136 TRAVELS IN 
The constitution and the practice of such a court gave but 
too strong grounds for supposing that justice v/as not always 
administered with strict impartiality. The cause of a foreigner 
was always indeed considered as hopeless. If in some few 
instances they may have leaned to the side of their country- 
men, where the dispute respected property, yet I am inclined 
to believe that in all criminal cases they have acted, not only 
with impartiality, but with the greatest caution and circum- 
soection. I do not here mean to include that unfortunate 
race of men who are doomed to slavery : the measure of 
justice was dealt out to these poor creatures with as sparing 
a hand at the Cape as in most other countries where the 
negro is scarcely considered to rank among human beings. 
If a slave should unfortunately lift his hand against a white 
man, he runs the greatest risk of being tortured and torn in 
pieces, it being always presumed, on such an event, that the 
intention was to murder .; but if a white man should actually 
murder his own slave, little, if any, inquiry is made into the 
circumstances of the case ; and if he should put to death the 
slave of another man, he has only to settle with the owner for 
the value he put upon him ; unless indeed the owner, from prin- 
ciple or from pique, should bring the matter before the Court 
of Justice, a case which I fancy has rardy, if ever, happened. 
Two irreproachable and concurring witnesses are required to 
substantiate a fact against a person accused of a capital crime; 
and one evidence of good character, produced on the part of a 
person accused of felony, is considered of equal weight with 
Izm produced against him : and even after sentence has been 
passed, until the moment of execution, the condemned is 
allowed to bring forward evidence in his favor. Nor can 
