COPY OF A LETTER
FROM
MESSRS. ZULUETA & CO. TO LORD VISCOUNT SANDON.
My Lord,
London, 25 April, 1842.
A letter has been addressed to us under date of the 15th inst., by Mr.
R. R. Gibbons, sending to us, at your Lordship’s desire, a copy of Dr.
Madden’s Report on the Gold Coast of Africa, and its dependencies, and
stating that this is done in consideration of “our being personally
interested therein, but that we are to consider it as entirely
confidential.”
In common with all other merchants in this city, we may of course be
said to possess more or less of a professional interest in all matters
which relate to commerce.
As having occasionally executed shipping orders for ports in the coast
of Africa, on foreign account, of lawful merchandise, lawfully, and
therefore publicly cleared at Her Majesty’s Customs, in lawful
vessels, and as far as we, as mere shipping agents, could be supposed
or expected to know, to the best of our knowledge, for no unlawful
purpose, without any other interest or emolument in the operation
antecedent or subsequent to the shipment than that of the simple and
regular commission usually charged in, or legitimately connected with
the invoice, and possessing no control, direct or indirect, over
either vessels or goods, from the moment they left the shores of Great
Britain, we may perhaps be supposed to feel a more direct interest in
whatsoever throws light on the subject of trade with ports with which,
in the course of our mercantile career, we may have had general
business transactions, although they have not been either extensive or
frequent.
Still more as shippers, in the form and capacity just described, and
in no other, of a cargo consisting not only of legal, but even
unsuspected merchandise on board the English schooner Augusta, Captain
Jennings, the Report of Dr. Madden, as a document in which the capture
of that vessel is alluded to, may also be supposed to form an
interesting piece of information, whatever its merits may be in other
respects.
Such is the nature and the extent of the interest which we acknowledge
to possess in the Report of Dr. Madden, neither more nor less; and we
submit that, in describing it as personal, a supposition is advanced
which, considering the nature of that Report, we have reason to deem
unfavourable to our characters, which the facts will not justify, and
which we may say, even appearances will not warrant.
The Report brings together a number of transactions, not one of which
have we even the remotest knowledge until the perusal of it, with the
sole exception of the case of the Augusta. Now, as when looking at
them together as a whole, and in conjunction with the other facts,
most probably equally unknown to us, which in the course of the
investigation now carried on before the Committee may be brought
forward, there is no telling to what extent the association of our
name with the matters of the Report may be carried, we have thought it
right to explain to your Lordship what kind of interest we have no
objection to be supposed to possess in the perusal of Dr. Madden’s
Report, or in the inquiry now before the Committee. Beyond casual
shipments in the manner described, and the acceptance of credits
opened at our establishments by parties abroad, in behalf of parties
resident in that coast, we have not even one single correspondent, or
have we even consigned or sold, or in fact transacted any business
whatsoever, or had any intercourse with individuals resident in those
parts. We possess no interest in the trade with them, and even the
agency for buying and shipping, which now and then we have had, is so
insignificant, that we look with the most perfect indifference, as may
easily be believed by any one who knows any thing of our business, as
to any future legislation which may be the result of the present
Parliamentary inquiry, or, indeed, as to any construction which may be
put upon that now in existence. It is not, therefore, with the view of
in any degree influencing the deliberations of the Committee, or of
offering any remark on the facts or on the opinions contained in Dr.
Madden’s Report, that we address your Lordship. Let the result of the
labours of the Committee be what they may, and let the merits or the
influence of Dr. Madden’s Report be what it may, whatever legislation
may emanate from these proceedings, as a matter of business, it is of
no moment to us, and therefore it is not our intention to throw the
weight of a feather in the balance. Our sole object is to place our
position in its true light; and the simple fact of our possessing no
interest whatever, either personal or otherwise, in any branch of
trade with the coast of Africa, much less with that lamentable branch
of it which, much before the law was carried to even its present
extent, our firm has shunned in all its branches and ramifications
during an existence in business of more than seventy years,
independent of the consideration of its illegality, without partaking
in many of the views entertained by others concerning it, but from the
principle of not wishing to derive profit or advantage from the
sufferings of humanity, whether avoidable or unavoidable.
We have, &c.
(signed)
_Zulueta & Co._
HOUSE OF COMMONS.
_Select Committee on West Coast of Africa._
R. R. GIBBONS, Esq. to MESSRS. ZULUETA & CO.
Gentlemen,
July 13th, 1842.
I am desired by Lord Sandon, the chairman of this committee, to
forward to you copies of evidence taken before them, in which your
house is mentioned; and I am to acquaint you that if you are desirous
of making any statement thereon, either personally or by letter, the
committee will be ready to receive the same.