Page:The State and Position of Western Australia.djvu/37

 understanding usually subsisting between them and the colonists. They are partial to our food, especially bread, for which they often ask, and are willing to perform short tasks of labour, or give in exchange spears, fish, or whatever else they may have. This taste has led them to occasional acts of plunder; and settlers having fired on them in defence of their property, the natives have retaliated, and thus blood has unhappily been shed on both sides.

The conduct of the local government towards the natives has been characterized by lenity; but, a short time previous to the author’s leaving the colony, it became necessary to have a public execution under the following circumstances:—a native had been shot in the act of breaking into a store by night; and, to revenge his loss, the remainder of the tribe had put to death two servants of a settler. The chief and his son, having been identified as principals in these murders, were outlawed; and, shortly after, the former was captured, and executed at Perth, and the latter was shot in the woods. These acts of justice so completely succeeded in their object of intimidating the natives on the Swan and Canning rivers, that recent accounts from the colony represent the shepherds and others in the habit of going about the country, as having for a considerable time laid aside their usual precaution of carrying fire-arms; so peaceable had the conduct of these tribes become.

Another proof of the good effects of the course pursued by the local government was, that a native who had been outlawed with the chief and his son, and subsequently pardoned, requested an interview of the Governor, which he obtained: when, after stating the injuries his tribe had suffered from the colonists, he begged that a permanent treaty of amity might be made with them: and, in reply, was told that it was the earnest wish of the Government to effect this object—to protect them from injury, and benefit them in other ways,