identified was a quantity of tea, with which a number of nails of a particular kind were found mixed; the marine's wife having testified in the course of the trial that a number of nails of that kind had accidentally fallen into their box of tea. The widow having sworn, moreover, to one of the men as the person who fired at her husband, they were both found guilty and condemned to death. The men acknowledged that they had gone down the river in a boat on the night of the robbery, with an intention to rob the marine's house, but not to commit murder. On arriving at the spot, however, they found they had been anticipated; another party of desperadoes being actually engaged at the moment in robbing the house. In these circumstances, they concealed themselves at a little distance from the house, to watch the issue of the affair; and observed the robbers plant or conceal a quantity of the property, of which they had just plundered the cottage, in their immediate neighbourhood. Watching their opportunity, therefore, they carried off the property to their boat, and made the best of their way to Windsor. But the whole story was ap、 parently so improbable that nobody believed it, and the men were executed forthwith. Several years afterwards, however, an emancipated convict-settler of the name of Fitzpatrick, who lived several miles farther down the river than the unfortunate marine, was found guilty of some capital offence and condemned to death. Before his execution, Fitzpatrick, whose apparently reputable character and easy circumstances had completely diverted suspicion into other channels, confessed that it was he who had robbed and murdered the ma

rine, that he had gone up the river with one or more accomplices on the night of the murder, and with an intention to rob the house, in a boat with muffled oars, and that, after shooting the marine and rifling the house, he had concealed a quantity of the plunder in the neighbourhood; but that on returning afterwards to carry it off, he had found, to his astonishment and disappointment, that some person had sprung the plant—a cant phrase for discovering and carrying off property which another person has stolen and concealed.

In the year 1828, six criminals, who had all been found guilty of capital offences and had received sentence of death, were ordered for execution. Three of them were Protestants, and three Roman Catholics. I had visited the former repeatedly before the execution of the sentence had been definitively fixed on by the executive council. One of them maintained his entire in-nocence of the crime of which he had been found guilty; but, as that is no uncommon occurrence, I paid no attention to it. All of them, however, indulged the hope of a commutation of their sentence into transportation to a penal settlement for life; especially as their crimes had not been attended in any instance with: bloodshed or personal violence. But as soon as the Sheriff had at length announced to them that their sentence was to be carried into execution, two of the Protestants confessed that, in addition to the crime for which they were deservedly to suffer death, they had also committed the highway robbery of which the third Protestant and one of the Roman Catholics-a very young man of the name of Lynch had been found.

guilty, on the evidence of a woman who swore to their persons; but that they had (naturally enough) concealed the circumstance so long as they had any hope of escaping with their own lives.

The execution was to take place on a Monday morning; the Sheriff's announcement to that effect having been made to them on the Thursday or Friday previous. I did not see the men after the intimation had been given them till late on the Saturday evening; but I was then forcibly struck at the earnestness with which the two Protestants maintained their own exclusive guilt, and the entire innocence of the third Protestant and the Roman Catholic Lynch. Determined, however, not to do any thing in the matter precipitately, I visited them again on the Sabbath morning; and, the impression made upon my mind of the truth of the men's statement the preceding evening being then confirmed, I determined to mention the circumstance to the Sheriff, and accordingly did so during the interval between the morning and afternoon's service, intending, in the event of that gentleman's opinion coinciding with my own, to ride up to Parramatta (where the Governor was then residing, about fifteen miles off,) in the evening, to solicit a reprieve for the third Protestant and the Roman Catholic Lynch.

The Sheriff observed, that it was no uncommon thing for criminals under sentence of death to act precisely in the way I had described-one or more, on finding that it is all over with themselves, confessing themselves guilty of crimes they had not committed, merely to get off some old companion, perhaps, who is really guilty,

and thereby render him the last service in their power: and, conceiving that the case I have detailed was just one of that character, he dissuaded me from applying to the Governor on the subject. This was a view of the case which had not occurred to me; and, as it served materially to weaken the impression produced by the. scene I had witnessed in the jail, I determined not to do any thing further in the matter.

I again visited the criminals, however, about ten o'clock on the Sabbath evening, and, from what occurred during my visit, I was fully persuaded of the correctness of my first impression; for while the man who had uniformly protested his innocence was apparently calm and collected, the agony of the other two at having brought two innocent persons to the scaffold was extreme, and I may add, if I know any thing at all of human nature, was undoubtedly unfeigned. Besides, I ascertained that they had had no previous acquaintance with the third Protestant; who had been an assigned servant to a settler on the Hawkesbury, and was characterized by his master as a quiet inoffensive man.

In these circumstances, I considered it my duty immediately to report the case to the Governor. With this view, I wrote out a statement of it on going home, as I did not expect to find His Excellency up at the early hour at which it would be necessary for me to reach Parramatta, in order to return to Sydney before the execution. I reached Government-House at Parramatta before six o'clock on Monday morning, and found both the Governor and the. Colonial Secretary in

the area in front of it, the latter having been at Government-House the preceding night, and being then just about proceeding to Sydney. The GovernorGeneral Darling-heard my verbal statement of the case, and held a private consultation with the Secretary on the written one; the result of which was that they both coincided in opinion with the Sheriff, and deemed it inexpedient to delay the execution of the sentence.

I accordingly returned immediately to Sydney, and about two miles from Parramatta met the late Roman Catholic Priest of Sydney, the Rev. Mr. Power, who had come to the same conclusion with myself, in regard to the innocence of the lad Lynch, and was actually on his way to the Governor on the very same errand. Having apprised him, however, of the result of my visit, he deemed it unnecessary to proceed any farther, and we accordingly returned together to Sydney. I saw the men once more, immediately before the execution, which took place about nine o'clock, when they all suffered death; and I still firmly believe that two of them were entirely innocent of the crime for which they were hanged. Cases of this kind, which it is evident may occur in any country, should surely have some weight in inducing the imperial legislature to render the punishment of death somewhat less frequent than it has hitherto unfortunately been, under the operation of the sanguinary criminal code of Great Britain and Ireland.

I have already hinted at the frequency of perjury in the criminal courts of the colony. In a community so peculiarly constituted as that of New South Wales,