— xliii — 211 



powers; and I think that, when public officers set about exercising 

 powers which necessarily inflict suffering or injury, or interfero 

 with the rights or liberties of any person, they ought to be ex- 

 tremelv cautious in what they do, or make their agents or subordi- 

 nates do. Here, the defendants, acting on their own or their su- 

 periors' view of the law (it matters not which, as regards the 

 plaintiff), committed a breach of the law, and a breach which 

 might have resulted in a breach of the peace ; for among the seven 

 men engaged in the trespass, several were armed, and if the plain- 

 tiff had happened to be present, they might have encountered 

 resistance; blood might have been shed, and the officers of the law 

 would have bad to answer for all the consequences of having been 

 trespassers and wrong-doers. On the other hand, most of our na- 

 tive peasants, in the plaintiff's place, whether they resisted or yield- 

 ed, at the time, to the display of force in the name of the law, 

 would not have ventured, as ihe plaintiff has, to question its legali- 

 ty in a Court of Justice, and they would thus be permanently dis- 

 possessed contrary to law. For these reasons, I think it my duty 

 to do what in me lies to discourage such proceedings; and, there- 

 fore, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, I shall 

 give the plaintiff the amount of the damages which he has claimed. 



Judgment for the plaintiff for 300 dollars. 



APPENDIX IT. 



PROCLAMATION 



A complaint having been laid before the Court of Justice 

 that the Captain Malayu, land-holder for Sungei Pootat and Batoo 

 Brandam, has demanded from his tenants more than y 1 ^ on the pro- 

 duce and also on sales or transfers of the property of cultivators,-— 



Considering that it is against the rules and regulations of the 

 place and opposed to the prosperity of the Settlement, we have 

 found it advisable, in order to obviate this evil, to make known by 

 proclamation that any one found guilty of exacting from any of 

 his tenants a rent exceeding the tenth of the produce, will be 



