public justice, persons committing capital
offences. Under the present mode, a man has nothing more to do than to
leave the state, or step over to Texas, or some other place not
farther off, and he need entertain no fear of being apprehended. So
long as such a state of things is permitted to exist, just so long
will every man who has an enemy (and there are but few who have not)
_be in constant danger of being shot down in the streets_."
To these remarks of the Macon editor, who is in the centre of the
state, near the capital, the editor of the Darien Telegraph, two
hundred miles distant, responds as follows, in his paper of October
30. 1838.
"The remarks of our contemporary are not without cause. They apply,
with peculiar force, to this community. _Murderers and rioters will
never stand in need of a sanctuary as long as Darien is what it is_."
It is a coincidence which carries a comment with it, that in less than
a week after this Darien editor made these remarks, he was attacked in
the street by "_fourteen_ gentlemen" armed with bludgeons, knives,
dirks, pistols, &c., and would doubtless have been butchered on the
spot if he had not been rescued.
We give the following statement at length as the chief perpetrator of
the outrages, Col. W.N. Bishop, was at the time a high functionary of
the State of Georgia, and, as we learn from the Macon Messenger, still
holds two public offices in the State, one of them from the direct
appointment of the governor.
From the "Georgia Messenger" of August 25, 1837.
"During the administration of WILSON LUMPKIN, WILLIAM N. BISHOP
received from his Excellency the appointment of Indian Agent, in the
place of William Springer. During that year (1834,) the said governor
gave the command of a company of men, 40 in number, to the said W.N.
Bishop, to be selected by him, and armed with the muskets of the
State. This band was organized for the special purpose of keeping the
Cherokees in subjection, and although it is a notorious fact that the
Cherokees in the neighborhood of Spring Place were peaceable and by no
means refractory, the said band were kept there, and seldom made any
excursion whatever out of the county of Murray. It is also _a
notorious fact_, that the said band, from the day of their
organization, never permitted a citizen of Murray county opposed to
the dominant party of Georgia, to exercise the right of suffrage at
any election whatever. From that period to the last
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