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Attorney General—Are you sure of it?
Dr Bridges.—Yes.
Attorney General—Well, these papers were placed in Mr Mongan's hands by order of the Governor, and yet you took it on yourself to order their destruction—You admit that.
Dr Bridges.—I adhere to my former statement.
Attorney General—You were either the payer or the payee of large sums of money in account with Ma-chow Wong—Do you say that Mr May concocted those memoranda?
Dr Bridges.—I deny that there is any contradiction. I shall make no further statement, as the issue is whether Mr May is an unprincipled slanderer of Caldwell or not, which the books were to have proved.
Dr Bridges.—Nobody but you could find any such aspersions. No one supposed at that time that there was any imputation on Mr Caldwell in those documents.
Dr Bridges.—I mean to say that the Governor in Executive Council having put the papers into Mongan's hands, I ordered them to be destroyed.
Attorney General.—The Governor in Executive Council having ordered papers to be placed in Mr Mongan's hands, you undertook to direct him to burn them.
Dr Bridges.—Yes.
Attorney General—Did you tell Mongan they were mere rubbish &c.?
Dr Bridges.—All that took place, I have stated. When Mr Wade left for the North, they were brought from his rooms as part of his furniture, and were given to Mr Mongan.
Attorney General.—I will read deposition as to credibility of May or Caldwell (see page 52 supra)—Now here are two statements; in one you say the papers were all important, in another that they were mere rubbish. I again ask you, did you tell Mr Mongan they were mere rubbish while this question was still unsettled?
Dr Bridges.—I did not, and could not have done so; because the matter was at an end. The depositions mention Beaver's name, and that it was his communication which settled the point.
Attorney General.—Was the Beaver you speak of, the man referred to by Mr May in his memoranda?
Dr Bridges.—Yes.
Attorney General.—Why was it less important to visit Mr May with consequences of his offence in March, than in the previous month of November?
Dr Bridges.—The question touched the credibility of Tong Akui, not Mr May's credibility.
Attorney General.—You have admitted that you read one item, representing that Caldwell was implicated in these memoranda.
Dr Bridges.—I only remember one item about $600 having been paid to or from Mr Caldwell, which he explained was for building some houses in Tai-ping-shan.
Attorney General.—These memoranda are full of aspersions against Mr Caldwell,—Do you deny the correctness of them? (Dr Bridges explains).
Attorney General.—I will not allow Mr Caldwell evidence to be given by you. You have admitted distorted evidence—Do you agree as to the tenor of these memoranda?
Attorney General.—Your conduct tells the Jury its own tale.
Dr Bridges.—I hope your Lordship will ask me any question necessary to elucidate.
Court.—I understand distinctly Dr Bridges's answer in chief as to the disposal of the papers.
Dr Bridges.—And I adhere to that statement.
Attorney General—The witness first makes one statement in answer to the questions of Mr Green—Cross-examined by me, he makes several contradictions. I ask how he makes out that there is no contradiction,—he refuses to explain, and leaves to me the painful duty by-and-by of pointing out to the Jury what these contradictions are. That is all. (Sharply) Where were those papers when you determined to send them to Mr Wade?
Dr Bridges.—I believe they were with Mr Mongan when the Executive Council determined to send them to Mr Wade.
Dr Bridges.—I agree so far as that they are not full of aspersions.
Attorney General.—Oh! we are at word-catching, are we? There should be a special demurrer.
Dr Bridges.—I did not say full of aspersions.
Attorney General.—Do you mean to say that it is not an aspersion to say Caldwell's name—a Police officer's name—appeared in the books of a pirate as the payer or recipient of 600 taels in different amounts?
Attorney General—Do you not know how they got into Mr Mongan's hands?
Dr Bridges.—Mr Mongan can tell you. I have an impression that the Clerk of Council made some communication to Mr Mongan on the subject. I think he showed me the letter, not with a view to this examination. It was only a few days ago, when speaking about the Subpoena duces tecum. I asked him what papers to produce.
Dr Bridges.—If that man had built a house for me, or done other work, it would not be an aspersion.
Attorney General.—Different amounts, action of ejection—you know what that is.
Dr Bridges.—Is there any date to that?
Attorney General.—In what does the date import?
Dr Bridges.—Why a transaction which might be disreputable to a man as a Government servant, might not be so otherwise.
Dr Bridges.—I adhere to all that.
Attorney General.—Now for another,—You will observe—their reports, not their persons. My question had sole reference to that point—The real question, for—nothing else can be inferred, was May rash or Caldwell "Hey fellow well met" with a miscreant and a murderer?
Dr Bridges.—At the time the papers were destroyed, such a question as that never came into my head.
Attorney General.—According to the memoranda, Caldwell...
Attorney General.—Very good; so much being admitted, we will now go to something else. Was Beaver a Pirate?
Dr Bridges.—When he was arrested, he was taken for a pirate.
Attorney General—And by dextrous management, did he not escape?
Dr Bridges.—He escaped punishment—I did not prosecute him.
Attorney General.—Did you not receive a letter from Mr Davies in answer to one you wrote?
Dr Bridges.—To the best of my remembrance, I did not write to Mr Davies to deliver those papers to Mr Mongan or Mr Wade, nor did I receive any letter from him. I may have done so, or I may not, but to the best of my belief, I did not.
Attorney General.—Do you know Mr Collins?
Dr Bridges.—I know a man of the name of Collins—he is Chief Clerk to the Magistracy. I have no letter from Mr Collins on this subject. He may have written to Mr D'Almada on the subject. It is not at all likely he would have written to me.
Attorney General.—In what way could the Governor, except through you, have ordered those papers to be delivered up?
Dr Bridges.—By the Clerk of Councils probably.
Attorney General.—What? In the face of that memo. of 26th January.
Dr Bridges.—Yes. It would have been proper for the Clerk of Councils to write to the Superintendent of Police to send the papers, notwithstanding that order to the offices. In a good many instances, in cases of prisoners, it was done.
Attorney General.—What remembrance or belief have you?
Dr Bridges.—I have no remembrance or belief how Mr May was called to give up the papers. Mr May can tell. I do not know.
Attorney General.—Have you any idea how the documents came to halt one night, or some nights at Mr Davies's office?
Dr Bridges.—None.
Attorney General.—Did you ever see the documents?
Dr Bridges.—To the best of my belief, from first to last, I never saw them. I may have gone into Mr Mongan's room when the documents were there.
Attorney General—Did Mr Mongan ever apply to you till you told him to burn those papers, for instructions in anything?
Dr Bridges.—I think Mr Mongan's application about burning the papers was the first he ever made.
Attorney General.—Why did he apply to you, not being in your department, and never having applied to you on any business before?
Dr Bridges.—I cannot tell beyond the fact of Mongan stating that the Governor had sent him. The Governor, when expressing surprise at the papers having been burnt, did not deny that he had sent Mongan to me.
Attorney General—When was this?
Dr Bridges.—It was about the time, two or three days after it began, of the Sitting of the Caldwell Commission.
Attorney General.—Had you any private conversation with the Governor about those Ma-chow Wong papers before that?
Dr Bridges.—None.
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