118] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



the case to government had 

 omitted to state its leading cir- 

 cumstances. In all cases of this 

 nature, it was one misfortune that 

 our West India possessions were 

 so remote ; and it was another 

 that none but a white could give 

 evidence in a court of justice. 

 This last was precisely the case 

 in the West India islands. Had 

 it not been for accounts through 

 a private channel on the part of 

 lord Bathurst, no notice would 

 have been taken of the most im- 

 portant part of the case. Tlie 

 governors and judges in these 

 islands should be rendered inde- 

 pendent of the colonial legislatures 

 if the House meant that the ad- 

 ministration of justice should be 

 pure ; as it was difficult for either 

 of them to maintain their inde- 

 pendence in places where a single 

 family possessed an uncontrollable 

 ascendancy. Upon the same au- 

 thority from which the other parts 

 of the transaction had been 



learned, he had understood that 

 Mr. Rawlins had not been in 

 custody before his trial, and that, 

 while subsequently he had been 

 in confinement pursuant to his 

 sentence, lie had received many 

 visits and marks of attention. 



Sir S. Romilly, in reply, said, 

 that the case had not been pre- 

 maturely brought forward. He 

 had made a full statement of all 

 the circumstances attending it, 

 excepting the depositions taken 

 before the coroner, with respect 

 to which he admitted that farther 

 information was necessary. He 

 had not thrown out any reflections 

 against the inhabitants of the 

 West Indies generally, but had, 

 upon a former occasion, made a 

 distinction between the larger 

 and the smaller islands, and had 

 repelled the injustice of applying 

 his observations indiscriminately 

 to the whole. 



The motion was then agreed 

 to. 



CHAPTER 



