The fourth vessel found to be a product of the Martinez & Company and Tyng alliance, the Eliza Davidson is the only Tyng-interested vessel that was captured with slaves aboard. A 12-year-old New York-built brig, the Eliza Davidson was based in Baltimore and owned by James Corner and James J. Corner before sailing to Havana in 1840.167 The Eliza Davidson shares similarities with the Catharine – particularly, the African voyage undertaken by the vessels coincided with conveyance of ownership,
165 Ibid., 159. 166 Ibid., 159-160.
167 This is not a typo. Correspondence with the British Commissioners at Sierra Leone, the Havana, Rio de
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leaving open the ambiguity of jurisdiction and liability should the vessels be detained. Like the Catharine, the Eliza Davidson was determined to be owned by Simón de Terán at the time of capture and therefore of Spanish and not American nationality.
Chartered by Terán’s Martinez & Company and laden with cargo belonging to Tyng, the Eliza Davidson set sail from Havana on January 9, 1840 and arrived off Gallinas, south of Sierra Leone, on February 26. After arrival on the African coast, the crew of the Eliza Davidson “landed [the ship’s] Havana cargo at the slave factory of Jose Alvaraez on the Gallinas” and were employed “in shipping at Shebar and the Plaintain Islands in this neighbourhood a cargo of rice for that person.” During this period, commissioners Doherty and MacDonald note that the vessel was visited by British cruizers three times before finally being captured by the sloop Wanderer on March 4. Upon arrival in Sierra Leone on March 8, charges were filed in the British and Spanish Mixed Commission Court and a witness docket was created. Depositions began in earnest on March 11.168
The first to testify was the ship master, an American and Baltimore native named Alexander B. Hanna. He told the commissioners that after offloading the Havana cargo at Gallinas to Alvarez, the ship took on 60 tons of rice at Shebar and 70 more tons of rice at the Plantain Islands and that the whole cargo was “intended for Alvarez.” It was while at anchor off the Plantain Islands that the Wanderer made contact and placed the Eliza Davidson under arrest. Hanna further testified that he believed the owners of the vessel and of the Havana cargo to be Terán and Tyng, and that he personally had carried on correspondence with Terán regarding “concerns of the vessel and cargo.” Hanna, when
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pressed, denied involvement in the slave trade but “admitted that the vessel was provided with the means of carrying 2000 gallons of water.” Given the outcome of the Plant case, this was incriminating.169
The commissioners also deposed Charles Knoff, the ship’s steward who identified as an Englishman. While he lacked knowledge of the owners of the ship or the cargo, he testified “to the existence of a still greater number of water casks than that stated by the master.” Doherty and MacDonald posit Knoff’s deposition of “additional particulars” as being of “the greatest importance.” These particulars included the embarkation of two boys “libelled as slaves” at Gallinas, obtained from Alvarez. Knoff states that he
overheard Hanna saying that the boys were from the Alvarez factory at Gallinas and that they were to be his apprentices. With this now known, Hanna was deposed a second time and admitted the slaves were named Enjahe and Wurrah. He stated that he did not know for sure, but thought it was probable that Alvarez was a slave trader as he saw “30 or 40 negroes chained” in a “large building at Lombokorrow, a place at which Alvarez was a leading man.”170
The Court at Sierra Leone ruled that the two boys taken on at Gallinas “cannot [be] considered…in any other light than that of slaves” and emancipated them from slavery. The Court also stated that in addition to the slaves, “one undeniable article of equipment, namely, a supply of water casks, declared by surveyors to this court to be more than sufficient for her as a licit trader.” The final judgment of the ship found that, despite the American colors being flown, the fact that the ship was chartered by Terán and Tyng, agents of Martinez & Company of Havana, was “sufficient to establish a
169 Ibid., 73-74. 170 Ibid., 74.
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Spanish character beyond doubt or cavil.” Lord Palmerston and the Advocate General of the British Navy concurred, and the Eliza Davidson was condemned in court on April 18, 1840. By May 26, the hull, tackle, apparel, furniture and stores had been auctioned off for £975.12.6.171
The case of the Eliza Davidson, like that of the other four vessels involving Tyng as agent of Pedro Martinez & Company, found him implicated through the consigning of cargoes that were to be traded for either the wares to subsist slaves or for slaves
themselves. The British authorities at Sierra Leone found that Teran and Tyng were “virtually” the owners of the vessel itself based on evidence that “proves to
demonstration [sic] that the sum which the owner [in Baltimore] there acknowledges to have received from Terán for the use of the vessel during two years was greatly beyond the price of a vessel of her class and age.” It is deduced by the British that the charter party used in such a case is effective as a “virtual” bill of sale, and that this de facto transfer includes “the entire liability of ownership.” Essentially, not only did Terán and Tyng own the cargo, but they owned the ship that was caught with slaves aboard and was in violation of the equipment clause of the slave trade treaty.172