IN A COURT OF JUSTICE. 
495 
an address to a native of New South Wales, when 
passing sentence of death upon him 
“ The principle upon which this court has acted in the em- 
barrassing collisions which have too frequently arisen between the 
Aborigines and the white Europeans, has been one of reciprocity 
and mutual protection. On the one hand, the white man when 
detected ( which I fear seldom happens), has been justly visited 
with the rigour of the law, for aggressions on the helpless 
savages ; and, on the other, the latter has been accountable for 
outrages upon his white brethren. As between the Aborigines 
themselves, the court has never interfered, for obvious reasons. 
Doubtless, in applying the law of a civilized nation to the con- 
dition of a wild savage, innumerable difficulties must occur. 
The distance in the scale of humanity between the wandering, 
houseless man of the woods, and the civilized European, is im- 
measurable ! For protection, and for responsibility in 
HIS RELATION TO THE WHITE MAN THE BLACK IS REGARDED 
as A British subject. In theory, this sounds just and 
reasonable ; but in practice, how incongruous becomes its ap- 
plication ! As a British subject, he is presumed to know the 
laws, for the infraction of which he is held accountable, and yet 
he is shut out from the advantage of its protection when brought 
to the test of responsibility. As a British subject, he is entitled 
to be tried by his peers. Who are the peers of the black man ? 
Are those, of whose laws, customs, language, and religion, he is 
wholly ignorant — nay, whose very complexion is at variance 
with his own — his peers ? He is tried in his native land by a 
race new to him, and by laws of which he knows nothing. 
Had you, unhappy man ! had the good fortune to be born a 
Frenchman, or had been a native of any other country but your 
own, the law of England would have allowed you to demand a 
trial by half foreigners and half Englishmen. But, by your lot 
being the lowest, as is assumed , in the scale of humanity, you are 
inevitably placed on a footing of fearful odds, when brought into 
the sacred temple of British justice. Without a jury of your own 
