64
an Ordinance of this character is not justifiable, the object might be obtained both more surely and with less violence to the general principles of law and justice by the Community at once placing ... under Martial (more properly Military) Law. The effect of this change is to suspend the action of the ordinary tribunals in certain cases, and to substitute, for the arbitrary determination of the Officer in Command who normally, though not necessarily, tries offences by Court Martial. I transmit to you copy of a Proclamation for bringing Martial Law into effect in ... in 1849, and also of an Ordinance passed in that Colony on the termination of Martial Law to indemnify parties who had acted in furtherance ...
If the possession of this power by the local Government is still insufficient to preserve the peace of the community from imminent danger, recourse might be had to the proclamation of Martial (properly Military) Law, as a less objectionable measure in itself than an Ordinance altering the ordinary law of the Colony to so great an extent.