5419. In selling goods to a man who has no other means of gaining his livelihood than by applying those goods for the purposes of the slave trade, there can be no doubt of the guilty knowledge?--I should think not; but if I were a juror I should have to satisfy my own conscience that there was a guilty knowledge. I am no lawyer; this is only the opinion of a private person. 5420. Can you conceive a stronger proof of guilty knowledge than such a transaction as that would furnish?--I think I should decide that there was a guilty knowledge, taking the case supposed, that the seller knew there was no other way in which the purchaser would employ the goods sold to him than in the slave trade; if I were a juror I think I should find him guilty in that case under the Act of Parliament; I should consider the guilty knowledge to be proved. 5421. _Chairman._] You appear to be in favour of the proposal for taking bond from the person selling the vessel, that such vessel shall not be employed within a certain period in the slave trade?--That they should take bond that the vessel should not be immediately sold to a slave dealer; but the difficulty would be in following the vessel through successive transfers. 5422. Can you suggest any means of so framing that bond as to escape the difficulty which pervades the enforcing the provisions of the existing Act of Parliament, on account of the necessity of establishing guilty knowledge?--I think I could to a certain extent. The case once came before me at Sierra Leone; I was consulted by one of the officers of the Mixed Commission Court on the subject of the sale of a vessel of his; he knew perfectly well that if he had sold that vessel to a slave dealer, we should immediately dismiss him from his situation, and he came to consult me respecting the person who had offered to buy the vessel. He had inquired about him, and there was some sort of suspicion, and I told him that I could not allow him, as an officer of the court, to sell this vessel to that person, unless he took bond to a sufficient amount that the vessel should not be sold again to a slave dealer, so that if the vessel, whilst in the possession of the person to whom he sold her, should be captured, the bond should be considered as violated, and he should be liable to the penalty. But I do not think you can carry the restriction beyond the first purchaser: but if the vessel, whilst in the hands of the first purchaser, should be seized for slave dealing, the penalty of the bond might be enforced. 5423. But would you not find it difficult to make that effective, from the facility that exists for the transfer of the vessel to other parties?--Yes; I do not think the restriction could be carried beyond the first purchaser.