Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/195

 engaged in the commission of these crimes are punished promptly and effectually, in a mode intelligible to their whole trite, and a lesson—a severe one certainly—given to the natives, which has had the very best effect in preserving the peace of the district ever since—but which probably would not have been necessary, had not frequent impunity encouraged them to the commission of these outrages. There can be no reasonable doubt that the persons shot were engaged in the robbery and murder of the old man Basset, their being in possession of his sheep and clothes, affording the strongest evidence of those facts, for the party first come up with were merely a look-out detached from the main body. The proof of their having been engaged in the abduction and murder of the child rests merely on native evidence. This, however, merely affects the moral view of the proceeding, for in a legal one it could not be justified, even if the European party had seen them commit both murders. It was indubitably the duty of the police officer to have attempted to arrest the natives, although aware that, in making the attempt, he must have afforded them almost a certainty of making their escape, and also have exposed the lives of his men; and although he knew that, even if successful in effecting a capture, it would only result in the farce of the prisoners being brought up to the bar of the supreme court, and declared by a jury not of sufficient capacity to understand the proceedings, or to exercise their right of challenge. This was, however, no affair of his; it was his business to attempt to execute the