15,870. Therefore, if any application should be made to the Board of Trade afterwards for production of these returns under this Commission, you have no objection to their being regarded as part of your evidence given upon oath?-None; and in continuation of the report, I will refer to the fact that I have been examined before you.
15,871. You are aware that before 1867 the wages of seamen returning from Greenland voyages and landed in Shetland were never paid at the Custom House?-In some cases they were, but very seldom.
15,872. Do you also know from your own observation, and from what you heard at the time, that those seamen were generally running large accounts with the agents, by whom they were secured for these sealing and whaling voyages?-I was aware of that from the statements of the seamen, themselves.
15,873. In numerous cases?-Yes, in numerous cases.
15,874. In almost every case?-I believe so.
15,875. In what way did these statements come to be made to you?-The seamen often came and complained to me that they were not paid off. It may perhaps be proper to explain that at that time, before the special Board of Trade regulations were issued, the masters should have come and paid off the seamen. I may add further, that I am aware that every means was taken by the agents to keep the masters of the Peterhead and Dundee vessels from coming and discharging their men in cases where it would have been attended with no inconvenience.
15,876. In what way did you become aware of that?-I got numbers of letters from the masters stating that they were unable to attend themselves with the men. These letters, so sent to me, were often written by the agents, but signed by the masters.
15,877. Did you know them to be in the handwriting of the agents?-Yes, or of their clerks; and on inquiring at the captains when they came back to engage men again, some of them told me that the agents desired them to do so.
15,878. Not to pay the men?-Yes, not to pay the men. In these letters they stated that they often wished the men to appear, but that they (the men) ran away home; which statement the men subsequently told was incorrect.
15,879. At that time, was the payment of these Greenland seamen at Lerwick subject to the same general regulations which were in force in other parts of the empire?-Yes. There were instructions to shipping masters at that time.