SOUTHERN AFRICA. 137 
circumstantial evidence, however strong, warrant the carry- 
ing of any sentence into execution, until a free confession be 
made of the crime. Such confession, it is true, was, under 
the Dutch government, sometimes extorted by the applica- 
tion of the torture ; in Avhich case, if the guilty had nerve 
enough, he was sure to escape, and if the innocent was feeble, 
be was equally sure of being hanged. 
Even in civil causes, the presumption that the Court was 
generally right is in its favor; for since the establishment of 
an English Court of Appeal in the year 1797, to the evacua- 
tion of the colony, out of the number of cases brought before 
the said Court of Appeal, only one sentence was reversed ; 
and it appeared that the error committed, in this instance, 
by the Court of Justice was owing to their tenacity rather to 
the letter, than to the spirit of the law ; and that by rigidly 
adhering to the summiim jus, their decision was productive of 
the summa iiijiiria. It was also supposed that, in the case 
alluded to, a very undue influence was employed to sway the 
Court. Neither are the members of the Court of Justice in 
the Cape so wanting in talent or in legal knowledge as might 
be supposed ; at least, they proved to the world that they 
had sagacity enough to detect, and integrity and firmness 
enough to punish, the authors of a most nefarious and bare- 
faced transaction, which those persons had contrived to carry 
through the Court of Vice-Admiralty with complete success, 
though the imposition was of the grossest nature. 
Capital crimes in the Cape district are less frequent than 
'they might be supposed among such a mixed multitude, 
VOL. II. T 
