Chap. XVni. TRIAL OT E tVAtiO. -< ^^ 501 
Counsel was retained for the prisoner, and Mr. 
Clarke junior was sworn as interpreter. 
After the evidence had been gone through at great 
length. Judge Halswell charged the jury very care- 
fully. It so happened that one or two of the jurors 
were men married to native women. 
They retired for an hour, and then returned an 
informal verdict, which they were told by the Judge 
to re-consider. After an hour and a half more, they 
returned a verdict of guilty. 
Upon the Clerk of the Court, through Mr. Clarke, 
demanding of the prisoner why judgment should not 
be passed upon him according to law, the prisoner 
stated, that the things which he had been found guilty 
of stealing were not the property of any White man, 
but belonged to his sister ; and as to anything which 
could be done to him now, he was indifferent. He 
had been degraded by being handcuffed and kept 
in jail, and did not care for anything. 
The learned Judge said he perfectly concurred in 
the verdict ; and sentenced the prisoner to two months' 
imprisonment, with hard labour, in the jail of Wel- 
lington. 
This sentence was received by loud hisses, as too 
lenient. The Judge directed the usher to close the 
door of the court-house, and ordered the constables to 
take into custody any person expressing either appro- 
bation or disapprobation. 
Upon hearing the sentence, the prisoner loudly 
complained of the degradation of imprisonment, and 
requested most earnestly to be killed with a tomahawk. 
The native Porutu of Pipitea, a near relation of the 
prisoner, had sent a message to the Judge to this effect 
at the last sitting of the Court for appearances, a few 
days before. 
