The prior decision, conformably to the law against homicide committed in an affray, subsequent investigation does not confirm; and She-fo-pao is, therefore, only punishable with banishment.
This second report being received by the supreme criminal tribunal, they declare that,
The sentence having been altered on a revision by the sub-viceroy, and rendered conformable to the law, which ordains that, whoever shall unwarily draw a bow and shoot an arrow towards fields or tenements, so that any person unperceived therein may be wounded, and die therefrom, the offender shall receive a hundred blows with the bamboo, and suffer banishment to the distance of 3000 lys.
We confirm the sentence of a hundred blows of the bamboo, and banishment to the distance of 3000 lys; and further prescribe, that ten ounces of silver (3l. 6s. 3d.) shall be paid by the offender to the relations of the deceased for the expences of burial.
The sentence, being thus pronounced on the 19th day of the 5th moon, of the 27th year of Kien-Long, received the Imperial sanction on the 21st day of the same moon, in the following words: Pursuant to sentence be this obeyed.
KHIN-TSE.
[26] Each watch is two hours, and the second watch begins at eleven o'clock.
[27] A debtor is released when it appears that the whole of his property has been given up for the use of his creditors.
[28] The circumstances attending the downfal of this minister are curious, and shew, in its true light, the despotic nature of the Chinese government, notwithstanding their salutary laws. The new Emperor, determined on his ruin, makes a public declaration wherein, after apologizing for not abstaining agreeably to the laws of the empire from all acts of innovation, for the space of three years after his father's death, he observes, that the crimes and excesses of Ho-tchung-tang are of so horrid a nature, as to preclude him from acting towards him with any pity or indulgence. He then exhibits about twenty articles of accusation against him, the principal of which are,
Contumacy towards his father (the late Emperor) by riding on horseback to the very door of the hall of audience at Yuen-min-yuen.