Page:London Journal of Botany, Volume 2 (1843).djvu/180

 been disposed to receive the new-comers as friends. Even Yagan, who for many years was the terror of the Swan and Canning Districts, never hurt a white person except in revenge for injuries, real or imaginary, which he or his friends had sustained; and thus he eventually became the murderer of six or seven Europeans, soldiers and civilians. Up to the time of Yagan's death, about as many black men had been killed by the settlers. But it is a most unfortunate characteristic of these natives, in common with many savage nations, that when they cannot take reprisals on the offending parties, they wreak their vengeance on the relatives and friends; thus making the innocent suffer for the guilty, too often on both sides. Shortly previous to the battle of the Pinjarra, it so happened that a Serjeant Barron, of the 63rd regiment, the first soldiers sent to do duty at the Swan River, and who had become a settler at Perth, went into the bush in search of some horses, which belonged to him, near Mr. Peel's residence, and was accompanied by a private of the 21st, which had succeeded the 63rd. A native whom they met, offered his services; but instead of leading the two whites to the horses, as he had promised, he conducted them into a thicket of Blackboys, where they found themselves surrounded by the armed aborigines, who speedily killed the soldier, and would have done the same to the Serjeant, had not the fleetness of his horse enabled him to escape. He received however, two spears in his body, and there can be no doubt he was a marked man, for he had rendered himself obnoxious to the black people, while in the army, probably in the performance of his duty. I may mention that the soldier who was set to flog Yagan, when the latter was a prisoner on the island of Carnac, had six spears driven