Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 2.djvu/240

 202 THE NATIVES. ^7W for the Crown.* The unfriendly relations between the two races continued. In the following year some natives were discovered in the act of robbing a hut. They were fired at with a shot-gun, and one of them was wounded. A few days afterwards a convict, when walking from Parramatta B *^red!* *^ Prospect Hill, was set upon and killed ; his body bore no less than thirty spear- wounds. It was obvious that this murder was an act of revenge, and the friendly natives declared it to be so. Worse things happened in later years, one act of violence leading to another. If Phillip^s policy J had been loyally followed by the white population, the natives might have been of infinite service to the settle- ment in the early days ; instead of which they became an annoyance and a danger. ■was received that a much larger party of the natives than had yet been seen assembled at any one time had destroyed a hut belonging to a settler at Prospect Hill, who would have been murdered by them, but for the timely and accidental appearance of another settler "with a musquet. There was no doubt of the hut having been destroyed, and by natives, though perhaps their numbers were much exaggerated ; the Governor, therefore, determined to place other settlers upon the allotments which had been reserved for the Crown ; by which means assistance in similar or other accidents would bo more ready." — Collins^ vol. i, p. 178.
 * Ante, p. 132. ** In the beginning of the month [August, 1791] information