LITMIR.BIZ

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of the crews. It is a mere formality, and won't take more than five minutes. So you will oblige me, mate, by coming ashore with your men at once, as I am in a hurry, and have other business to attend to." He then went ashore in his boat. The mate and seamen followed in the ship's boat, and waited in front of the Additional Resident's house. He had a visitor that morning, the Pakeha Maori, Laming.

      The men had not to wait long, as it was not advisable to give them much time to think and grow suspicious. McDonnell came to the front door and called the mate, who went inside, signed his name, re-appeared directly, called Secker, and entered the house with him. The Additional Resident was sitting at a table with the signature book before him. He rose from the chair, told Secker to sit down, gave him a pen, and pointed out the place where his name was to be signed. Laming was sitting near the table. While Secker was signing his name McDonnell suddenly put a twisted handkerchief under his chin and tightened it round his neck. Laming presented a horse-pistol and said he would blow his brains out if he uttered a word, and the mate slipped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists. He was then bundled out at the back door and put into a bullet-proof building at the rear. The other three seamen were then called in one after the other, garrotted, handcuffed, and imprisoned in the same way. The little formality of signing names was finished in a few minutes, according to promise.

      If such things could be done in New Zealand, where there was neither law nor government, what might happen in Van Diemen's Land, where one man was both law and government, and that man was Colonel Arthur? The prisoners had plenty of time to make a forecast of their fate, while the mate engaged a fresh crew and took in a cargo of flax and timber. When he was ready to sail, he reshipped his old crew in irons, returned with them to the Tamar, and delivered them to the police to be dealt with according to law. For a long time the law was in a state of chaos. Major Abbott was sent from England in 1814 as the first judge. The proceedings in his court were conducted in the style of a drum-head court martial, the accusation, sentences, and execution following one another with military precision and rapidity.

      He adjudicated in petty sessions as a magistrate, and dealt in a summary manner with capital offences, which were very numerous. To imprison a man who was already a prisoner for life was no punishment; the major's powers were, therefore, limited to the cat and the gallows. And as the first gallows had been built to carry only eight passengers, his daily death sentences were also limited to that number. For twenty years torture was used to extort confession-- even women were flogged if they refused to give evidence, and an order of the Governor was held to be equal to law. Major Abbott died in 1832.

      In 1835 the court consisted of the judge-advocate and two of the inhabitants selected by the Governor, Colonel Arthur, who came out in the year 1824, and had been for eleven years a terror to evil-doers. His rule was as despotic as he could possibly make it. If any officer appointed by the Home Government disagreed with his policy he suspended him from his office, and left him to seek redress from his friends in England--a tedious process, which lasted for years. Disagreeable common people he suspended also--by the neck. If a farmer, squatter, or merchant was insubordinate, he stopped his supply of convict labour, and cruelly left him to do his own work. He brooked no discussion of his measures by any pestilent editor. He filled all places of profit with his friends, relatives, and dependents. Everything was referred to his royal will and pleasure. His manners were stiff and formal, his tastes moral, his habits on Sundays religious, and his temper vindictive. Next to the articles of war, the thirty-nine Articles claimed his obedience. When his term of office was drawing to a close he went to church on a certain Sunday to receive the Lord's Supper. While studying his prayer book he observed that it was his duty if his brother had anything against him to seek a reconciliation before offering his gift. The ex-Attorney-General, Gellibrand, was present, a brother Christian who had had many things against him for many years. He had other enemies, some living and some dead, but they were absent. To be reconciled to all of them was an impossibility. He could not ask the minister to suspend the service while he went round Hobart Town looking for his enemies, and shaking hands with them. But he did what was possible. He rose from his knees, marched over to Gellibrand, and held out his hand. Gellibrand was puzzled; he looked at the hand and could see nothing in it. By way of explanation Colonel Arthur pointed out the passage in the prayer-book which had troubled his sensitive conscience. Gellibrand read it, and then shook hands. With a soul washed whiter than snow, the colonel approached the table.

      Amongst the convicts every grade of society was represented, from King Jorgensen to the beggar. One Governor had a convict private secretary. Officers of the army and navy, merchants, doctors, and clergymen consorted with costermongers, poachers, and pickpockets. The law, it is sad to relate, had even sent out lawyers, who practised their profession under a cloud, and sometimes pleaded by permission of the court. But their ancient pride had been trodden in the dust; the aureole which once encircled their wigs was gone, and they were often snubbed and silenced by ignorant justices. The punishment for being found out is life-long and terrible. Their clients paid the fees partly in small change and partly in rum.

      The defence of the seamen accused of murdering Captain Blogg was undertaken by Mr. Nicholas. He had formerly been employed by the firm of eminent solicitors in London who conducted the defence of Queen Caroline, when the "first gentleman in Europe" tried to get rid of her, and he told me that his misfortunes (forgeries) had deprived him of the honour of sharing with Lord Brougham the credit of her acquittal.

      Many years had passed since that celebrated trial when I made the acquaintance of Nicholas. He had by this time lost all social distinction. He had grown old and very shabby, and was so mean that even his old friends, the convicts who had crossed the straits, looked down on him with contempt. He came to me for an elector's right, as a vote in our electorate--the Four Counties--was sometimes worth as much as forty shillings, besides unlimited grog. We were Conservatives then, true patriots, and we imitated--feebly, it is true, but earnestly--the time-honoured customs of old England.

      Mr. Nicholas had been a man of many employments, and of many religions. He was never troubled with scruples of conscience, but guided his conduct wholly by enlightened self-interest. He was a Broad Churchman, very broad. As tutor in various families, he had instructed his pupils in the tenets of the Church of England, of the Catholics, of the Presbyterians, and of the Baptists. He always professed the religion of his employer for the time being, and he found that four religions were sufficient for his spiritual and temporal wants. There were many other sects, but the labour of learning all their peculiar views would not pay, so he neglected them. The Wesleyans were at one time all-powerful in our road district, and Nicholas, foreseeing a chance of filling an office of profit under the Board, threw away all his sins, and obtained grace and a billet as toll-collector or pikeman. In England the pike-man was always a surly brute, who collected his fees with the help of a bludgeon and a bulldog, but Nicholas performed his duties in the disguise of a saint. He waited for passengers in his little wooden office, sitting at a table, with a huge Bible before him, absorbed in spiritual reading. He wore spectacles on his Roman nose, had a long grey beard, quoted Scripture to chance passengers, and was very earnest for their salvation. He was atoning for the sins of his youth by leading the life of a hermit by praying and cheating. He has had many followers. He made mistakes in his cash, which for a while were overlooked in so good a man, but they became at length so serious that he lost his billet. He had for some time been spoken of by his friends and admirers as "Mr. Nicholas," but after his last mistakes had been discovered, he began to be known merely as "Old Nick the Lawyer," or "Old Nick the Liar," which some ignorant people look upon as convertible terms. I think Lizard Skin, the cannibal, was a better Christian than old Nick the lawyer, as he was brave and honest, and scorned to tell a lie.

      The convict counsel for the four seamen defended them at a great expenditure of learning and lies. He argued at great length:-- "That there was no evidence that a master mariner named Blogg ever existed; that he was an outlaw, and, as such, every British subject had an inchoate right to kill him at sight, and, therefore, that the seamen, supposing for the sake of argument that they did kill him, acted strictly within their legal rights; that Blogg drowned himself in a fit of delirium tremens, after being drunk on rum three days and nights consecutively; that he fell overboard accidentally and was drowned; that the cook and mate threw him overboard, and then laid the blame on the innocent seamen; that Blogg swam ashore, and was now living on an unchartered island; that if he

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