Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central Australia And Overland From Adelaide To King George's Sound In The Years 1840-1: Sent By The Colonists Of South Australia By Eyre, Edward John
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He
Is Only Doing What His Habits And Ideas Have Taught Him To Think
Commendable.
He is doing what men in a more civilized state would have
done under the same circumstances, what they
Daily do under the sanction
of the law of nations - a law that provides not for the safety,
privileges, and protection of the Aborigines, and owners of the soil, but
which merely lays down rules for the direction of the privileged robber
in the distribution of the booty of any newly discovered country. With
reference to the particular case in question, the murder of Master
Hawson, it appears from Dr. Harvey's report (already quoted), that in
addition to any incentives, such as I have described, as likely to arise
in the minds of the natives, there had been the still greater provocation
of their having been fired at, but a short time previously, from the same
station, and by the murdered boy's brother. We may well pause, therefore,
ere we hastily condemn, or unjustly punish, in cases where the
circumstances connected with their occurrence, can only be brought before
us in a partial and imperfect manner.
The 7th was spent in preparing my despatches for Adelaide. On the 8th I
sent in a dray to Port Lincoln, with Mr. Scott's luggage, and those
things that were to be sent to Adelaide, comprising all the specimens of
geology and botany we had collected, a rough chart of our route, and the
despatches and letters which I had written.
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