Page:Trials of the Slave Traders Samo, Peters and Tufft (1813).pdf/18

 The evidence for the crown being closed, Mr. H*****s, assistant counsel with Mr. H******n, rose and stated to the Court that it had been his wish not to have any thing to do in this cause; but as he had been assigned to defend the prisoner in the absense of the leading counsel' who was sick, he would endeavour to shew that the prisoner, was by no means so criminal as the attorney-general had attempted to prove; and he now begged the Court to consider the respectability of the prisoner, and the good name that would be given him by respectable persons to be called forward, and that he was at the point of renouncing the slave trade at the time he was apprehended. The prisoner had left the Rio Pongas, and had settled at the Isles de Loss. These, and several other well adapted observations, were made by Mr. H*****s,* who discovered much ability in behalf of the prisoner; he prayed permission of the Court to read a paper, which the prisoner had handed him, which ran thus: “I was born at Amsterdam, in the year 1770; and left there for the colony of Surinam, in the year 1788, where I arrived, and staid until the year 1795; I then went to North America, made two voyages there and back, and from thence came out to Africa, in the beginning of 1797, where t have since been, of which I was upwards of 14 years in the Rio Pongas, and of course out of the British jurisdiction. Now I have to ask whether a man under those cirumstances ought to be amenable to British laws ? or can be considered a British subject? I do not only declare that I am innocent of the charge laid against me, but that I have, for a considerable time, been doing all in my power toward the grand object, the total


 * The Editor applied to the prisoner's counsel, for their notes, but could not procure them; the substance of the defence is given, with their acknowledgment and consent; * The Editor applied to the prisoner's counsel, for their notes, but could not procure them; the substance of the defence is given, with their acknowledgment and consent; their names are not given, probably because they would not like the world to know they had defended slave traders.