Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/595

 REPORT OF COMMITTEE. 667 their researches they glanced back to the first collision at Risdon in 1804, in which " the numbers slain of men, women, and children, have been estimated as high as fifty. "^^ Witnesses described the scene to the committee. It was undeniable that since that fatal day intercourse with the natives had never been " perfectly secure" for the weak. The blacks were, in the opinion of the committee (who could take evidence only on one side), cruel and crafty, of a wanton and savage spirit; but they had "no hesitation in tracing to the manifold insults and injuries which these unhappy people have sustained from the dissolute and abandoned characters whom they have unfortunately encountered, the universal and permanent excitement of that spirit which now prevails." They told with horror how, in former days, a white man, having killed a native while endeavouring to seize the native's wife, " cut off the dead man's head and obliged the woman to go with him carrying it suspended round her neck." It was a relief to find that the government had striven, though vainly, to arrest brutalities. Collins in 1810, Davey in 1813, Sorell in 1817, and Arthur in 1824, had proclaimed that ill-usage of the natives would be punished. The recommendations of the committee were few. Settlers should be always prepared to defend themselves, and should point out to their servants " the fatal con- sequences which have resulted to the entire community from the base and barbarous conduct which some of their class have pursued towards the natives ; and how much it behoves them to desist from a repetition of such disgraceful conduct, from a regard even to their own safety, seeing that not one of those barbarians by whom the natives were thus irritated has ultimately escaped the effects of their vengeance." The kangaroos and other game in the " limits prescribed to the natives" ought not to be molested. Police and military should be employed. The "roving parties" should be more carefully managed. '" It may be remembered that when Collins transmitted a narrative of the occurrence, it spoke of three natives as having been *' killed on the spot." The inquiry in 1830 elicited facts which it was the duty of Collins and of Governor King to have ascertained in 1804. Perhaps the truth was told more openly when lapse of years had obscured responsibility. (See antCy pp. 323, 324. )