r was supported off the land previously to its sale, and
ought to be supported still by it, or its proceeds, or the bargain
cannot have been a fair one. He will therefore supply the natives with
food, if in need; will help them to live; will feel bound to furnish the
means of instructing them; will show infinite forbearance, until they
are instructed. He will be sensible that he cannot wash his hands clear
of them as he might, in a civilised country, of men, who had sold him
land at market price."

"And what, if such forbearance produced no other result than increased
lawlessness and treachery?"

"You have, first, to show that it would produce it. And you would have
some difficulty in doing that. When that mode of dealing with
aboriginals has been fairly tried and has failed, then you may ask your
question. But when has it ever been tried? I have striven to impress
the truths of the Gospel on the Hottentots and the Bushmen, and I have
failed; but why? Not because they could not understand the Gospel, or
because they hated it; but because those who professed it did not
themselves act up to it--did not, in fact, themselves really believe it.
Look you here. A tribe of Bushmen have been in the habit of ranging
over a large tract of country, and killing game, wherever they could,
for their support. They regarded that as their natural right; and who
shall say it was not? Well, some persons, of whom they have never
heard, make some bargain with some of their neighbours or
fellow-countrymen, and they find themselves suddenly deprived of the
rights which they and their fathers have enjoyed from immemorial time.
They traverse their old hunting-grounds and kill the first cattle they
fall in with, as they have been ever wont to do; and for so doing, their
villages are attacked by night, their huts burnt, their property
destroyed, themselves, their wives and children, enslaved or murdered!
Whatever sense of natural justice they may possess, must be outraged by
such acts."

"I think I see. The natives have a right to be taught and cared for, in
return for their possessions."

"Yes. And if this is not done, the settlers have no justification for
possessing themselves of their land at all. By settling in the country,
they make themselves the fellow-citizens of the aboriginals, and are
bound to treat them as such. If they cannot fulfil the duties of
citizens towards them, rather let them give up their lands and quit th