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· papers, or forged or dubiety altered ours.
5. The truth to be paid that if this penalty is now further limited by restraining the commanders of these projecting ships from enforcing it, the efficiency of the Act to prevent the abuses which have given rise to some scandal will be materially reduced. A British vessel, for instance, might take passengers on board at a port where there was no British Consul, [Ramoa, perhaps, which is a principal port for Emigrants] and land them at a foreign port where there was likewise no Consul (say, the Chuicha, Lintcha, or Sober Islands!) and though discovered and visited by a British cruizer or voyager, and though the people might be overcrowded and treated as to have produced the excessive mortality which has occurred in former years, the Master would be at liberty to go on his venture, and only be subject to prosecution for misdemeanor if he returned to British territory. Considering the great profits of this trade, we fear that such a penalty, especially so easily evaded, would scarcely have any effect.