The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-27 00:00:00

THAMES POLICE.

Yesterday Mr. Swainson, from the office of Mr. Jones.,
Solicitor to the Admiralty, applied- to Mr. Ballantine„
for process against Captain Thomas Dunnett, the master •
of the brig Sarah Charlotte, now lying in the London
Dock, for- having. abandoned three British seamen,
named Edward Wilkinson, Hiram Gibbs, and James
Cline, at Bahia.
Mr. Swainson said his application was founded on the
40th section of the Merchant Seamen's Act, and the
circumstances were these :—The men shipped on board the
Sarah Charlotte under articles at Guayaquil, a city andt •
seaport of Quito, in Colombia, on a voyage to Vigo, in
Spain; but owing to a scarcity of provisions and water,
the vessel was compelled to put into Bahia, in distress.
Here the three men who were subsequently abandoned
were taken ill, , and • went ashore for medical advice.
Captain Dunnett wished to send them to the hospital,
and applied to the British Consul for his consent to
their going there ; but the doctor to whom they applied
said the illness -under which they laboured was very
trifling; and with a little medicine and care they would
soon recover. In consequence of this statement the
Consul would not give his sanction to the seamen being
sent to the hospital, and directed them to return to the,
brig. The captain, however, declined to receive them,
and.said he would not have any sick men on board his
ship, and compelled them to fetch their clothes out of
the vessel, and in defiance of the remonstrances
of the British Consul, sailed without them. Two of the
men now present were sent home in the barque Mary,.
of Liverpool, and had very recently arrived in London
from that town, in a very destitute state. The other
man joined an American ship at Bahia, on a voyage to
New York. Her Majesty's Government considered this
was a fit case for prosecution, more particularly as a
dangerous practice was growing up of abandoning tea"
menin foreign ports in violation of the express provi-
sions of Sir James Graham's Act, which declared that
no master should discharge any individual person of his;
crew without the previous sanction of the ambassador,.
• consul, or vice-consul. Mr. Swainson then put in a cer.
• tificate from the British Consul to the following effect::--
, " These are to certify that Hiram Gibbs, Edward
Wilkinson, and James Cline, seamen, were left at this
port of Bahia by Thomas Dunnett, jun., master of the
British brig Sarah Charlotte, of Harwich, on her voyage
froth Guayaquil to Vigo, without my sanction or know-
, ledge. "EDWARD PORTER, ConsuL
" British Consulate, Bahia, Oct. 30, 1843."
• Wilkinson, one of the seamen named in the Congas
r certificate, was then sworn, and confirmed the statemeitt

of Mr. Swainson.
In answer to questions from the Magistrate he said he'
went out in the Creole, Captain Stephenson, to South
America, and was attacked with the fever of the country,
and compelled to leave the ship. He shipped on board
the Sarah Charlotte in June last, and remained with her
four months. He was sure the Doctor at Bahia said
that he and his shipmates would do well with a little
medicine and care, and that there was no occasion for •
them to go to the hospital.
Mr. BALLANTINE said the case was a proper one for
inquiry, and he would grant a summons against Captain
Dunnett, and ascertain the facts.
Hiram Gibbs, another seaman, then got into the wit'
ness box, and was beginning to make his statement;
when the Magistrate said both cases were similar, an'
there was no occasion for two summonses.
Mr. Swainson then gave directions to Ellis, the second
usher of the Court, to board and lodge the seamen for
the present, and the Admiralty would be accountable for
the expenses. •
The determination of her Majesty's Government to
prosecute masters of ships who abandon sailors
in
foreign ports, is • likely to bring incalculable benefit to
merchant seamen, many of whom, in the words of the
Act of Parliament, " have been reduced to distress, an
thereby tempted to become pirates, or otherwise pais'
conduct themselves." The tastster of a ship, who left
seaman on the African coast, ;was prosecuted by
Admiralty at the last Liverpool Assizes, and, upon only
viction, was sentenced to eight months' imprisonment.