Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/15

Rh natives, calling forth measures of self-defence, or in an attack upon them commenced by the settlers and military, under an impression that an attempt was about to be made on their position, by the unusually augmented numbers of the natives. It appears unquestionable that a person named Burke, whose habitation was considerably advanced beyond the rest, was driven from it by the natives, whose number was estimated at upwards of 500 (that is, by some of the witnesses), and much violence was threatened by them towards this man, his wife, and dwelling. But whatever may have been the actual course of previous events, it is indisputable that a most lamentable encounter did at this time take place, in which the numbers of slain, men, women, and children have been estimated as high as 50; although the committee, from the experience they have had in the course of this enquiry of the facility with which numbers are magnified, as well as from other statements contradictory of the above, are induced to hope that the estimate is greatly overrated." One of the witnesses, the Rev. Mr. Knopwood, who was in the colony at the time, said he "does not know how many natives were killed, but supposes five or six."

Another battle is said to have been fought some time alter on the ground where the Hobart Town Hospital now stands, in which artillery is supposed to have been used against the blacks. But this oft-told tale seems to rest on no better proof than that a little grape-shot was afterwards found, and some skeletons disinterred, at this place. Mr. Knopwood disposes of this fable in his evidence thus:—"There were no natives killed upon the hospital hill at Hobart Town. Some shot and skeletons were found there some years after the settlement was formed—the shot were the remains of stores brought from Port Phillip, and the bones those of persons who arrived from India, died, and were buried there."

Numerous fictitious fights are recorded as having taken place in the early times of the colony, and which, though still repeated by lovers of the marvellous and horrible, were found to be utterly false on investigation. Thus, some time in 1828, a party of military and police, who were sent in pursuit of the blacks, instead of acting against them, lay idly by in the bush, and on returning to their station reported a success over the enemy, having killed seven of them, they said; which rumour soon magnified into, first, 17, then 40, 50, 70, and finally 100 (as stated in Mr. Gilbert Robertson's evidence, 3rd March, 1830). They surprised them, they said, in a ravine, a perfect cul de sac, from which there was no escaping. Another gentleman, also a Mr. Robertson—who, like his namesake, discredited the story, pro-