6785*. Do you conceive yourself entitled to do this under instructions, under treaties, or entirely upon your own responsibility, without any direct authority?--I consider that it might have been done upon my own responsibility entirely, upon the footing that the law of nations can afford no sort of recognition of the dealing in slaves by Spaniards in a foreign country. And secondly, that those persons were criminals by their own laws, and could not look to protection from their own government. So long as the slave trade was clearly and distinctly separated from legitimate trade, I consider that such proceedings would have been perfectly justifiable. 6786. Supposing a native chief had collected slaves in barracoons upon his own territory for exportation, should you then have felt yourself justified in destroying such places?--I should have considered myself justified in following the same system there, upon the ground that the native chiefs are not recognized amongst the nations of the world; they are in a barbarous state, and the law of nations, in my opinion, cannot apply to them further than for their own good and their own protection, and I should have considered the destruction of those buildings and the taking off the slaves as an act most directly and most importantly tending to their own good and benefit. 6787. Captain _Fitzroy_.] It has appeared in evidence before this Committee that the Pluto sailed from Fernando Po, under orders from the Admiralty, to destroy any barracoons or other slaving establishments that she might meet with in various parts of the coast, not being the property of Europeans; were similar instructions issued to the officers on that coast while you were there?--I saw instructions to that effect a few weeks before I left that coast. 6788. From the Admiralty?--From the Admiralty. 6789. _Chairman._] Have you been at the Gallinas since?--Yes, I have been three or four times at the Gallinas. 6790. Has the effect of what you did been to put down the slave trade, or to what extent has it done so?--It has nearly broken up the system then followed, except as regards the south-east branch of the river, upon which a place called Soolimane stands; there was, when I was at the river, a small factory there, which I did not destroy, as I had no case against it, and this is the factory which Captain Blount has recently destroyed. In the part where I went, it does not appear that any slave trade has sprung up again.