This, however, is not the point to which I wish now to refer. The object of this publication, and of the preceding and following remarks, is not any vindication of myself, nor a crimination of the motives of any one beyond what the statement of facts may carry in itself; my vindication I consider ample in the exhibition of the facts themselves--in the verdict of the Jurors, after hearing a trial of two days duration, after a long and elaborate charge delivered when a clear day had elapsed subsequent to the defence--a verdict, which was not agreed to without consideration, which was pronounced by the foreman in the emphatic manner which the crowded Court witnessed, which was received by the spectators, consisting of some of the most respectable merchants, bankers, and professional men of the City of London, who had sat daily and patient witnesses of the proceedings, in a manner which has been noticed by the public press, and echoed by the leading journals of London, of Liverpool, and of other important mercantile cities of Europe. The chief object proposed in this publication, and in these observations, is to place before my brother-merchants, in a connected form, the whole of the facts, which form my case, or rather the case of the firm of Zulueta & Co., from the first communication which preceded my examination before the Committee of the House of Commons, to the close of the proceedings at the Old Bailey, in order that the merchants of England may judge for themselves, and reflect upon the position in which they are placed, as resulting from the principle and doctrines which the proceedings contained in the following pages have disclosed to emanate from an Act of Parliament which has been passed these twenty years, but which has been for the first time tried upon my case. It may be said, that by merchants in general it is hardly known: we all know that dealing in slaves is prohibited, under severe penalties, by the law of England--we know that it is repugnant to the prevailing tone of education, to the opinions and feelings of our people--we know that, at all events, as it is carried on and can only be carried on, it is at variance with the spirit of Christianity, and therefore no man need read an Act of Parliament to abstain from having any, the slightest, concern in or with such a traffic; but even if these considerations were not enough--which England surely will not suffer to be supposed of her own merchants--even if these considerations did not go to the extent of precluding British merchants from laying out their capital on slave adventures, whether for themselves or others’ account, common prudence, in which respectable merchants in this country cannot be said to be deficient, does at once warn a man not to trust his funds to the issue of speculations which afford no security, over which he can exercise no control--so much so, that it is hardly possible to conceive in what