Page:Admiral Phillip.djvu/102

 a languid interest in the native question, and beyond occasional squabbles between the two races and fragmentary stories of their customs, more or less inaccurately reported, little worth printing is recorded.

Of Bennilong himself we hear again from time to time, and he is always in disgrace, until at last the early chroniclers mention his name no longer.

Phillip's policy towards the natives, save in one instance, during his administration was to win their friendship by kindness. Even after he was wounded, he allowed no attempt at reprisals to be made, but, on the contrary, took a great deal of trouble to make Bennilong understand and inform his countrymen that the Governor regarded the outrage as arising from their fear of capture—a fear justified by the previous abduction of some of their number. The importance of preserving the crops from the thieving propensities of the blacks was the only excuse permitted for firing upon the aborigines.

Tench relates an incident which illustrates both the danger from the blacks, and the one occasion when Phillip got out of patience with them. In December 1790, a sergeant of marines, with three convicts, among whom was M'Entire, the Governor's gamekeeper, a man of whom Bennilong had always shown the utmost hatred and terror, went out to shoot kangaroos in the vicinity of Botany Bay. About midnight two natives were observed by the sergeant creeping towards the camp with spears in