[Appendix B(57) 1792 Report of Commissioners of Inquiry]

APPENDIX (B.) N° 57.

The EXAMINATION of Mr. MICHAEL CULLEN, Searcher at the Port of Douglas in the Isle of Man, taken the 8th, 10th, and 12th of October 1791.

THIS Examinant saith, that he is Searcher at the port of Douglas, and has been so since 1765, in virtue of a constitution of the Treasury, dated the 10th of July in that year. He took the oaths of office at this place, and gave security to the Collector of Liverpool. He neve was instructed in his office, but has instructions for his government, which he received with his deputation from the Commissioners of the Customs.

He has a salary of fifty pounds a year ; he also takes fees according to the usage of the port which in the year 1790 amounted, to the best of his knowledge, to forty pounds, as he kept a regular account of them ; in this he includes four guineas given by the herring-curers at the end of the season, when they receive their bounties, for attending out of office hours.

As Searcher, he attends to goods landed or shipped in the port of Douglas. When a warrant is received by him, signed by the Collector and Controller or their clerks, he examines the goods contained in that warrant as they are landed, opening some packages, if they are in packages, and always opening them and examining them if they are debenture goods, weighing the articles if they are weighable, and gauging them if liquors. He takes the account of the several articles landed on a slip of paper, and not on blue books, enters them in a book from this slip of paper, describing the articles ; and from such entry in the book he endorses the warrants and returns the warrants so endorsed into the custom-house. He considers it as a part of his duty to place tide-waiters on board vessels coming in as merchant vessels with goods for the port, and does so if he has tide-waiters enough, but it often happens he is prevented from so doing by want of tide-waiters. He never places any on board colliers, or vessels wind-bound either in the harbour or bay, except they have debenture goods on board ; if in the harbour he examines their cockets to see if they have debenture goods on board ; if in the bay, he does not. He stations two tide-waiters on board if they can be spared, which very rarely happens and in that case there is only one. Whenever any blue books come down from the custom house, he gives them to the tide-waiters stationed on board, with diçections to keep an account of goods delivered from the vessel in these blue books. These blue books sometimes come down, and sometimes not ; they have lately ceased ; and he believes that when they did come down, they were sometimes filled up, and not at other times.

When a vessel has difcharged all the goods in the warrants, he goes on board to see that there are no more articles left. The goods discharged he has found very seldom to disagree with the description of them in the warrants ;but when they did so, he stopped them till the merchants went and obtained fresh warrants.

When the goods discharged exceed the quantity expressed in the warrant, he endorses such excess on the back, that a post entry may be made.

He gauges all wines and spirits, and the assistant gauger puts down the dimensions of the casks in a book, and from such dimensions he and the assistant gauger cast the quantity. He never was regularly instructed in the art of gauging. There is no timber measuremnent, it pays a duty ad valorem. The value is expressed upon the warrant, and if he thinks the article undervalued he does not seize it, but goes to the customhouse and tells the Collector and Controller ; if it is deemed undervalued, an additional value is put thereon. This has sometimes happened, but seldom.. He pursues a like method respecting all other articles paying duty ad valorem.

He pays particular attention to articles imported by licence from Great Britain ;he has nev found any excels of such articles beyond the quantities expressed in the cocker. He has from times found deficiencies on tobacco and rum, but not to a greater amount than what he thin

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Jn^o Spranger.
W^m Osgoode.
Will^m Roe.
David Reid.