14
These
precluded from communication with the agents, contractors or brokers. A translation of regulations will be found in my letter to H. Rogers of 6 Nov. 1868.
It is scarcely possible that any Emigrant could be embarked at Macao without his own consent, and it will be observed in the examination of those saved from the Don Juan that they all admitted that they had been asked whether they emigrated voluntarily and had answered in the affirmative. Several said they had been deceived by the Brokers, with whom they had conspired to commit a fraud, and had found themselves entrapped.
453
That, however, is no imputation on the Government regulations. The crucial point is that all might have refused to emigrate if they had been kidnapped, as was formerly the practice, and would have been protected in their refusal by the Portuguese authorities. The objectionable point in the Portuguese regulations is the provision that a coolie refusing to migrate should pay the cost of his subsistence in the depot and his travelling expenses. Yet it is difficult to see how otherwise the agent could be protected against the fraud of men who might profess an intention to emigrate solely for the purpose of being conveyed to Macao, and