No. 33

I forward for Your Lordship's information an Extract from the
Minutes of the Executive Council relative to the cases of three
Indians convicted of Murder and sentenced to death in three
different cases during the last Assizes on the Mainland.

2. The first is a case in which I think no doubt could
arise, and I see no reason to interfere with the sentence of the
Court. The Convict known as George will be executed.

3. In the second case I concur with the Council in regarding
the evidence, which relates to the murder of a white settler
committed seven years ago, as very unsatisfactory. The case
turns on the testimony of a single Indian Witness, the accuser,
whose motives are not free from suspicion. But if not falsely
accused the Prisoner is guilty of a foul Crime fully deserving
the extreme Penalty of the Law. I have therefore without
commuting the sentence granted a reprieve in the hope that some
new light may be thrown upon the case.

4. The third Convict is a mere boy, under sentence of death for
attempting the murder of a White man with whom he was travelling
in the interior of the Country. There is no doubt that his
crime was of great treachery, and it was only by accident that
it was not Murder. But I am informed by Chief Justice Begbie
that the case is not one where sentence of death would be
inflicted in England, and he agrees with me in the propriety of
commuting it to that of imprisonment for life, which I have
therefore done for the reasons stated more at length in the
Minutes of the Executive Council.

5. I trust that Your Lordship will approve of my decision in
these cases. I am not quite sure that it is now required that I
should trouble Your Lordship with Reports on such occasions. I
think I remember a Circular Despatch to other Colonies
acquainting the Officers administering the Government that it
was no longer necessary to report convictions for Capital
Offences. But it appears to have been the practise in this
Colony to do so, and there may be reasons which induce Your
Lordship to retain the regulation in the peculiar circumstance
of this Colony. I shall be glad to be instructed upon this point.