464 WAR OF EXTERMINATION. 



law, the inevitable operation of which exempts us 

 from blame, that the depopulation of the countries 

 we colonize goes on. There appear to me to be 

 the means of tracinof this national crime to the in- 

 dividuals who perpetrate it ; and it is with the deep- 

 est sorrow that I am obliged to confess that my 

 countrymen have not, in Tasmania, exhibited that 

 magnanimity which has often been the prominent 

 feature in their character. They have sternly and 

 systematically trampled on the fallen. I have before 

 remarked that they started with an erroneous 

 theory, which they found to tally with their inte- 

 rests, and to relieve them from the burden of bene- 

 volence and charity. That the aborigines were not 

 men, but brutes, was their avowed opinion; and what 

 cruelties flowed from such a doctrine ! It is not my 

 purpose to enter into details ; I will only add that the 

 treatment of the poor captive native by her inhuman 

 keeper was in accordance with the sentiments pre- 

 vailing, at one time, in the colony, and would not 

 have received the condemnation of public opinion. 



The natural consequence of such conduct by the 

 whites, commenced in the very infancy of the colony, 

 was a system of frightful retaliation on the part of 

 the natives. These led to counter-reprisals, every 

 year accumulating the debt of crime and vengeance 

 on either hand, until the memory of the first pro- 

 vocation was lost, and a war of extermination, the 

 success of which was, in the end, complete, began 

 to be carried on. 



