Hammond to Merivale (Permanent Under-Secretary)
2 November 1858
Sir,
I am directed by The Earl of Malmesbury to request that you will state to Secretary Sir Edward Lytton, that His Lordship has been informed by Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires at Lima 1 that he has reason to believe that certain Parties lately engaged in a system of crimping sailors 2 at Callao have left that Port for the Fraser River in New Caledonia.
Lord Malmesbury considers that it may be useful that Sir Edward Lytton's attention should be called to this subject as the system carried on by these personshasManuscript image has been productive of much inconvenience at Callao.
I am etc.
E. Hammond
Minutes by CO staff
Manuscript image
Apprize the Governor by the first mail.
ABd 3 Nov
TFE 3/11
Inform the Govr but I sd hardly think that in B. Columbia the crimping of sailors wd be a very profitable trade.
C Nov 4
Other documents included in the file
Manuscript image
Draft, Lytton to Douglas, No. 39, 12 November 1858.
Footnotes
  1. = British Charge d'Affairs at Lima Identify??
  2. Crimping, an indictable offence in Britain, involved removing sailors from one ship and selling them to another. Crimps often plied sailors with alcohol and delivered them, insensible or unconscious, on board a ship an hour or two before it sailed. San Francisco was the most active port for crimping in the nineteenth century, and crimps usually charged about $30.00 per sailor. Source??
People in this document

Blackwood, Arthur Johnstone

Carnarvon, Earl

Douglas, James

Elliot, Thomas Frederick

Hammond, Edmund

Lytton, Edward George Earle Bulwer

Malmesbury, James, Howard

Merivale, Herman

Organizations in this document

Foreign Office

Places in this document

British Columbia

Callao

Fraser River

New Caledonia

San Francisco