evidence, however ftrong, warrant the carrying o f any fentence
into execution, until a free confefiion be made of the crime.
Such confefiion, it is true, was, under the Dutch government,
fometimes extorted by the application of the torture ; in which
cafe, if the guilty had nerve enough, he was fure to efcape,
and if the innocent was feeble, he was equally fure of being
hanged.
Even in civil caufes, the prefumption that they were generally
right is in their favour; for fince the eftabliihment of an Englilh
Court of Appeal in the year 1797, -to the evacuation of the colony,
out of the number of cafes brought before the faid Court
of appeal, only one fentence was reverfed; and it appeared
that the error committed, in this inftance, by the Court of Juf-
tice was owing to their tenacity rather to the letter, than to the
i'pirit of the law; and that by rigidly adhering to the Jummum
ju s, their decifion was productive of thefumma injuria. It was
alfo fuppofed that, in the cafe alluded to, a very undue influence
was employed to fway the Court; but as the affair is yet to
come before a Britifh court in England, I forbear to enter more
at large into the fubje£t. Neither are the members of the Court
of Juftice in the Cape fa wanting in talent or in legal knowledge
as might be fuppofed; at leafl, they proved to the world
that they had fagacity enough to deteX, and integrity and firm-
nefs enough to puniih, the authors of a mod nefarious and barefaced
tranfaXion, which thofe perfons had contrived to carry
through the Court of Vice-Admiralty with complete fuccefs,
though the impofition was of the grofieft nature.
3 The
The trial of the boors for fedition having engrofied fo much
of the public converfation, his Majefty’s Fifcal, or Attorney-
General to profecute for the crown in all criminal cafes, determined
for once, though contrary to eftablifhed ufage, to carry
on the whole proceedings with open doors. The prifoners were all
found guilty, and three of them condemned to fuffer death; but
by the lenity of the Britifh government which, in this Golony was,,
on moft occafions, carried to an extreme, the fentence was never
put in execution. On the reftoration of the colony tlic
conviXed boors were delivered into the hands o f the new governors,
who,, on this occafion, could not do lefs than pronounce
a general amnefty; in which cafe, they will, moft probably,
be allowed to return to their old connexions, and to. their old-
habits.
But to return to the affaire of Graaf Reynet. The general
having thus got rid of the rebel chiefs, and thereby put an end,-
as he thought, to further difturbances, concluded that little
now remained to be done, but to colleX his fcattered forces from-
the different parts of the diftriX,. and to aflemble them at headquarters
in Bruyntjes Hoogte; part of which he meant to embark
on board the Rattlefnake,. and the remainder to fend' over
land, by eafy marches, to the Gape.
In crofflngthe country from Algoa Bay to-the northward, in
order to put his plan in execution, to our no lefs furprize than
mortification, we fell in with a large party-of Hottentots, fo
difguifed, and drefied out in fuch a whimfical- and fantaftical
manner, that we were totally at a lofs to conjeXure what to
make