1 68 A COLONIAL AUTOCRACY. 



that could be done was to hold an investigation into any charge 

 brought against a ship's master or crew a purely magisterial 

 inquiry which was only effective if followed by committal and 

 then the trial of the accused in England. 



The case of Theodore Walker illustrates many of the evils 

 of the South Sea trade, and shows how incurable they were 

 while the scope of the colonial courts was so restricted. 



Early in 1813 a small vessel, the Daphne, was trading in the 

 South Sea Islands. At Otaheite the master added to his crew 

 by carrying off four or five natives. These natives, joining with 

 some coloured men of the ship's company, mutinied, killed the 

 master, took possession of the vessel, and either killed the re- 

 mainder of the crew or put them ashore without food or water 

 on adjacent islands. Some of them, however, survived, and 

 spread the story of the mutiny. The death of the master, said 

 Macquarie, though lawless, was no more than fitting retribution, 

 for he had been guilty of the most wanton and vicious crimes. 

 On one occasion some friendly natives came on board his 

 ship to trade with him, and looked with the greatest respect 

 and curiosity at all it contained. The captain, wishing to get 

 quickly away, ordered the crew to clear the visitors from the 

 ship, and they were flogged and beaten off. Their canoes had 

 meanwhile been swamped, and the natives, unable to get to 

 them, were drowned in full view of the Daphne as she stood off 

 to sea. The savagery to which her captain afterwards fell a 

 victim could scarcely equal the cold cruelty of this episode. 



The crime of mutiny did not go unavenged. A short time 

 afterwards, when the Daphne was in the Bay of Islands, the brig 

 Endeavour, Theodore Walker, master, came into harbour there. 

 Walker at once attacked the mutineers, and after some shots 

 had been exchanged the firing from the Daphne ceased, and 

 word was brought that her crew had abandoned her. Walker 

 boarded the ship immediately and ordered a search. One man, 

 a Lascar, who had been one of the leaders of the mutiny, was 

 found in hiding. Walker ordered him to be taken on board 

 the Endeavour and hanged him at the yard-arm. Henry, one 

 of the missionary magistrates, reported these events to Mac- 

 quarie, November, 1813, and the story was known when Walker 

 reached Sydney. The Governor ordered the magistrates to 



