for upwards of six weeks, at an immense expense, and were then
obliged to return without bringing in a single culprit from the offending
tribes.

[Note 110: In this latter case, the Commissioner of Police, and the
greater number of his men, accompanied the expedition, leaving of course
the colony unprotected, and ordinary civil arrangements at a stand still
until their return. I have already remarked, the little chance there is,
of either the police or military ever succeeding in capturing native
offenders, and how very frequently it has occurred, that in their attempts
to do so, either through mistake, or from mismanagement, they have very
often been guilty of most serious and lamentable acts of injury and
aggression upon the innocent and the unoffending. As a mere matter of
policy, or financial arrangement, I believe it would in the long run,
be prudent and economical, to adopt a liberal and just line of treatment
towards the Aborigines. I believe by this means, we should gain a
sufficient degree of influence, to induce them always to GIVE UP OFFENDERS
THEMSELVES; and I believe that this is the ONLY MEANS by which we can ever
hope to ensure their CAPTURE.]

The line of route had become unsafe and dangerous for any party coming
from New South Wales; a feeling of bitter hostility, arising from a sense
of injury and aggression, had taken possession both of the natives and
the Europeans, and it was evident for the future, that if the European
party was weak, the natives would rob and murder them, and if otherwise,
that they would commit wholesale butchery upon the natives. It was to
remedy this melancholy state of affairs, that the Government station at
Moorunde was established, and his Excellency the Governor, did me the
honour to confide to my management the carrying out the objects proposed.

The instructions I received, and the principles upon which I attempted to
carry out those instructions, were exclusively those of conciliation and
kindness. I made it my duty to go personally amongst the most distant and
hostile tribes, to explain to them that the white man wished to live with
them, upon terms of amity, and that instead of injuring, he was most
anxious to hold out the olive branch of peace.

By the liberality of the Government, I had it in my power once every
month, to assemble all the natives who chose to collect, whether from
near or more distant tribes, and to give to each a sufficiency of flour
to last for