10374. Your whole interest was a commission upon the transaction--Entirely. The extent of those transactions has been so limited in the course of nearly 20 years that we have been in this country, that the amount of the invoices that we have sent out has been something like 20,000_l._ or 22,000_l._ in the course of all that time. That is one part of the operations we have performed. The other operations are the acceptance of bills drawn by people on the coast; among them Pedro Blanco when he was there, upon ourselves, on account of Blanco & Cavallo, of Havannah, upon funds which Blanco & Cavallo had in our hands: for instance, the people at the Havannah, or in Spain, open a credit with us, and we accept the bills of the parties on that credit with us, just the same as we should do with any other correspondent in any other part. 10375. You would have funds in your hands, arising from some commercial transactions between you and the Havannah merchant or the Cadiz merchant; and Pedro Blanco, upon the coast of Africa, would draw upon the credit of those funds, being authorised by the Cadiz or the Havannah merchant?--Yes; and if Pedro Blanco had drawn 5_s._ beyond that, we should have protested, and in some instances we have protested. With regard to the vessel alluded to in this Report, the Augusta, our part in that concern has been simply that which appears from one of the letters: that is to say, Pedro Martinez, of Cadiz, had made choice of Jennings to buy the vessel, and lent him money to buy the vessel; because Pedro Martinez wanted him to have a vessel in the trade, for the purpose of taking his goods to their destination. I have now described the three kinds of operations in which we have been concerned, and our knowledge of all of them terminated with the execution of the orders of our correspondents. We had nothing more to do than to follow the orders of the purchaser in shipping the goods. With regard to the purchase of the vessel by Jennings; Jennings is a man who has been employed some time by Martinez; he has served Martinez as a chartered captain, and Martinez having been satisfied with his services, agreed to lend him that money on the security of the vessel, provided it did not exceed a certain amount; which was all the interference we had with it, just to see that a certain amount was not exceeded, 500_l._ or whatever it was. 10376. Then you were to furnish Captain Jennings with money for the purchase within a limited amount, say 500_l._, credit being given to him upon you by Pedro Martinez, of Cadiz?--That is just the point. 10377. Captain _Fitzroy_.] The Augusta being purchased by money advanced by your house for Martinez & Company of Cadiz; and she then became the property of Pedro Martinez?--No, she became the property of Jennings; the money was lent to Jennings, and he bound himself by giving security on the vessel to answer for the amount. It is a mercantile operation which is not unusual.