ed from Europeans
for the same misdeeds.

Captain Grey has already remarked the strong prejudice and recklessness
of human life which frequently exist on the part of the settlers with
regard to the natives. Nor has this feeling been confined to Western
Australia alone. In all the colonies, that I have been in, I have myself
observed that a harsh and unjust tone has occasionally been adopted in
speaking of the Aborigines; and that where a feeling of prejudice does
not exist against them, there is too often a great indifference
manifested as to their fate. I do not wish it to be understood that such
is always the case; on the contrary, I know that the better, and right
thinking part of the community, in all the colonies, not only disavow
such feelings, but are most anxious, as far as lies in their power, to
promote the interests and welfare of the natives. Still, there are always
some, in every settlement, whose passions, prejudices, interests, or
fears, obliterate their sense of right and wrong, and by whom these poor
wanderers of the woods are looked upon as intruders in their own country,
or as vermin that infest the land, and whose blood may be shed with as
little compunction as that of the wild animals they are compared to.

By those who have heard the dreadful accounts current in Western
Australia, and New South Wales, of the slaughter formerly committed by
military parties, or by the servants [Note 47 at end of para.] of the
settlers upon the Aborigines, in which it is stated that men, women, and
children have been surprised, surrounded and shot down indiscriminately,
at their camps at night; or who have heard such deeds, or other similar
ones, justified or boasted of, it will readily be believed to what an
extent the feeling I have alluded to has occasionally been carried, and
to what excesses it has led. [Note 48 appears after Note 47, below]

[Note 47: The following extract from a reply of his Honour the
Superintendent of Port Phillip to the representation made to his Honour
by the settlers and inhabitants of the district of Port Fairy, in
March 1842, shews that these frightful atrocities against the natives
had not even then ceased.

"That the presence of a protector in your district, and other means of
prevention hitherto employed, have not succeeded better than they have
done in repressing aggression or retaliation, and have failed to establish
a good understanding between the natives and the European sett