and attention of men. So that, while earthly prosperity and
excellence are combining to cast a splendour around the actions of the
successful nation, adversity and inferiority do usually join in
blackening the cloud which hangs over the character of that which is
unfortunate. It is not for us to defend these judgments of the world, as
though they were, in any case, altogether righteous judgments, but this
we may safely affirm, in the particular instance of Australia, that,
upon the whole, it is a gain to the cause of truth and virtue for
Christian England to possess those wilds, which lately were occupied by
miserable natives; and, while we own that it is wrong to do evil that
good may come, yet may we, likewise, confess with thankfulness the
Divine mercy and wisdom which have so often brought good out of the
evil committed by our countrymen in these distant lands. It must be
confessed, too, that, whatever may be the amount of iniquity wantonly
committed among the natives of the other portions of the globe, for
which Europe is responsible, still, the Europeans, upon the whole,
stand higher than the inhabitants of the remaining portions, and, of
course, in proportion, very much higher than the most degraded and
least-improved race of savages, the Australian natives. True, indeed,
these despised Australians may, hereafter, rise up in judgment against
Europeans to condemn them; and when that which has been given to each
race of men shall be again required of them, those that have received
the most may frequently be found to have profited the least by the gifts
of Divine Providence. Still, without pretending to pass judgment upon
any, whether nations or individual persons,--without affecting, either,
to close our eyes against the miserable vices by which the Christian
name has been disgraced, and our country's glory sullied, among distant
and barbarous nations, we may with safety speak of the inhabitants of
those heathen lands in terms that are suitable to their degraded state.
In describing their darkened and almost brutal condition, we are but
describing things as they really exist;[36] it changes not the actual
fact to prove that, in many more respects than would at first sight
appear, the behaviour of men of our own _enlightened_ nation is scarcely
less darkened or less brutal than theirs. Nay, the Australian savage, in
his natural state, may be a far higher and nobler character than the
British convict sometimes is in h