r, who cried
piteously when he saw his mother weeping, so I let her also go free.
Before they started however I gave them and the assembled natives a
lecture, talking to them in a ferocious style about my future intentions
in the event of robbery being committed, and warning them not to judge of
me from my present clemency.

During the five months I had been at King George's Sound this was the
first act of petty theft, or indeed of theft of any kind, committed by
the natives; there had on several occasions been as many as two hundred
in the settlement who had no means of subsistence but a chance job from
the colonists, and the spontaneous productions of the earth, yet during
that period the only criminals had been those above mentioned, namely, a
woman, a girl, and a boy, who had rooted up some potatoes from a retired
garden, and they had even purposely left the large potatoes and had only
taken away the small ones, in the hope that by so doing they would lessen
the crime.

RELEASE OF PEERAT'S SON.

In the afternoon I walked up to the jail attended by Peerat, his wives,
and a crowd of natives, to release little Dalbean. Peerat and myself
alone entered the jail; I told the jailor to hand him the whip, he took
it, and said, "Yes, yes, I will strike him; let not another beat him,
Governor."

The door of the cell was then opened and the little boy was led out: his
father ran up to him, caught him in his arms, and began kissing him;
having done this he told him he was going to beat him. The little fellow
did not answer a word, but, standing as firm and erect as possible,
presented his back to him, the father gave him one blow, and it was
ended--justice was satisfied; the criminals had surrendered to salutary
laws, of which they had but a vague and undefined knowledge. It was their
first offence; I explained to them the nature of the laws they had
broken, warned them to be careful in their future conduct, and let them
go. Little Dalbean, directly we got outside the jail, walked up to me,
took my hand, and squeezed it, and then turned to his mother; he just
looked at her, she cried, but did not dare to kiss him, or to show any
symptom of emotion; and the whole party, after showering thanks
innumerable upon my head, moved off, saying, "What a good fellow--what a
good fellow;" or, to give a literal translation, "One good man--one good
man."

Sunday January 26.

Old Manniotte, a native dressed in an old uniform, attended