Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/297

 Rh stiletto, about fourteen inches from the point, while the shaft lay over his shoulder, with a seeming carelessness. He evidently suspected treachery, and was on his guard against it, taking care not to let my men press on him too closely, and keeping some of the natives between myself and them.

Nothing short of an overpowering force (which I did not possess), or a cold-blooded deliberate treachery (of which I was incapable), would have enabled me to have secured him as he then stood: it was, perhaps, my duty to have attempted his arrest, dead or alive; however, consider the circumstances of my situation,—I had gone among them unarmed, little thinking that the "Wallace" of the tribe was there; he did not relinquish his spear till he was certain of my pacific intentions; and there were ten of them, and only three of us,—myself rather invalided.

I despatched a letter instantly to Mr. Bull, as a magistrate, apprising him of Ya-gan's vicinity. He went off for the soldiers; and in the meantime this proclaimed and dangerous outlaw, with a price on his head, and threats (not idle) on his tongue, in sight of the military quarters, and of a magistrate's residence, hemmed in between three or four settlements, and almost in presence of a large force of armed men, was suffered to escape unmolested. The truth is, every one