Europeans;
for I hold it to be imagining a contradiction to suppose, that
individuals subject to savage and barbarous laws, can rise into a state
of civilization, which those laws have a manifest tendency to destroy and
overturn.
"I have known many instances of natives who have been almost or quite
civilized, being compelled by other natives to return to the bush; more
particularly girls, who have been betrothed in their infancy, and who, on
approaching the years of puberty, have been compelled by their husbands
to join them.
"To punish the Aborigines severely for the violation of laws of which
they are ignorant, would be manifestly cruel and unjust; but to punish
them in the first instance slightly for the violation of these laws would
inflict no great injury on them, whilst by always punishing them when
guilty of a crime, without reference to the length of period that had
elapsed between its perpetration and their apprehension, at the same time
fully explaining to them the measure of punishment that would await them
in the event of a second commission of the same fault, would teach them
gradually the laws to which they were henceforth to be amenable, and
would shew them that crime was always eventually, although it might be
remotely, followed by punishment.
