“The man shot by the police was named Padlalta, and was of so mild and inoffensive a disposition, that he was generally noticed by the settlers on that very account, several of whom I have heard say since, it was a pity that some other native had not been hit in his stead.  The same man was captured last year by Major O’llalloran’s party, but was set at liberty as soon as I came up and testified his innocence, for which the poor fellow kissed my hand near a dozen times.

“The day before he met his death he was as usual in the town, doing little jobs for the inhabitants, to get bread or other food.  On the evening when he was killed, he had encamped with about half a dozen other natives on the northern side of Happy Valley, a short mile from the town.  The police who were sent by the Government Resident to see what number of natives were at the camp state, that while searching the man’s wallet, he seized hold of one gun, and when the other policeman came up to wrest it from him, he the native grasped the other gun too.  In the scuffle that ensued, one of the guns went off, when the other natives who had fled returned and presented their spears.  They then shot the native who held the gun.

“Now this statement is a very strange one, when it is considered that the native was a very spare and weak man, so that either of the police ought to have been able to keep him at arm’s length; but to say that he seized both their guns is beyond all credibility.  The natives were sitting down when the police arrived.  How they could therefore find a wallet upon the murdered man, I cannot conceive; since the natives never have their wallets slung, except when moving; and it certainly is not probable, that the man, in spite of the fright he is admitted to have been in, should have thought of taking up his wallet.

“The wallet is said to have contained some sovereigns, taken from the cutter Kate, which was wrecked some time previous to this affair, about forty miles up the coast, and to have been one of those marked by the police, at a native camp near the wreck from which the natives had been scared away, leaving all their things behind.  But if the murdered native had taken the sovereigns, why were they not then in his wallet, or why was the wallet not examined the day before when he was in town? [Note 54 at end of para.] I think that there is little doubt that the police found no wallet at all upon the native, and that they coined away one of those found at the camp upon him, with a view to incriminate him.”

[Note 54:  There cannot be a greater act of injustice towards the natives than that of applying the English law to them with respect to stolen property.  Any one who knows any thing of their habits, and the custom prevalent amongst them, of giving any European clothing, or other articles they may acquire, from one to another, must be fully aware how little the fact of their being found in possession of stolen property is just evidence against them.  Articles such as I have mentioned, often pass, in a very short time, through the hands of three or four individuals, and perhaps even through as many tribes.]