468
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The omitted passages refer to the place of residence of the Chinese. I mention this only as an instance, but I could give many more, and Mr May is aware of three which were the subject of a conversation between us yesterday. When stated, they will shew that since this inquiry began, Mrs Caldwell has been sending round to every person from whom she can recollect to have re- ceived what they call presents, and desiring them, if called upon, to deny having given such presents, for that the charges are false.
Mr May and the Chief Magistrate, who were the Com- mitting Justices, will be able to inform the Commission who procured bail for Ma-chow Wong, and whether the Chief
129 Magistrate warned Mr Caldwell that it would be more de-
cent for him to stay away from the inquiry upon his sitting on Kthe bench, and offering suggestions favourable to the culprit. It came out in evidence before the Chief Magistrate, while I was present, that the witnesses in one of the cases were threatened with personal violence by Ma-chow Wong's friends and I think either then or upon a previous day, as much as $1,000 was offered to buy off one or more of the Crown witnesses. The Chief Magistrate himself, and after- wards I, by his permission, addressed the Crown witnesses, and the Chinese audience through an Interpreter, and we dared them, at least I did, to execute their threats-telling them what would be the consequence to themselves if they attempted it. This was my last appearance in any Court before proceeding the following week to India on sick leave. Captain Twiss and Mr Hannen, who were with me, can con- firm what took place in Court that day.
It was on that occasion that, as stated in my letter, some of the business accounts of the pirate's hong were produced and read. I distinctly remember several entries of monies entered to Samkwei's credit. The word "Samkwei" was the first word I heard upon entering the Court.
As to the bail having been but a month before in prison for debt--the man himself, Szekai, has proved that--and also that he was or had been Mr Caldwell's servant.
That Mr Caldwell was guilty of the denial referred to in my letter, is, I apprehend, admitted; it certainly is proved; whether it is audacious is a matter of inference, and I adhere to the expression. I heard His Excellency state on the 10th ultimo, as recorded in my letter of the 13th, that the reason why Ma-chow Wong was not pardoned was that his accounts and paper were ascertained to contain such evidence of the man's systematic guilt, as to make his pardon impossible. Mr Caldwell having denied that they contained any evidence of guilt, it follows that Mr May's two memoranda, and Mr Wade's certificate were the materials which His Excellency had before him, and on which he formed his judgment. 1 know that those memoranda were in existence within a week
before. Mr Wade proceeded with Lord Elgin to the North.
Mr Wade and I had a long conversation about them and their contents about that time, and he told me there was no doubt that the accounts and papers contained the evidence of the convict's guilt. He further stated, "By the by, I have finish- fed my certificate upon the whole of those papers," and he added either that he had sent them in, or that he would send them in without delay.
I cannot understand how, after my repeated and solema references to the danger of employing Mr Caldwell in matter of State or Police-of which my official correspondence any
with the Executive Government subsequently to the pro- ceedings in Executive Council, furnish some of the instances- His Excellency or any member of his government would vert ture upon the destruction of a single portion, much less the whole, of what I must pronounce to be the damning proofs of his guilt. I submit to the Commission, that this spoliation of evidence compels them to act upon the universal prin- ciple of all jurisprudence, "Contra spoliatorern, omnia pre- sumuntur.” I make these observations, because I am in- formed that shortly before, or shortly after, the ventilation of the subject-matter of the present inquiry, Mr Mongan having consulted the Executive Government through one of its officers as to what was to be done with the Ma-chow Wong papers still in his hands, was directed to destroy them. Not a syllable of this transpired, until subsequent to Mr May's examination before the Commission in this case. I had made
I wish to add, if Mr May be asked he will disclose a still more flagrant attempt to leave Ma-chow Wong at liberty to escape, to which Mr Caldwell's present assistant, Mr Grand-myself inquiries of Mr D'Almada, [Clerk of the Councils,] Pre, was party. I refer to the fact of Ma-chow Wong having been allowed by Mr Grand-Pré to remain an entire night, more than 12 hours, at entire liberty upon his per- sonal parole. This was immediately before he was called upon to find bail.
As to the proceedings in Executive Council, Mr Dixson has proved, Mr Lane and Mr May will prove, what took place there. There correspondence with Mr Dixson, printer, in the China Mail of October last, will show the extraordi- nary method taken by His Excellency in dealing with the case, and which had the effect of putting at least one witness upon his trial on that occasion. I presume those papers are on record in the Colonial Secretary's office; if not the Newspaper will speak for itself.
who was sent for by the Commission on that occasion, and all that he told me was, that they had disappeared, and no one knew what had become of them. It was next suggested that they were probably in the hands of Mr Wade. I then volunteered my evidence to the Commission, which shewed that that was impossible; and now at the last moment it is suggested they have been burned.
