ritish soldier.

Governor Arthur recommended a declaratory statute, to subdue any doubts
respecting their right to shoot absconders, which seemed common among
the military. That right had never been called in question; and in two
instances only, during fourteen years, was it exercised in this country.
The sense of responsibility is a healthy emotion: promptitude in taking
the life of a runaway, however tolerated or authorised by law, could
never be remembered by a soldier but as an odious execution.[186]

The piratical seizure of vessels lately, has not been common: escape is
easy in other forms. The elopement of individuals has been attended with
no great perils, since the establishment of the surrounding colonies.
Craft of small burden have been sometimes taken, and at the close of the
voyage dismissed. Prisoners have passed as merchandise, or boldly
submitting to examination, have been lost in the crowd of emigrants. A
contrivance was recently discovered, by the fatal consequences which
followed it: a woman was enclosed by her husband in a case, and on
arriving at Port Phillip was found dead.

These instances comprehend most of those forms of escape which are found
in the colonial annals. They prove how powerful the passion for liberty,
with which, when united to common intelligence, the threats of legal
vengeance, or the vigilance of official guards, cannot cope. The same
instinct, however, which induces men to break their bonds, restrains
many more from transgression, and is a powerful auxiliary to the laws.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 179: Ikey Solomon.]

[Footnote 180: _Collins's New South Wales._]

[Footnote 181: Ibid.]

[Footnote 182: Clarke, executed at Hobart Town (1835), and who for five
years wandered among the natives of New South Wales, asserted he had
seen an isolated colony of Malays, or some other nation, the remnant of
a shipwreck, which had existed for ages on the borders of a lake in the
far interior to the north of Sydney. This he affirmed to the last moment
of his life. If reliance can be placed upon his testimony, the village
he described is doubtless the same, and is yet to be discovered. "Clarke
addressed the people from the scaffold, acknowledging his crimes, and
imploring all who heard him to avoid the dissipated course, which had
led him to so wretched and ignominious an end." Upon this execution Dr.
Ross adds--"It is a matter of consolation that we have a pastor,
possessed of the very p