13S TRAVELS IN 
where a great majority have no interest in tlie public pro- 
sperity or tranquillity. The strength of the garrison contri- 
buted materially to keep the slaves in order ; and instances 
of capital crimes were less numerous under the British Go- 
vernment than in any former period of the same duration for 
the last thirty years. In six years 63 were sentenced to 
suffer death, of which 30 were publicly executed, and the 
rest condemned to work at the fortifications in chains for 
life. The sentence of such as escaped execution was not 
changed on account of any palliative circumstance or insuf- 
ficient testimon}'-, but because confession of the crime is in- 
dispensably necessary to the execution of the sentence; and 
this confession being now no longer extorted by the applica- 
tion of the torture, most of them persist to deny the crime 
of which they are accused ; preferring a life of hard labor, 
with a diet of bread and water, to an untimely death. But 
though the rack and torture were by the Dutch laws allowed 
to be put in practice, in order to extort the confession of 
crimes, and breaking on the wheel was a common sentence 
of the law, yet the Court of Justice at the Cape pretended 
to say that these expedients were rarely resorted to ; but, at 
the same time, on their abolition by command of his Majesty, 
they strenuously urged the necessity of their continuance, as 
proper engines of terror for preventing the commission of 
capital crimes, which, they thought, simple strangling with a 
cord would be insufficient to effect. Contrary, however, to 
the opinion of the Court of Justice, tliere were fewer execu- 
tions, after the abolition of the rack and torture, than had 
taken place in an equal period for many years before : so 
much so, indeed, that one of the public executioners mads 
