Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/60

52 of these personal defects, he was a man of brains, common sense, and industry; and whilst others were propounding all sorts of impracticable schemes for the object above stated, it occurred to him to offer to the Government the services of a domesticated aboriginal youth who was in the employ of Mr. Bent's family as general servant, in the very widest sense of the word, his duties in the house being as multiform as his master's were in the office.

Tegg (such being the name by which the young black was known) is reported to have been a most intelligent lad of about seventeen, possessed of all the artifices common to his race, and above all that acuteness of vision, which, united to practice, made a perfect hunting-dog of him, able to follow even the smallest game by its tracks. This boy had been employed to chase bush-rangers, and on one occasion the gang led by Matthew Brady was dispersed through his co-operation with the police.

Colonel Arthur accepted Bent's offer and according to a pretty broad statement which appears in the Gazette of the 8th of April, 1825, promised the boy a boat, if successful, which he greatly coveted. This lad had acquired a notion of trading whilst living with the whites, and Bent says he meant to run her between Hobart Town and Bruny Island, to traffic with his countrymen there in kangaroo skins. But after the capture of Musquito by him, the promise was forgotten, and the keen feelings of the boy were so wounded by this cruel and impolitic breach of faith, that in sheer resentment of it he quitted Bent's employ, and says the Gazette quoted from just above, he was heard as he left the house, to say, "they promised me a boat, but they no give it; me therefore go with wild mob, and kill all white men come near me," a true exposition of the savage style of thought, which meditates indiscriminate and general resentment for a single wrong; and he accordingly joined the wild natives, transformed almost in a moment from a tractable youth to a very demon.

The young black, accompanied by two Europeans, named Godfrey and Marshall, all well armed, started from Hobart Town early in August, 1824 en route for the usual retreats of the Oyster Bay tribe. All of them must have been excellent walkers; for, notwithstanding the dreadful state of the East Coast road then, they reached Oyster Bay on the third day of their journey, a feat that would not be too easily accomplished even now.

The malevolent angel that had heretofore directed the movements, and watched over the safety of the grim chieftain Musquito, deserted his charge of this moment of danger, and took side with his enemy. For some cause, perhaps momentary caprice only,