33.
Measures. Our Soldiers have been instructed when on duty at night to fire on all persons not answering when challenged or unable to give an account of themselves, in deed upon all such persons seen under suspicious circumstances.
And I speak from experience when I say that in this way Marauders are frequently shot, and the soldier by whom they are shot is praised for his alertness and strict performance of his duty. A brother of a Native Officer who on the 19th instant was examined by you received his promotion for having one night on the Frontier attacked a party of thieves and killed one of them after a desperate fight.
It not unfrequently happens that the soldier in our Service fires upon a Marauder whom he has known to be one of his own Tribe, strict obedience (as I before stated) to the orders of his European Officer being paramount. In the case of the two Soldiers now awaiting sentence, I have no hesitation in saying that they acted only as they would have done on their own Frontier.
And the point which I would most respectfully but forcibly urge upon Your Lordship is that the Patrol, of which the Prisoners formed a part, was regularly marched out by order of the European Officer in Command, and that in acting as they did, they were following orders.
Page 431