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PEDRO GIBERT AND OTHERS. 143

fact that Perez had since stated that he (cook) was not there
at all; to the little weight to be attached to the teaimony of
Perez [Mr. H. referred to Perez’s statements to Mr. Badlam
in the gaol, where he (Perez) declared ‘‘that all he had pre-
viously said was a lie’’]; to the many inconsistencies in Pe-
rTez’s evidence, and that of other witnesses; and finally to the
cirenmstanee of all the crew having identified Boyga as hav-
ing been on board the Mexican, while Perez stated that Boyga
did not go on board at all.

Mr. Hilliard also adverted to the conduct of Ridgely, when
the prisoners were brought into Court to be arraigned, and
then took an entirely different ground of defense. Supposing,
he said, what he himself did not believe to be the ease, that the
crew of the Panda robbed the Mexican, it remained to fix the
relative degrees of guilt of the prisoners. He contended that
the Panda had been fitted out for a slaving voyage, for which
alone, doubtless, many of the crew had shipped; and that if
she had robbed the Mexican, only those who had been en-
gaged in the robbery could be punished for it.

He supposed the case, that the captain, when a few days
out, on the voyage to Africa, had yielded to the temptation
and committed the act of piracy charged upon him, would it
be just to punish more than himself and the men who imme-
diately aided and assisted him in the act? It was necessary
for the government to prove intention on the part of the
others, when they sailed from Havana. Would they punish,
for example, the cook, in the galley of the schooner, the cabin
boy, setting his table in the cabin, or Perez, who had been
sent aloft to look out, and could not come down again with-
out transgressing the rules of the vessel?

Tf, gentlemen, said he, you deem with me, that the crew of
the Panda (supposing her to have robbed the Mexican) were
merely servants of the captain, you cannot conviet them. But
if you do not agree with me, then all that remains for me to
do is to address a few words to you in the way of merey. It
does not seem to me that the good of society requires the death
of all these men, the sacrifice of such a hecatomb of human

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