An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 2: An Account Of The English Colony In New South Wales, From Its First Settlement In 1788, To August 1801: With Remarks On The Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. Of The Native Inhabitants Of That Country. To Which Are Added, Some Particulars Of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From The Mss. Of Lieutenant-Governor King; And An Account Of The Voyage Performed By Captain Flinders And Mr. Bass.Collins, David
History
An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Volume 2: An Account Of The English Colony In New South Wales, From Its First Settlement In 1788, To August 1801: With Remarks On The Dispositions, Customs, Manners, Etc. Of The Native Inhabitants Of That Country. To Which Are Added, Some Particulars Of New Zealand; Compiled, By Permission, From The Mss. Of Lieutenant-Governor King; And An Account Of The Voyage Performed By Captain Flinders And Mr. Bass.
Collins, David
New South Wales -- Description and travel
One man was found guilty of uttering a bill knowing it to be forged, and
adjudged to suffer death; and two others, for theft, were ordered to be
transported to Norfolk Island, one for the term of his life, and another
for seven years.
It appearing on one of these trials, that three of the witnesses had
manifestly and wilfully committed the crime of perjury, they were brought
to trial; and, being found guilty, were sentenced to stand in the
pillory; to which, as an additional punishment, their ears were to be
nailed. Their sentence was put in execution before the public provision
store, when the mob, either to display their aversion to the crime, or,
what might be more probable, to catch at any thing that wore the form of
amusement, pelted them with rotten eggs and dirt.
These people were three of the worst characters in the colony, Luke
Normington, John Colley, and William Osborne. It amounted nearly to a
mockery and profanation of religion to administer an oath to such
hardened and unprincipled wretches; yet their testimony could not be
refused when called for by a prisoner who was standing under the weight
of a capital charge; but of the credibility of such testimony it was
always in the breast of the court to judge.
On this occasion the governor deemed it advisable to explain, in public
orders, the nature of this dreadful offence, an offence so certainly
ruinous both to their temporal and eternal welfare. He pointed out to
them, that, as every man who stood convicted of this dangerous breach of
the law was thereby rendered infamous ever after, no one who had a
character to lose (alas! how few were there who would feel themselves
affected by this observation) would associate with such criminals, lest
he should endanger his own reputation, and be considered as a voluntary
approver and partaker in the infamy.
It may be some relief to turn from the contemplation of such iniquity,
though it should be only to the transactions of savages, differing from
these wretches but in complexion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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