whatever proved to have beaten the convicts assigned to them, instead
of having recourse to the magistrates, will be deprived of that accommodation in future."
The power of granting assigned servants rested wholly with the Governor, and it placed at his mercy any Bobadils of the corps who thought to show their valour by striking their servants, and nevertheless wished to retain their services. Writing to Lord Hobart (9th May 1803) King said:
"I am also much concerned to state that, notwithstanding Ensign Bayley has been once tried by a general court-martial for having . . . beaten and ill-treated the convict whose labour was assigned to him, instead of taking the prescribed steps for his punishment by the magistrates, he has since thought proper to repeat those acts . . .On the third offence I was compelled to try him. The court refused to take cognizance of it, and although the facts would have been clearly established, even from his own confession, yet, as no investigation was made, the nature of the sentence requires me to transmit the proceedings of that court-martial also to the Judge-Advocate-General for His Majesty's decision."
In a military letter of the same date the irate Governor alluded to the dissemination of "anonymous seditious papers," when from illness his "existence was doubtful." It was owing to the disappointment and "concealed revenge of those who felt themselves aggrieved by the different orders and restrictions" imposed by him to "bring about regularity."
"Conscious as I was of my integrity, and having a thorough contempt for the assassin's blow, I should have passed over any number of similar attacks that such concealed villainy could have suggested with the scorn and contempt they merit, had they not been circulated by those who ought to have maintained a very different conduct; but as I saw officers publishing those infamous papers, the duty I owe to His Majesty's service, the public, and myself, required that I should bring those officers to a public account for having so industriously disseminated those papers. . . . I had no other mode of noticing these officers' conduct than by trying them by a general court-martial, which made it necessary for me to prosecute. Issuing the warrants, my presence as prosecutor could not be admitted. That anthority I delegated to the surgeon of the corps (Harris), who has generally officiated as Deputy-Judge Advocate. Judge, my Lord, how far I ought to expect impartiality when those officers were tried by others of their own corps, and although I did not nominate three officers, in conformity to His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief's intimation of excluding such officers as might be suspected of partiality, yet certainly a Governor has very little chance of justice where he is so situated,—having only one corps, and but a sufficiency of officers to sit on a court-martial, and being unable to manage the prosecution in person."
In a separate despatch (of the same date) he reminded Lord Hobart that that nobleman had already favourably
