The History of Tasmania (Vol. 1&2). John West

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      Mr. Montagu, the attorney-general, maintained that the writ had been improperly granted; that on the face of the warrant there was no illegality. The chief justice, however, was dissatisfied, and desired proof that the secretary of state could grant a warrant without sworn testimony in cases of felony, and that Mr. Burnett, the colonial secretary, possessed the same powers. Mr. Montagu, who had recently suffered ill health, refused to argue the question; and to the complaint of the bench replied with asperity. The chief justice still urged that he had received no assistance on the part of the crown. Montagu rejoined, that speaking not as attorney general, but as an advocate, he repelled such assertions. "I will not," said he, "allow your honor, or any man in Christendom, to dare to make such observations without repelling them." The caution of the chief justice was extremely gratifying to the colony. The arrest went to the foundation of personal freedom, and assumed a power capable of great error and perversion.

      In this case there was no danger of mistake; and the governor, having no doubt of the prisoner's guilt, determined he should not escape: Mr. Capon, the chief constable, cut the knot by putting Solomon on board a vessel, and conveying him to England. The adventure was barely successful; Solomon was acquitted on the greater part of the indictments. The legal claim of parties to the plunder found on his premises could not be established, except by his conviction.

      On a trial of Salmon and Browne, for a murder at Macquarie Harbour (1829), a military jury exhibited that institution in no pleasing form. They disagreed on their verdict. Lieutenant Matheson conceiving that the facts did not sustain the indictment, declined to convict. His co-jurors were unanimous; and after three days and nights resistance he submitted. On the Saturday evening the men were sentenced, and executed on the Monday following. Their confession left no doubt of their guilt: they had committed murder that they might escape from misery; but they asserted that the principal was Browne, and the accessory Salmon—the reverse of the indictment. During their long consultation the jurors were allowed refreshment; but on the Friday evening several resolved to elope: at a late hour they broke past the astonished constables, and returned to their homes. They were, however, recalled by the sheriff, and kept under stricter watch until the trial ended.

      Amusements of the turf, officially patronised in other countries, were discouraged in this. From an early date, occasional matches were made for large stakes; but in 1827, races were regularly established at Ross. The course was lined off, a stand erected, in which about fifty well dressed persons were spectators. The riders were equipped in different colored clothing, and as they darted along, obscured at intervals by foliage, the scene was picturesque and animated. A race was contested by Messrs. Gregson and Hardwicke, which the latter lost. A public dinner followed; but the waiter was blindfolded, and his pudding stolen as he entered the tent. The hats and coats disappeared; and one cavalier was robbed of his boots. "These things," said the reporter, "are fraught with discomfort, and disgraceful in themselves:" an opinion which time has not shaken.

      Arthur probably had no great taste for such pleasures; but he ascribed his unwillingness to support them, to their tendency to excite the prisoner population, and seduce them into disobedience and crime. No regulations or punishments could hinder their haunting the tents, or deter them from intemperance and consequent miseries.

      Happily dissention disappeared in the presence of distress. Arthur's name is on the list of subscription for the family of Captain Laughton, who having lost his property by shipwreck and fraud, was drowned on the coast. Governor Arthur gave twenty guineas, and thus fixed the high scale of colonial benevolence, which no vicissitude of public affairs has abated.

      The largest private subscriber was Captain Carne, of the Cumberland; not less unfortunate than Laughton. When no tidings were heard of the vessel, it was supposed she had foundered; but in the year 1828, Captain Duthie, of the Bengal Merchant, threw light on her fate. He had found the Clarinda, Captain Crew, at Rio, who had been boarded in lat. 8° S. The pirates chained him to the deck while they robbed the vessel: he saw a bucket, on which he could trace the word Cumberland. Some of the pirates proposed that Crew should walk the plank, but were resisted by the Captain. A little black boy, shipped by the Clarinda at the Cape de Verde Island, remembered the pirate vessel as often seen in that port.

      In what form the Cumberland perished is not certainly known. Pirates executed in England for other crimes, were supposed to be guilty of this: more than a hundred and fifty persons perished by their violence. Some they cut down, and others they cast overboard. They were driven to the port of Cadiz by a storm, and attempting to negociate a bill they were detected. A ship of war conveyed them to Gibraltar, where several suffered; others were forwarded to England, and condemned there. The story of the capture was long a standing topic in the unarmed merchantmen that passed her track. As the emigrant, even now, approaches the supposed latitude, he hears with bated breath the fate of the Cumberland, whenever a strange sail darkens the horizon.