ery extraordinary position in which they are placed
with regard to two distinct sets of laws; that is, they are allowed to
exercise their own laws upon one another, and are again held amenable to
British law where British subjects are concerned. Thus no protection is
afforded them by the British law against the violence or cruelty of one
of their own race, and the law has hitherto only been known to them as
the means of punishment, but never as a code from which they can claim
protection or benefit.

The following instances will prove my assertion: In the month of October
1838 I saw early one morning some natives in the public street in Perth,
in the act of murdering a native woman, close to the store of the Messrs.
Habgood; many Europeans were present, amongst others a constable; but
there was no interference on their part until eventually the life of the
woman was saved by the courage of Mr. Brown, a gardener in Perth, who
rushed in amongst the natives and knocked down the man who was holding
her; she then escaped into the house of the Messrs. Habgood, who treated
the poor creature with the utmost humanity. She was however wounded in
several places in the most severe and ghastly manner.

A letter I received from Mr. A. Bussel (a settler in the southern part of
the colony) in May 1839 shows that the same scenes are enacted all over
it. In this case their cow-keeper (the native whose burial is narrated
above) was speared by the others. He was at the time the hired servant of
Europeans, performing daily a stated service for them; yet they slew him
in open daylight, without any cause of provocation being given by him.

Again, in October, 1838, the sister of a settler in the northern district
told me that, shortly before this period, she had, as a female servant, a
most interesting little native girl, not more than ten or eleven years of
age. This girl had just learned all the duties belonging to her
employment, and was regarded in the family as a most useful servant, when
some natives, from a spirit of revenge, murdered this inoffensive child
in the most barbarous manner, close to the house; her screams were
actually heard by the Europeans under whose protection and in whose
service she was living, but they were not in time to save her life. This
same native had been guilty of many other barbarous murders, one of which
he had committed in the district of the Upper Swan, in the actual
presence of Europeans. In June 1839 h