s been delayed from being brought into operation by the
want of funds sufficient to carry the object into effect. It is intended,
I believe, to make the experiment as soon as means are available for that
purpose.

My duties as an officer of the Government having been principally
connected with the more numerous, but distant tribes of the interior, I
can bear testimony to the anxious desire of the Government to promote the
welfare of the natives.

I have equal pleasure in recording the great interest that prevails on
their behalf among their numerous friends in the colonies, and the
general kindness and good feeling that have been exhibited towards them
on the part of a large proportion of the colonists of Australia. It is in
the hope that this good feeling may be promoted and strengthened that I
have been led to enter into the details of the preceding pages. In
bringing before the public instances of a contrary conduct or feeling, I
by no means wish to lead to the impression that such are now of very
frequent or general occurrence, and I trust my motives may not be
misunderstood. My sole, my only wish has been to bring about an
improvement in the terms of intercourse, which subsists between the
settlers and the Aborigines. Whilst advocating the cause of the latter, I
am not insensible to the claims of the former, who leaving their native
country and their friends, cheerfully encounter the inconveniences,
toils, privations, and dangers which are necessarily attendant upon
founding new homes in the remote and trackless wilds of other climes.
Strongly impressed with the advantages, and the necessity of
colonization, I am only anxious to mitigate its concomitant evils, and by
effecting an amelioration in the treatment and circumstances of the
Aborigines, point out the means of rendering the residence or pursuits of
the settler among an uncivilized community, less precarious, and less
hazardous than they have been. My object has been to shew the result, I
may almost say, the necessary result of the system at present in force,
when taking possession of and occupying a country where there are
indigenous races. By shewing the complete failure of all efforts hitherto
made, to prevent the oppression and eventual extinction of these
unfortunate people, I would demonstrate the necessity of remodelling the
arrangements made on their behalf, and of adopting a more equitable and
liberal system than any we have yet attempted.

I bel