10378. Mr. _Forster_.] You advanced the money to Captain Jennings for the purchase of the vessel, Jennings transferring the vessel to you as a security for the amount so advanced?--That is just the description of operation, which is a very general one in business. 10379. _Chairman._] What is the object of such an operation?--I know very little or almost next to nothing of the operations in those parts of the world; but the object of such an operation I apprehend to be this: a vessel chartered with a stranger must be governed by the different clauses of the charter-party; the charterer must be limited to time and to places; and by Martinez having the vessel owned by a man with whom he could have a better understanding than with others, he might always send more advantageously articles from the Havannah to the Gallinas, and from here to the Gallinas. When I say articles, I mean legal articles. 10379*. What advantage would there be in Mr. Jennings taking the articles rather as the owner than as captain under Martinez; was not he commander of the vessel as well as owner of the vessel?--Yes. 10380. He is made the owner, instead of being captain?--He is the owner as well as the captain of the vessel; he stands indebted to Martinez, and gives a bottomry bond for the vessel. 10380*. Does Mr. Jennings upon this transaction make all the freight to his own profit?--Certainly, whatever he does is to his own profit. 10381. He is not, then, an agent for Martinez?--No, he is a person to whom Martinez lends the money to buy the vessel; whatever profit he derives is his own. Martinez has this advantage, which to a mercantile man is very perceptible, that he has got a charter with a man who stands in that relation towards him which gives him a sort of control over the vessel. If I as a stranger charter a vessel for Martinez, and he has spent one, two, or five days more in landing goods than the charter-party allows, I should make a claim for it; I should say, “You must keep to the charter.” Now, when Jennings is indebted to him for the favour of a loan for the vessel, he is not upon a similar footing. 10382. So that he gets the vessel more under his own control?--Yes; in saying this I am putting an hypothetical case, but I do not know the mind of Martinez himself. 10383. Mr. _Forster_.] You acted in this transaction merely as agent in the usual manner, as you would have acted for any house in any part of the world?--Exactly; if Martinez had told me, “You have got 500_l._ in your hands, pay that to Captain Jennings,” I should have known nothing more of the transaction; I should have paid the money. But Martinez did not wish to go beyond a certain amount; and he says, “You exercise control, do not allow the man to pay more than 500_l._ for the vessel.”