"Not guilty!" interrupted the foreman, as if he feared lest the prisoner should be convicted in spite of the jury.
"How say you," continued the clerk, "is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?"
"Not guilty!" cried the whole jury to a man; and amid thunders of acclamations the prisoner was released from the dock, and turned out of court, where he was seized upon by a multitude of sympathizers, and carried in triumph to the next public-house. There he spent the ensuing four-and-twenty hours, the hero of the day.
In this slight sketch I am conscious that I have only been able to convey to the reader a very faint idea of A COLONIAL JURY.
CHAPTER 7.
BOATING UP THE RIVER.
Whilst I was making acquaintances at Perth, my brothers, mounted on our Timor steeds, were making a tour of inspection beyond the Darling Hills. They fixed at length upon a farm at York, with about three thousand acres belonging to it, and having a good farm-house, with excellent barn and out-buildings attached. This evinced a more comfortable and luxurious state of things than they had anticipated, and they returned in high spirits to head-quarters.
It now became necessary to consider how the various goods and utensils were to be conveyed to the new settlement, which was seventy miles distant from Fremantle. We sold most of our flour and pork at a fair profit, and left by far the greater part of the other articles which we had brought out with us to be sold by a commission agent, as opportunity offered.
From various causes, but chiefly from our own ignorance in selecting our goods in London, we lost a considerable sum upon the things we had brought out. Emigrants, unless they are men of great experience, should bring all their capital to a colony in bills or specie, and not attempt to increase their property by speculating in goods. On their arrival, they will most probably find the markets already glutted, and they will be compelled either to sell at a sacrifice, or leave their effects in the hands of an agent, who will charge enormously for warehouse-rent and other expenses, and will take especial care that the unfortunate emigrant is not the party who profits most by the sale of his goods.
We had brought out with us an old artillery waggon; and all hands now set to work to put it together, which was accomplished after a good deal of difficulty. We also purchased three pair of bullocks, which were at that date very dear. One pair—magnificent animals certainly—cost fifty guineas, and the other animals twenty pounds a-piece. Now, however, the best working bullocks may be obtained for about fifteen pounds a pair. As the road so far as Guildford was excessively heavy, we resolved to convey most of our goods by water to a spot a few miles beyond that town, where a friendly settler had placed at our disposal a wooden building, consisting of a single room, situated on the banks of the river, and used occasionally by himself as a store-house for his own goods on their transit to his dwelling. The same friend lent us his own whale-boat; and by determining to convey our effects ourselves we avoided a very heavy expense. The cost of conveying necessaries from the coast to the farm settlements in the interior, has been one of the chief drawbacks to the colony. The boatmen made fortunes, whilst the farmers were nearly ruined by their charges, and those of the storekeepers in the towns.