Page:Some account of the wars, extirpation, habits.djvu/74

66 you that I should have been so suddenly called upon to encounter one of the greatest dangers that I have ever been exposed to during the whole course of my long career in the aboriginal service. My escape from the hands of these misguided savages is to me a matter of the greatest astonishment, and almost miraculous.

I trust I am fully sensible of the goodness of God in preserving me amid so very many dangers, more particularly on this extraordinary occasion, which was premeditated, and my destruction at that time appeared inevitable.

I had all along considered that my labour was nearly at an end, being well acquainted with these aborigines from the intercourse that I had with them at the time of my first expedition, from the good effects produced on that occasion, led me very naturally to conclude that I should shortly be able to remove them. From a conviction of this circumstance I had written to Mrs. Robinson, acquainting her that I thought I should be able to spend a part of the summer with my family in Hobart Town, provided that my successes met with no reverse; and although I was sensible that the conduct since pursued towards them had considerably excited them, still I flattered myself that I should be able to overcome this difficulty. This attack was therefore the more sudden and unexpected; from the excited state of the aborigines along the western coast, more time and trouble will be requisite ere they are removed, and although I am persuaded of its being effected, still I know that armed parties could not effect the least possible good. … Thrice have I journeyed down the western coast, and thrice have I been successful. It is my intention to visit my family forthwith, either from here or Macquarie Harbour. … I have been most shamefully neglected as regards supplies. I have here now upwards of fifty souls depending on me for subsistence, and all that I have received from the commissariat at Launceston is one cask of flour, one bag of biscuit, and one cask of salt beef, and 50 blankets. …

To Geo. Whitcomb, Esq., &c., &c., &c.

Several months had elapsed since his last success (over the Oyster Bay and Big River tribes) before he was prepared to take the bush again in earnest. This time he proceeded against the people inhabiting the north-western districts, where the Van Diemen's Land Company have large possessions, as they had at the time I am writing of. These districts were then infested by