But before my departure, I had satisfaction to learn that the exposure, which had taken place was beginning to encourage the people to come forward and make complaints against powerful oppressors, the pirate Mah Chow Wong had taken steps to ensure a full and searching inquiry into such charges. Within two weeks from the 10th, I believe, purely in consequence of two different charges of piracy, twenty-third and twenty-fourth days –
Sec. printed Report of the Caldwell Commission, p. 7, and printed thankfully in Fifth Report, forty-eighth, forty-ninth, twenty my Report, and as mentioned at Labuan; - having been detained, however, a long time in Hong Kong, during the intervening negotiations for his pardon.
17. - Nor was the piracy in question a solitary instance of the guilt of the convict, Mah Chow Wong. He was, and had been for years, notoriously a chief pirate and resetter of pirates in the China Seas; and the notoriety of his connection with piracy had produced, in the minds of many Europeans, a conviction of the guilty character of that connection, before the Caldwell Commission.
On the 3rd Sept 1857, I being absent at Calcutta, Mah Chow Wong was tried and convicted. The charge selected was the first and least serious charge; and a nolle prosequi was entered on the other charges - 28 May, 28 June, 10th and 13th July, 15th, 17th, 18th. It seemed further remarkable for the strenuous efforts of Mr. Caldwell on his behalf, who retained and instructed the legal advisors of the pirates, examined witnesses, and gave evidence in person.
Mah Chow Wong was sentenced to transportation, and he is now undergoing that penalty. It had also transpired, through the examination of the papers and books of the pirates, published for general information by Government in the Hong Kong Government Gazette of the 23rd April 1859, that they also contained evidence of the piratical operations of Mah Chow Wong.
18. There is little doubt that the convict relied firmly upon obtaining a verdict in his favour, I being absent from the Colony, and Mr. Caldwell being actively engaged in his defence. Otherwise, there appears to have been nothing to restrain him from flight: for he was out on bail, and what the substance of that security was, albeit 'guaranteed' by Mr. Caldwell, I have already shown.
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Referring to the evidence of the deceived Magistrate who took the bail, it was shown that even a suspicion of the truth had not occurred to my own mind.
GR1178/1922/32(III)
XCR(85)72