expedition which, in his own judgment, as demonstrated by his own act, he is convinced exposes him to severe punishment.
“But with regard to the ship ‘Dygden,’ I find that she had already received pratique, and had been admitted to free intercourse with the shore, on the 6th of August, four days previously to the alleged visit of Fenic, the date of which, notwithstanding Caffiero’s loss of memory on his second examination, had already been ascertained by Villalunga to have been Sunday, August 10th, on which day Fenic, therefore, could commit no crime by going on board; and the story of the bribe and injunction to secrecy resolves itself into a clumsy and ill-disguised attempt at giving a colour of guilt to a fabulous occurrence which, even if it had been real, would have been guiltless.
“His second evidence concludes thus:—‘My mother was a washerwoman, and washed for a black woman who lived next her. Fenic’s wife refused to wash the bundle of clothes that he brought ashore; he offered them to my mother, who also refused them; he then gave them to an Englishwoman: I knew her: she is dead: I do not know her name, nor where she lived.’ I find by my notes that he added, ‘This occurred during last winter,’ although the words are not entered upon the minutes. He was then asked, ‘What season of the year was it that you were on board of ship?’ To which he cautiously replied, ‘It was either summer or winter, I believe.’
“Evidence such as this, and given as I saw it given, bears on its face every character of falsehood; and disbelieving as I do this boy’s whole story, and at the same time considering his extreme youth, the testimony given by him has upon my mind the further operation of tainting with more than suspicion all the other evidence proceeding from the same class of witnesses, which consisted chiefly of hearsay in conversation with persons who had since died; because it would seem that this child must have been an instrument in the hands of some one of maturer age.”
The suspicion attached to the second appearance of this child is confirmed by a similar re-appearance of Villalunga, who, after sixteen days’ absence from the Board, on the 24th of April, again presents herself as a witness. She now remembers that Mrs Fenic had asked her to wash some clothes; that she did not wash them, being herself indisposed; but that she was told by Mrs Fenic that she put these clothes out to be washed.
Mr Howell thus comments on this second appearance of Villalunga:—
“I have observed that Caffiero added to his original testimony so much as to give to it a new character altogether; I now observe that six days after Caffiero’s amended testimony, and sixteen days after her own original examination, the woman Villalunga comes back with a new story, of which, singularly enough, the principal point is made to coincide with the alterations and emendations in the evidence of Caffiero.”