5171. What other items had they reason to complain of besides the one you have mentioned, of the heavy duty upon the article?--With regard to translating documents. I pressed this evil very strongly upon the Government at home, and they have remedied that since. It was found that very great benefit arose to the court from translating all documents almost that were found on board detained slavers, because, in consequence of those translations, we were able to condemn many vessels which would have escaped if it had not been for the translation of papers found on board former vessels, which gave a full history of the transactions in which those vessels subsequently taken were engaged. The translations were made at a heavy expense, and were included in the captor’s expenses, and it could not be avoided; it fell very heavily, indeed, upon the captors; and I recommended that the translator should be adopted by the court, and paid in the same way as other officers of the court, and that his remuneration should be charged in the contingent expenses, which are borne equally by the British Government and the foreign Government, so as to relieve the captors altogether. The court felt a delicacy when they would have wished to have a translation of particular papers, in having it done, because the expense fell so very heavily upon the captors. 5172. Mr. _W. Patten_.] Doctor Madden recommends that “the captors should be allowed to furnish their own interpretation of the documents that require to be translated, subject to the approval and revision of the British Commissioners?”--That is impossible, you can never allow a man to interpret in his own cause. If you left it to the captor to decide upon what papers he would have translated, he would have none translated, if the condemnation of his vessel was secure without it; but now there is no inducement to captors to withhold papers, because the whole expense of the translation is at present borne by the Government. 5173. _Chairman._] In consequence of suggestions made to the Government here?--Yes; in consequence of suggestions made in 1839. 5174. Mr. _W. Patten_.] Doctor Madden also says, “in many cases more than half the prize-money that the captors had reason to expect is swallowed up in the charges made by the various officers at Sierra Leone employed in taking care, and ultimately disposing of the effects of the captured vessel.” Do you know what are the charges that would come under the other charge?--Yes.