Missionary William Richards accused Captain William Buckle of trafficking a woman after a payment connected with their marriage. The payment was more likely a dowry for a marriage outside the missionaries' church. Richards may nevertheless have understood the payment as trafficking within his own religious assumptions. An attempt to send him to England for libel proceedings collided with the queen's declaration of his innocence after Bingham supported him. The disagreement combined competing interpretations of marriage with religious influence over the proposed legal remedy.
Notable Point · 14:14-15:42
A disputed marriage payment became a libel dispute
The Buckle-Richards dispute joined incompatible views of a marriage payment to a failed attempt at libel proceedings.