5319. _Mr. W. Patten_.] Have you any other observation which you wish to make upon Dr. Madden’s Report?--At page 28, on “The result of the efforts at present in use for the suppression of the slave trade,” Dr. Madden mentions “The disappointment the captors experience at seeing all their arduous efforts for hindering the slave trade factories from receiving their supplies from the foreign vessels engaged in this trade completely nullified by the proceedings of our own merchants and commanders of merchant-vessels, who supply them with the identical goods and stores which they capture the foreign vessels for conveying to the coast.” Now I wish particularly, with reference to that statement, to say, that foreign vessels are never captured for having _goods_ of any description on board of them. There appears to have been some error entertained as to the grounds on which the vessel called the Dos Amigos, which has been mentioned before, was condemned. That vessel was condemned at Sierra Leone, and in the report which the Commissioners made to Government, they stated that the Dos Amigos had been allowed to lie in Cape Coast Roads fully equipped for the slave trade. It seems to have been supposed that our complaint was, that she was carrying _goods_ for the supply of the slave trade; but no vessel, either British or foreign, has ever been condemned at Sierra Leone on account of the description of goods that she was carrying. 5320. What is the object which you have in calling the attention of the Committee to that statement; is it to deny that statement?--There is a good deal of evidence in the papers before the Committee on the case of the Dos Amigos. The impression seems to have been, that the complaint of the mixed commission court at Sierra Leone against the Governor of Cape Coast Castle, was, that he allowed a vessel to trade at Cape Coast, which was afterwards captured there as a slave trader. Now the ground of complaint was quite distinct, namely, that he allowed a vessel with _equipments_ on board for the slave trade to be in a British harbour with impunity; it had nothing to do with the goods whatever. 5321. _Chairman._] You do not believe that it would be lawful to seize and condemn a foreign vessel for conveying to a slave trader goods and stores that are not included in the equipment article?--I do not. 5322. Therefore the expression is incorrect that our commanders of British cruizers must “experience disappointment at seeing all their arduous efforts for hindering the slave trade factories from receiving their supplies from the foreign vessels engaged in this trade completely nullified by the proceedings of our own merchants and commanders of merchant vessels who supply them with the identical goods and stores, which they capture the foreign vessels for conveying to the coast”?--It is impossible that they can feel disappointment about what never happened.