124 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



new appointees to carry the Free Selection Act — tried 

 the case, and in sternly comminatory language gave a 

 narrative of the facts that was itself damning. What 

 made his condemnation all the more necessary was the 

 confession of the murderers, who avowed the com- 

 mission of the offence charged. They " were not 

 aware that in killing blacks they were breaking the law." 

 The admission is itself a condemnation of the state of 

 society in which such a sentiment could be cherished. 

 The inflexible judge and the unsparing Governor were 

 savagely vilified, while the condemned criminals met 

 with sympathy. 



The case against the settlers can be very strongly 

 stated, as it has been by Mr. Rusden, who holds a brief 

 for the defence of the poor blacks, as he did for the 

 Maoris. Lust, fear, hatred, and revenge, he energetically 

 says were the motives actuating the settlers in their 

 relations with the blacks. He had access to the letters 

 from Victorian pioneers addressed to Lieutenant- 

 Governor Latrobe while they were still unpublished, and 

 he extracts passages that tell strongly against the 

 whites. One told how women and children were killed ; 

 another of the " impudent and cruel conduct of some 

 of our people." He also cites expressions of opinion 

 by Governor Darling, who in 1826 " apprehended " 

 that certain memorialists, complaining of the " incur- 

 sions of numerous tribes of black natives " and their 

 " threats and murderous designs," were themselves 

 responsible for the Native disorders because they did 

 not reside on their properties, and also because irregu- 

 larities had been committed by some of their own 

 people. He adds on his own account that the atrocities 

 perpetrated by the whites can be but faintly imagined 

 by those unacquainted with the convicts, who were the 

 servants of the squatters. We must take a broader 

 view of the subject than his sympathies permitted Mr. 

 Rusden to take. 



Li all parts of Australia the advance of the white 

 settlers was in the nature of an invasion, and was 



