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
- Page 594 of 914 - First - Home
"That The Presence Of A Protector In Your District, And Other Means Of
Prevention Hitherto Employed, Have Not Succeeded Better Than They Have
Done In Repressing Aggression Or Retaliation, And Have Failed To Establish
A Good Understanding Between The Natives And The European Settlers,
Is Greatly To Be Deplored.
"As far as the local government has power, every practicable extension
of these arrangements shall be made without delay;
But, gentlemen,
however harsh, a plain truth must be told, the destruction of
European property, and even the occasional sacrifice of European
life, by the hands of the savage tribes, among whom you live, if
unprovoked and unrevenged, may justly claim sympathy and pity; but the
feeling of abhorrence which one act of savage retaliation or cruelty on
your part will rouse, must weaken, if not altogether obliterate every
other, in the minds of most men; and I regret to state, that I have
before me a statement presented in a form which I dare not discredit,
shewing that such acts are perpetrated among you.
"It reveals a nightly attack upon a small number of natives, by a
party of the white inhabitants of your district, and the murder of
no fewer than three defenceless aboriginal women and a child, in
their sleeping place; and this at the very time your memorial was
in the act of signature, and in the immediate vicinity of the station
of two of the parties who have signed it. Will not the commission of
such crimes call down the wrath of God, and do more to check the
prosperity of your district, and to ruin your prospects, than all
the difficulties and losses under which you labour?" Mr. Sievewright's
letter gives an account of this infamous transaction.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 594 of 914
Words from 165778 to 166068
of 254601
