204 PHILLIP 1790 that there should be any Court at all.* But that view of the matter holds good only where military law has been legally proclaimed by the proper authority, under circum- stances which would be held to justify such an interruption of the ordinary course of justice. Another resolution declared that " all marauding or plun- dering, whether of public or of private property, will be A now code, deemed capital crimes "; in other words, a charge of theft would be followed by sentence and execution. Thus the island was placed under military law in its strictest form ; King's command was extinguished, and civil government on the island was at an end.f The proceedings which took place on the occasion of the proclamation formed a pretty little scene for a melodrama : — At eight o'clock in the morning, all persons on the island were assembled near the lower flag-staff, on which the Union was hoisted : the marines were drawn up in two lines, leaving a space in the Dramatic centre, at the head of which was the Union. The colours of the SDCctacIc detachment were then unfurled, and the Sirius's crew were drawn up on the right, and the convicts on the left, the officers being in the centre. The proclamation was then read, declaring that the island was to be governed by martial law until fui'ther orders : the Lieutenant-Governor next addressed the convicts, and after point- ing out the situation of the settlement, he exhorted them to be honest, industrious, and obedient. This being concluded, the whole Three cheers gave three cheers ; and every person, beginning with the Lieu- law. tenant-Governor, passed under the Union flag, taking off their hats as they passed it in token of an oath to submit and be amenable to the martial law, which had then been declared.
- It is dlBtinctly laid down that persons under martial law— that is, in
case of mutiny or rebellion — may be summarily tried and convicted, without even the ordinary forms of military law, and with only such inquiry, whether by Court-martial or otherwise, as the circumstances admit of ; and if by Court-martial, then by such evidence as can be obtained. — Finlason, Martial Law, p. 83. t In the various cases in which martial law has been proclaimed in British colonies (collected in Tovey on Martial Law, p. 152) the act was justified by the outbreak of insurrection. The most notable instance of the kind occurred in Jamaica in 1865, when Governor Eyre proclaimed martial law in order to suppress riot and disorder amone the negroes. One of the ring- leaders having been tried and executed by Court-martial, an indictment for Digitized by Google
