ation
of his account of the transaction. This declaration, so taken, was to be
regarded as if taken on oath, face to face with your accuser; and,
although you had not the opportunity of being present at it, and of
cross-examining the dying man, yet by law it was receivable against you."

In vol. ii. p 380, Captain Grey says:--

"I have been a personal witness to a case in which a native was most
undeservedly punished, from the circumstance of the natives, who were the
only persons who could speak as to certain exculpatory facts, not being
permitted to give their evidence."

Under the law lately passed in South Australia, the evidence of natives
would be receivable in a case of this kind, in palliation of the offence.
Although it is more than questionable how far such evidence would weigh
against the white man's oath; but for the purpose of obtaining redress
for a wrong, or of punishing the cruelty, or the atrocity of the European
[Note 115 at end of para.], no amount of native evidence would be of the
least avail. Reverse the case, and the sole unsupported testimony of a
single witness, will be quite sufficient to convict even unto death, as
has lately been the case in two instances connected with Port Lincoln,
where the natives have been tried at different times for murder,
convicted, and two of them hung, upon the testimony of one old man, who
was the only survivor left among the Europeans, but who, from the natural
state of alarm and confusion in which he must have been upon being
attacked, and from the severe wounds he received, could not have been in
an advantageous position, for observing, or remarking the identity of the
actual murderers, among natives, who, even under more favourable
circumstances are not easily recognizable upon a hasty view, and still
less so, if either they, or the observer, are in a state of excitement at
the time. Is it possible for the natives to be blind to the unequal
measure of justice, which is thus dealt out, and which will still continue
to be so as long as the law remains unchanged?

[Note 115: Governor Hutt remarks, in addressing Lord Glenelg on this
subject:--"In furtherance of the truth of these remarks, I would request
your Lordship particularly to observe, that here is one class of Her
Majesty's subjects, who are DEBARRED A TRUE AND FAIR TRIAL BY JURY,
whose evidence is inadmissible in a court of justice, and who consequently
may be the victims of any of the most outra