52 



THE PREDECESSORS OF THE 



thousand pagodas ; on the Saturday following he deposited 

 diamonds to the value of twenty thousand pagodas more, 

 and a few days afterwards gave ample security for the 

 remainder. 37 



Captain Hamilton goes on to say, after instancing two 

 cases in which he considered that Governor Yale and Gover- 

 nor Collet had improperly caused the execution of two 

 alleged pirates, " That power of executing pirates is so 

 strangely stretched that if any private trader is injured by 

 the tricks of a Governor, and can find no redress, if the 

 injured party is so bold as to talk of Lex taUonis he is infalli- 

 bly declared a pirate." 



To modern ideas it may not appear so very strange that 

 a private trader taking the law into his own hands in this 

 fashion should be declared a pirate, but however that may 

 be, it somewhat detracts from our confidence in Captain 

 Hamilton as an unprejudiced witness to find that Governor 

 Collet had formally declared him a rank pirate in conse- 

 quence of his having, according to his own showing, written 

 to the Governor complaining of the proceedings of Mr. 

 Powney, the Governor's agent at Siam, and " let some hints 

 fall of Lex taUonis " if he met with Powney conveniently. 



With regard to the administration of civil justice he 

 says : — 



" They have a Town Hall, and underneath it are prisons for 

 debtors. They are or were a Corporation, and had a Mayor 

 and Aldermen to be chosen by the free Burgesses of the town, 

 but that scurvy way is grown obsolete, and the Governor and 

 his Council or party fix the choice. The City had laws and 

 ordinances for its own preservation, and a Court kept in form, 

 the Mayor and Aldermen in their gowns, with maces on the 

 table, a Clerk to keep a register of transactions and cases, and 



Wheeler's Madras, vol. ii, p 357. 



