1770 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 
