5292. _Chairman._] Would there be an advantage if the proceedings of the Vice-Admiralty Court were always communicated to the Mixed Commission?--Yes; and I recommended at the time when vessels began to go so frequently to the Vice-Admiralty Court, in 1839, that we should be informed of the papers filed in that court. 5293. Would there be any difficulty or objection to that?--There is no establishment of clerks connected with the Vice-Admiralty Court to supply copies at all, and it is not the custom of the judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court to report his proceedings home. 5294. Mr. _Evans_.] Do you think that the Mixed Commission Court has sufficient power for the objects for which it is instituted?--I think that they have. They have been rather shy of exercising it sometimes, but I believe that they do possess much more power than they ever exercised. 5295. You have no improvement in the court to suggest?--No. There seemed to be a deficiency of authority in the marshal a short time ago; but that was supplied by a local Act, which gave him all the power which the marshal of the Vice-Admiralty Court possesses. 5296. _Chairman._] It is stated by Dr. Madden, in page 14, that the new interests which he supposes to be created in the minds of the British residents, especially in the minds of the liberated negroes, “have a very unfavourable influence upon them when employed in public situations, or called upon to act as petty juries in our courts.” He states, “if the case is one which involves the interest of a slave dealer, no matter what his nation, the disposition of a jury thus composed is invariably to give a verdict in favour of the slave trader, unless the chief justice should take extraordinary pains to make them do their duty honestly and impartially.” Do you know instances in which this has operated?--No; I believe it never operated in any case. 5297. What are the cases in which slave dealers come before juries in Sierra Leone?--Slave dealers have come before them, and been convicted and executed; I never knew an instance of a man who ought to have been convicted escaping.