Chap. XIX. CAPTAIN FITZROY'S DECISION. 523 
countrymen. The cunning savage himself must have 
despised the White man, unmindful of the White 
man's blood, even while accepting the ceremony of 
shaking hands, which he knew to convey the sym- 
pathy and approval of the fighting chief who com- 
manded 300 warriors. 
The decision, as he was pleased to call it, of Captain 
Fitzroy, is a still more serious subject. As to his 
opinion that the savages were innocent, I will not lay 
myself open to the charge of making a cry for ven- 
geance on the murderers of a near and dear relative. 
But as he declared that the TVhite men were in the 
wrong, I must claim indulgence for stating the opi- 
nion of many thousand British subjects now living 
in New Zealand, that the TVhite men v;ere in the 
right. 
I should not have dared to contradict the verdict of 
twelve impartial and fairly-chosen Jurymen, or to im- 
pugn the sentence of a Judge acting as he was entitled 
and bound to do by the British constitution. But I 
have a right to dissent, in the most explicit terms, from 
the despotic decree of a man who has assumed to him- 
self, against all law and custom, both of those important 
functions. 
The mode of investigation adopted by Captain 
Fitzroy was subversive of the simplest principles of 
justice towards both the parties. In fact, he decided 
the matter without hearing either state his own case, 
and without giving either an opportunity of answering 
the other. He equally neglected the observances of 
justice towards both parties ; and only did not do 
equal injustice to both, because his passions had deter- 
mined him before inquiry to decide entirely in favour of 
one. 
He professes to have heard the White story, and thus 
