Californian Aramex which sailed the "afternoon boat". Sold, some willingly and some unwillingly by their "guardians" to prostitution &c. and quits the Colony after they recoup their investment when "they reach San Francisco. Bulwer has also satisfied us that "Every female in the Express" expressed their "willingness to go at their own request" — after which no further native passengers were received.
In this case, any interference broke down by the determination of the victim to say what she had been told to say, and the Officials must be acquitted of any laxity. The law is helpless. Yet here is the case of girls given for shameful purposes by Chinese being carried out under our eyes; but because the motive is laudable, the act is condoned.
The girl is willing to go, and a ship is willing to take her; the intermediary is "prohibited". We shall return to the subject.
I had taken this opportunity of finding out from Denny's Secretary that the Aramex crew had ever been sold from Hong Kong. That the truth of their statement had been taken for granted as it were, in the unusual exertions made to trace these women, exertions which harassed the efforts to trace them. I argued that the public should be disabused of their belief in these tales.
18. Denny's promised this and promised a full contradiction.