342
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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.
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 yesterday. When stated, they will shew that since this state on the 10th ultimo, as recorded in my letter of the inquiry began, Mrs Caldwell has been sending round to every person from whom she can recollect to have received 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 Committing Justices, will be able to inform the Commission who procured bail for Ma-chow Wong, and whether the Chief Magistrate warned Mr Caldwell that it would be more decent for him to stay away from the inquiry upon his sitting on the 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 afterwards I, by his permission, addressed the Crown witnesses, and the Chinese audience through an Interpreter, and we dared them, telling them what would be the consequence to themselves if they attempted to execute their threats. 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 confirm 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 "Sam-kwei" 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.
I cannot understand how, after my repeated and solemn references to the danger of employing Mr Caldwell in any matter of State or Police—of which my official correspondence with the Executive Government subsequently to the proceedings in Executive Council, furnish some of the instances—His Excellency or any member of his government would venture 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 principle of all jurisprudence, "Contra spoliatorem, omnia præsumuntur."
I make these observations, because I am informed 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 inquiries of Mr D'Almada, [Clerk of the Councils,] 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.
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-Pré, 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 personal 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. These correspondence with Mr Dixson, printer, in the China Mail of October last, will show the extraordinary 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.
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. Eye-witnesses have assured 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 Commission 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 charge against Mr Caldwell with respect to them, was not that those entries were true, but that he has always acted as if they were true, and although they were brought to his knowledge, continued to the last steadily and zealously to befriend the pirate, whose hand had recorded them.
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Appendix A to my letter of the 13th May, is a document prepared from Chinese information with a view to the proceedings 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. 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 mentioned in my letter of the 13th. That application having been made as a friend of the convict, was of necessity acceded to by Mr May, the Superintendent of Police, under His Excellency's orders. Mr May therefore is here the proper witness, and I do hope that he will be examined as to it.
The result of the surrender of the one set of documents and the loss or destruction of the rest, is simply this: The Commission must now have recourse either to secondary evidence of their contents, or, which would be the fairest and more reasonable method, to the rule to which I have already adverted, of presuming every thing against the despoiler.
I have not charged that any wife of the pirate after his conviction found a shelter in Mr Caldwell's house, but that the statement had been made to me, and that the affair of the application at the Police office induced me rather to give credit to that statement. I say so still, and Mr May to whom the statement was made, did but repeat it to me. This I believe to be the woman who had been previously mentioned in one of my letters to the Colonial Secretary, now in evidence before the Commission. It is notorious that Mr Caldwell's house is the resort for numbers of the wives and families of the Chinese. I have seen them myself coming out of his house.
In contrast with the course taken in the case of supposed pirates, I may mention another circumstance which occurred about the same time, and I think on the same day. A respectable Chinese trader, so it was represented to me by Mr Cooper Turner, his attorney, had arrived in the Colony with a quantity of merchandize. Before he could dispose of it he was seized by Mr Caldwell and thrown into prison under the deportation ordinance, as a suspected or dangerous character, and upon no other charge. Mr Cooper Turner applied to me for the liberation of the man upon heavy bail, not believing there was any opposition to it. I said, that when the application was made in form, I would grant it; it was made in form, and Mr Caldwell opposed it. He said, he believed that the man was a very bad character, and had been guilty of some offence which he did not specify; he was not prepared with any witnesses, but would get them in a few days. He said he could not give me an inkling into the case, for if he did, it would frustrate a great plan he had in view, for the detection and seizure of a great number of other offenders. I very reluctantly consented that the application for bail should stand over for a few days, when Mr Caldwell undertook to be prepared. He did not tell me that he had any intention to cause the man to be deported, or I should have liberated him on bail; but the Phoebe Dunbar, which was then taking on board her Emigrants for deportation to Hainan, sailed in two or three days afterwards, having, as I was afterwards to my great indignation informed, this merchant on board.
The deportation ordinance was not intended to apply to any case where security for the good character of the suspected person was offered. The books—particularly the Visiting Justices' book—of the Gaol, for the years 1857-8, contain other, and perhaps more glaring, proofs of the capricious and improper manner in which Mr Caldwell, as a Justice of the Peace, exercises his power of commitment. I suggest that the Commission send for those books. I refer particularly to a minute in the Visiting Justices' book during this year, signed by a member of this commission (Mr Lyall) and myself.
I think there were about five-and-twenty people, whom I discharged on the occasion next in question. I was sitting in my rota as Justice of the Peace, according to a then recently gazetted arrangement. The police brought them up, and charged them with being notorious pirates. The deportation ordinance was then in full vigour, and my thought was to send them before His Excellency in Executive Council for deportation. But Mr Caldwell came before me, and on oath declared them to be peaceful traders: upon and not pirates not reputed pirates. This was in January, 1857, I think. At all events I had not then formed more than a very unpleasant suspicion of Mr Caldwell as stated in my first examination. I therefore gave credit to Mr Caldwell's evidence of reputation in favour of the accused, and there was only evidence of the Police to reputation of the opposite kind. I discharged every one of those persons on his application, ordering at the same time their boats to be restored. 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.
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 injustice of making him responsible at the time of the conversations, for actions and incidents of his early...