Page:Extracts from the letters and journals of George Fletcher Moore.djvu/284

 258 May 1st.—Some natives—seven men, one pretty young woman, and two boys—have been here. I gave them some wheat, but they wanted bread very much, and stayed with me for it half an hour, then went to Mr. Shaw's, thence to the barracks, where shots were fired to frighten them; they were unarmed;—I hope we shall not suffer for the indiscretion of the soldiers.

2nd.—Captain Irwin came here to-day, and instituted an inquiry into this unprovoked and causeless firing at the unarmed natives, and issued strict orders.

A murder was committed by the natives the day before yesterday, on the road between Fremantle and the Canning, in consequence of the following provocation. Some time ago, a man who had come from Van Diemen's Land, when escorting a cart to the house of Mr. Phillips, on the Canning, saw some unoffending natives in the way. "D—n the rascals," said he, "I'll show you how we treat them in Van Diemen's Land," and immediately fired on them. That very cart, with two men who had been present at the transaction, was passing near the same spot the day before yesterday, when they were met by about fifty natives, who had lain in ambush, and the two men were deprived of life so suddenly, that Mr. Phillips (who was accompanying other carts about two hundred yards behind) was hardly in time to see Ya-gan thrust a spear into one of