Ear-witnesses have as- sured me, that Mr Caldwell did admit at the trial at the Supreme Court his character of partner in a Lorcha with Ma- chow Wong and that his share in it was still undisposed of. I was then in India, but I believe the Commision have in evidence before them a letter from Mr Caldwell to the same. effect. The entries that appeared in the destroyed documents, will be proved by those who read or prepared them. My
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charge against Mr Caldwell with respect to them, was not that until it was mentioned by Mr May, in his letter on the those entries were true, but that he has always acted as if occasion referred to. they were true, and although they were brought to his know- ledge, continued to the last steadily and zealously to befriend the pirate, whose hand had recorded them,
His Excellency has not inserted amongst what he calls my charges, the application made by Mr Caldwell at the Police office for the residue of the pirate's books and papers men- tioned in my letter of the 13th. That application having been made as a friend of the convict, was of necessity acceded
Appendix A to my letter of the 13th May, is a document prepared from Chinese information with a view to the pro- ceedings against Ma-chow Wong, and not with a view to any proceedings against Mr Caldwell. Mr May lent it to me for my perusal, and I thought it so important, that I copied it. It throws much light upon a great deal of my evidence of to-day.
In contrast with the course taken in the case of sup- to by Mr May, the Superintendent of Police, under His Excel-posed pirates, I may mention another circumstance which lency's orders. Mr May therefore is here the proper witness, occurred about the same time, and I think on the same day. and I do hope that he will be examined as to it. The result A respectable Chinese trader, so it was represented to me by of the surrender of the one set of documents, and the loss or Mr Cooper Turner, his attorney, had arrived in the Colony Before he could dispose of destruction of the rest, is simply this: The Commission must with a quantity of merchandize. now have recourse either to secondary evidence of their it he was seized by Mr Caldwell and thrown into prison contents, or, which would be the fairest and more reasonable under the deportation ordinance, as a suspected or dangerous method to the rule to which I have already adverted, of pre-character, and upon no other charge. Mr Cooper Turner ap. suming every thing against the despoiler. I have not charg- plied to me for the liberation of the man upou heavy bail, ed that any wife of the pirate after his conviction found a not believing there was any opposition to it. I said, that shelter in Mr Caldwell's house, but that the statement had when the application was made in form, I would grant it; it been made to me, and that the affair of the application at the was made in form, and Mr Caldwell opposed it. He said, he Police office induced me rather to give credit to that state- believed that the man was a very bad character, and had ment. I say so still, and Mr May to whom the statement been guilty of some offence which he did not specify; he was was made, did but repeat it to me. This I believe to be the not prepared with any witnesses, but would have them in a woman who had been previously mentioned in one of my few days. He said he could not give me an inkling into the letters to the Colonial Secretary, now in evidence before the case, for if he did, it would frustrate a great plan he had in Commission. It is notorious that Mr Caldwell's house is the view, for the detection and seizure of a great number of resort for numbers of the wives and families of the Chinese. other offenders. I very reluctantly consented that the appli- I have seen them myself coming out of his house.
cation for bail should stand over for a few days, when Mr I think there were about five-and-twenty people, whom I Caldwell undertook to be prepared. He did not tell me that discharged on the occasion next in question. I was sitting he had any intention to cause the man to be deported, or I - in my rota as Justice of the Peace, according to a then recently should have liberated him on bail; but the Phebe Dunbar, gazetted arrangement. The police brought them up, and which was then taking on board her Emigrants for deporta- charged them with being notorious pirates. The deportation tion to Hainan, sailed in two or three days afterwards, hav- ordinance was then in full vigour, and my thought was to ing, as I was afterwards to my great indignation informed, The deportation ordinance was not send them before His Excellency in Executive Council for this merchant on board. deportation. But Mr Caldwell came before me, and upon intended to apply to any case where security for the good oath declared them to be peaceful traders, and not pirates character of the suspected person was offered. The books nor reputed pirates. This was in January, 1857, I think. —particularly the Visiting Justices book-of the Gaol, for At all events I had not then formed more than a very un- the years 1857-8, contain other, and perhaps more glaring, pleasant suspicion of Mr Caldwell as stated in my first proofs of the capricious and improper manner in which Mr examination.
I therefore gave credit to Mr Caldwell's Caldwell, as a Justice of the Peace, exercises his power of evidence of reputation in favour of the accused, and there commitment. I suggest that the Commission send for those was only evidence of the Police to reputation of the opposite books. I refer particularly to a minute in the Visiting Justices' kind. I discharged every one of those persons on his appli-book during this year, signed by a member of this Commission cation, ordering at the same time their boats to be restored. (Mr Lyall) and myself.
I therefore repeat what I said in my letter of the 13th on this subject, with what I have added there, viz., that within the last few weeks I had been informed by Mr May they were in fact pirates, and that the circumstances were such as to make it impossible for Mr Caldwell not to know of the fact. I am not certain whether I made any record of this case at the time, but if I did it will be found amongst the papers at
the Police Court.
CHARLES MAY, Superintendent of Police,--Called and examined.
The preliminary remarks regarding my intimacy with Mr Caldwell, which I made on my previous examination, apply to this branch of the inquiry also. The conversations I had with Mr Caldwell on the subject of what he considered the I had banished it from my recollection, injustice of making him responsible at the time of the conver-