i7?o ADMINISTRATION JUSTICE 415 



is obliged to drive on one side of the road, and stop there 

 till they have passed, which distinction is expected by their 

 wives and even children, and commonly paid to them. Nor 

 can the hired coachman be restrained from paying this 

 slavish mark of respect by anything but the threats of 

 instant death, as some of our captains have experienced, who 

 thought it beneath the dignity of the rank they held in his 

 Britannic Majesty's service to submit to any such humiliating 

 ceremony. 



Justice is administered here by a parcel of gentlemen 

 of the law, who have ranks and dignities among themselves 

 as in Europe. In civil matters I know nothing of their 

 proceedings, but in criminal they are rather severe to the 

 natives, and too lenient to their countrymen, who, whatever 

 crime they have committed, are always allowed to escape if 

 they choose ; and, If brought to trial, very rarely' punished 

 with death. The poor Indians, on the other hand, are flogged, 

 hanged, broken upon the wheel, and even impaled without 

 mercy. While we were there three remarkable crimes were 

 committed by Christians, two duellists each killed his 

 antagonist, and both fled ; one took refuge on board our ship, 

 bringing with him so good a character from the Batavians, 

 that the captain gave him protection, nor was he ever 

 demanded. The other, I suppose, went on board some other 

 ship, as he was never taken. The third was a Portuguese, 

 who by means of a false key had robbed an office to which 

 he belonged of 1400 or 1500 pounds; he, however, was 

 taken, but instead of death condemned to a public whipping, 

 and banishment to Edam for ninety-nine years. 



The Malays and Chinese have each proper offices of their 

 own, a captain and lieutenants as they are called, who 

 administer justice among them in civil cases, subject to an 

 appeal to the Dutch court, which, however, rarely occurs. 

 Before the Chinese rebellion, as the Dutch, or the massacre, 

 as the Chinese themselves and most Europeans, call it, in 

 1740 (when the Dutch, upon, maybe, too slight information, 

 massacred no man knows how many thousand unresisting 

 Chinese, for a supposed rebellion which the latter to this 



