5056. Where?--In Gallinas, principally, New Sesters, Sherboro’; those are the principal ports in that part; there are others smaller. 5057. For all those ports, of course, Sierra Leone you consider to be the most advantageous position?--Certainly. 5058. Mr. _Forster_.] But in speaking of the amount of slave trade carried on at those places which you have just named, do you speak of those in comparison with the bights, and also with the Spanish and Portuguese settlements to the south of the Line?--I speak of the amount of captures that have been made there. The south was left very nearly in the same state in which the north was. The cruizing of the squadron was almost entirely confined to the bights. 5059. To the south of the Line they could not cruize, could they?--Yes, they could cruize near the Portuguese settlements, for the court practically got over the article in the treaty under which captures were forbidden to the southward of the Line, by establishing, which they did in 1838, the principle, that the national character of any vessel was to be taken from the residence of the owner, the place where he carried on his mercantile business, and also from the course of trade in which the vessel was engaged; and as there could be no foreign Portuguese slave trade, for Portugal has no colonies to supply with slaves, we were sure to make the vessel either Brazilian or Spanish. She was captured under Portuguese colours, and with Portuguese papers, but the treaty had given us a right to search her any where, either north or south; it had not given us the right to detain her south of the Line, if she was _bonâ fide_ Portuguese; but if captured as a Portuguese vessel under the Portuguese flag, and with Portuguese papers, she was sent up to Sierra Leone, and was almost certain to be condemned either as a Brazilian or a Spaniard. 5060. That decision was come to in 1838?--Yes. 5061. Before that time the impression had prevailed that the slave trade from the Portuguese settlements was protected?--There was no seizure to the south of the Line to render a decision necessary; vessels were seized immediately close to the Line, in several cases, and it was never thought of; that was before the Portuguese flag was so much used, and the cause of the Portuguese flag being so much used by slavers, was the Spanish treaty having given the right to seize, on the ground of equipment; that did not take place till 1836. I was at home in that year, and on my return in December 1837, I found that almost every vessel on the coast was sailing under Portuguese colours, and then we met this new circumstance by an alteration in the interpretation of the treaty. 5062. Mr. _Aldam_.] If the owner had been a _bonâ fide_ Portuguese, would the vessel have been still condemned?--If the owner had been a Portuguese, resident in Havannah, we should have treated the vessel as a Spanish vessel; and if at Rio Janeiro, we should have treated it as a Brazilian vessel.