sixteen of these men by their hands, their feet not touching the ground, and then flogged them and lit straw under them and burnt them with irons, and kept them hanging fourteen hours, and some eighteen. One man was taken down dead, some insensible. It was proved that this all happened in Mr. ’s compound, and that he had his dinner-table brought out and dined within six yards of these wretched creatures. He made no defence, except that he did not touch them with his own hands, but only gave directions to his overseer. Sir Henry Seton said that, in his charge to the jury, he only alluded to the possibility of calling it manslaughter because, from the horror of capital punishment in this country, he thought it better to ensure the man’s being transported for life; but, to his utter surprise, the jury brought in a verdict of ‘not guilty.’ Sir E. Ryan, who has been here many years, says it is invariably the case that the low Europeans who make up a jury here always agree to acquit any man who is tried for the murder of a native.
We certainly have bearable weather. The church was quite cool last night, and this
