Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/214

( 189 ) keen sensibility of prosperity, like marks imprinted on the sand, are soon effaced by the current of adverse circumstances. What once seemed more valuable than life itself, even female virtue, grows weaker by degrees, and at last fails; a sacrifice to present convenience; so true is the poet's exclamation, that "want wilt perjure the ne'er-touch'd vestal."

And now again, when I considered the motives; when I contrasted the powers, the ingenuity, and the resources of civilized man, with the weakness, the ignorance, and the wants of the savage he came to dispossess I acknowledged the immensity of human intelligence, and felt thankful for the small portion dispensed to myself. These thoughts naturally led to the contemplation of ture