an act of intrusion and
aggression.

Secondly, That for a very long time they cannot comprehend our motives
for coming amongst them, or our object in remaining, and may very
naturally imagine that it can only be for the purpose of dispossessing
them.

Thirdly, That our presence and settlement, in any particular locality,
do, in point of fact, actually dispossess the aboriginal inhabitants.
[Note 14: Vide, Notes on the Aborigines, chap. I.]

Fourthly, That the localities selected by Europeans, as best adapted for
the purposes of cultivation, or of grazing, are those that would usually
be equally valued above others, by the natives themselves, as places of
resort, or districts in which they could most easily procure their food.
This would especially be the case in those parts of the country where
water was scarce, as the European always locates himself close to this
grand necessary of life. The injustice, therefore, of the white man's
intrusion upon the territory of the aboriginal inhabitant, is aggravated
greatly by his always occupying the best and most valuable portion of it.

Fifthly, That as we ourselves have laws, customs, or prejudices, to which
we attach considerable importance, and the infringement of which we
consider either criminal or offensive, so have the natives theirs,
equally, perhaps, dear to them, but which, from our ignorance or
heedlessness, we may be continually violating, and can we wonder that
they should sometimes exact the penalty of infraction? do not we do the
same? or is ignorance a more valid excuse for civilized man than the
savage?

Sixthly, What are the relations usually subsisting between the Aborigines
and settlers, locating in the more distant, and less populous parts of
the country: those who have placed themselves upon the outskirts of
civilization, and who, as they are in some measure beyond the protection
of the laws, are also free from their restraints? A settler going to
occupy a new station, removes, perhaps, beyond all other Europeans,
taking with him his flocks, and his herds, and his men, and locates
himself wherever he finds water, and a country adapted for his purposes.
At the first, possibly, he may see none of the inhabitants of the country
that he has thus unceremoniously taken possession of; naturally alarmed
at the inexplicable appearance, and daring intrusion of strangers, they
keep aloof, hoping, perhaps, but vainly, that the intruders may soon
retire. Days, we