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[Page 33]
informed the one that he must was to suffer, and the other that he was respited! It was said that a Lady on who they had done the robbery, wished for one of them to be reprieved, and the Gov. being unwilling to shew any partiality, he caused them to cast lots!!! But of late there is an instance of one being [the remainder of the paragraph crossed through] capitally convicted, but was afterwards reprieved,* and sent to Norfolk Island. He was a most notorious character, and a terror to the country when at large, and fully prooved to be equally guilty of that which others had suffered for before. I shall not say that this was a motive of humanity but I think that if one suffers for a crime, and another is afterwards found guilty of a similar one, he ought to suffer too. If such a matter rested in my breast, and if I was a man of the greater humanity in private affairs, and should let my intellects be over ruled by it, I should think I did not discharge a debt that I owed to the community. Flogging is the punishment mostly used, and this at times is done with great severity. And on some occasions the Gov. attends himself and harangues the whole.
Though the Colony is but yet in infancy, yet there are a deal of lawsuits, and people arrested for debt. A Settler if
* owing it is said by being wantonly cut by a constable, after he had surrendered himself when apprehended.