PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
217 
unless severe measures were pursued in this instance, successive depre- CHAP, 
dations would in all probability have occurred. The chiefs were in con- 
sequence summoned, and at an early date the prisoners were brought March, 
to trial opposite the anchorage. As it was an extraordinary case, I 
was invited to the tribunal, and paid the compliment of being allowed 
to interrogate the prisoners ; but nothing conclusive was elicited, though 
the circumstantial proof was so much against them that five out of six 
of the chiefs pronounced them guilty. The penalty in the event of 
conviction in a case of this nature is, that the culprit shall pay fourfold 
the value of the property stolen : in this instance, however, as the arti- 
cles could not be replaced, and the value was far beyond what the 
individuals could pay, I proposed, as the chiefs referred the matter to 
me, that, by way of an example, and to deter others from similar acts, 
the prisoners should suffer corporal punishment. Their laws, how- 
ever, did not admit of this mode of punishment, and the matter con- 
cluded by the chiefs making themselves responsible for the stores, and 
directing Pa-why to acquaint the people that they had done so, pro- 
mising to make further inquiry into the matter ; which was never done, 
and the prisoners escaped : but the investigation answered our purpose 
equally well, as the stores afterwards remained untouched. The various 
reports which preceded the trial, the assembling of the chiefs, and 
other circumstances, had brought together a great concourse of people. 
Pa-why, raising himself above the multitude, harangued them in a very 
energetic and apparently elegant manner, much to the satisfaction of 
the inhabitants, who all dispersed and went quietly to their homes. 
The consideration which the chiefs gave to the merits of this question, 
and the pains they took to elicit the truth, reflect much credit upon 
them. The case was a difficult one, and Hetotte, not being able to 
make up his mind to the guilt of the prisoners, very honestly differed 
from his colleagues ; and his conduct, while it afforded a gratifying 
instance of the integrity of the man, showed a proper consideration 
for the prisoners, which in the darker ages would have been sacrificed 
to the interested motive of coinciding in opinion with the majority. 
If we compare the fate which would have befallen the prisoners, sup- 
posing them innocent, had they been arraigned under the early form 
F I -’ 
