Chap. VIII. COLONEL WAKEFIELD'S ANS^VER. 207 
" TVareport, or, indeed, considering the position in 
" which I found myself, any other witnesses in this 
" case. 
" I was prepared to rest the validity of the Com- 
"pany's title on the evidence already adduced. I 
** might, perhaps, have called some other native wit- 
" nesses ; and, with the Commissioner's permission, I 
"would state my reason for not doing so. I found 
" myself by some means or other, I hardly knew how, 
" deprived of the legal assistance on which I had 
" relied, and unable to cope with the legal talent 
" opposed to me. I had to satisfy, in the first place, 
" the learned Commissioner, and I should have been 
" well pleased if no one else had anything to do 
" with the question ; then two Protectors of Abori- 
" gines, one of them interpreter in the same cause in 
" which, as an advocate, he cross-examined the wit- 
" nesses whose evidence he transmitted to the Court. 
" I had further to contend against two practising pro- 
" fessional men, eager lo trip me up, and to fasten on 
" the smallest discrepancy in the evidence, as if this 
" ease were to be decided by all the niceties of English 
" law. 
" I moreover laboured under the disadvantage of 
" having my case known to my opponent, whilst his 
" had not been disclosed to me even by advertisement 
" in the Government Gazette. I had also every reason 
" to think that some of the witnesses I might have 
" called had been tampered with. 
" Under these circumstances, I thought I should not 
" be justified in running any risk of prejudicing the 
" Company's interests by my ignorance of the rules of 
" evidence and the forms of law ; and I begged there- 
" fore, respectfully, to leave the case as it stood with 
" the Court," 
