Ss

Judge Begbie. 35

7. It was not only witnesses that were thus oppressively treated.
A colored man named Dixon had been maltreated by two citizens of
the United States of N. A., Burns and Farrell, on the 25th Dec. last,
an assault which was the occasion of the outrages which had called the
Lieut. Govt and myself to Yale. Captn Whannell entertained Dixon’s
complaint and issued warrants for the apprehension of Burns and Far-
rell, although from the various accounts I received at Yale the assault
was probably at law a common assault only. In order to secure the
presence of Dixon to prosecute the complaint, Captn Whannell then
committed him, Dixon, to close custody and so detained him. This
brings me so near the final outrage that I shall proceed at once with the
narrative and observe upon the conduct of parties afterwards. Upon
Captn Whannell’s warrant, Burns and Farrell were apprehended and
taken before Mr. Perrier, another Justice of the Peace for the same
district residing at Hill’s Bar, the next village to Yale, about 114 miles
distant. Perrier, wishing to investigate the matter, sent his constable
for Dixon, the prosecutor (who was, as stated above, detained in gaol
at Yale). Captn. Whannell, having the prosecutor in his hands, refused
to give him up: but demanded that Burns and Farrell shod be brought
before him: and when the constable declined to undertake to do this
without a written order, and also, as alleged by Captn. Whannell, upon
some insolence or contempt at Captn. Whannell’s authority, he, Captn.
Whannell, threw Mr. Perrier’s constable also into the gaol at Yale ;*
wch, being circumscribed in its limits, must, when thus containing prose-
cutor, witnesses, and constable—everybody but the accused persons—
have been rather inconveniently crowded.

8. Mr. Perrier, indignant at this treatment of his constable, and
apparently entirely ignorant of his power and authority and of the
respect due to the commission of the peace, immediately fulminated
against his rival a warrant for his apprehension, and also a warrant
for forcibly taking Dixon out of the gaol at Yale and bringing him to
Hill’s Bar; and having no constable to whom the execution of these
warrants could be committed, he swore in Edward McGowan and one
Kelly* and, I believe, several others as special constables to execute the
warrants. I only name these two, as they were the most noted men
on Hill’s Bar, and were therefore the two who were summoned before
Mr. Brew,** J.P., and myself to answer for their conduct.

(48) Mr. Hickson. See note (31) on Judge Begbie’s correspondence, ante, p. 30, and the
affidavit of Thomas Piesley at the end of Judge Begbie’s correspondence.

(44) Probably Terence Kelly, one of the men on the black-list of the Vigilance Committee.
who in 1856 had, with others then mining on Hill’s Bar, been ordered to leave California. ;

(45) Chartres Brew. See note (23) in this correspondence, ante, p. 27.