4-44 THE NATIVE TRIBES OF POLYKESIA. 



were living in aa artificial state, and, although retaining many of their 

 physical characteristics — not all — a part of their language, and all the 

 recollection of their recent history, their distinctive character had 

 become very materially modified. For many years, the history of the 

 Tasmanian has been a dark blot upon British civilization. In 1815, 

 their number v\ras estimated at 5,000, which was probably far below 

 the truth. Five years later there were only 340. This enormous loss 

 ■was not due to disease, nor to military outrages — such as have recently 

 disgraced American arms among the Indians of the "West — but solely 

 to the murderous propensities of the early settlers. The natives were 

 always harmless, and have not unjustly been regarded as among the 

 lowest or least advanced members of the human family. But their 

 weakness was no protection against the barbarities of the white popula- 

 tion, who were in the habit of poisoning them as vermin, or shooting 

 them as legitimate game. The daughter of an army officer — one of 

 those who went to the colonies with a grant of land, after the close of' 

 the war with Napoleon — has described to me her recollections of the 

 time when the neighbouring settlers, meeting in the morning at her 

 father's house and taking an early luncheon on the lawn, would go forth 

 into the bush to shoot blackfellows. This lady was a well-read and 

 accomplished woman, but she never regarded this kind of recreation as 

 any thing more than a perfectly legitimate sport, and she could tell 

 even with enthusiasm of the interest with which the female portion of 

 such parties used to sit over their evening meal and listen to the sports- 

 men's narrative of a successful excursion. 



Under such circumstances it is no wonder that the tribes rapidly 

 diminished, or that, in 1831, when the local government, ashamed of 

 the conduct of the settlers, undertook to protect the aborigines, they 

 were reduced to 196. Being removed to Flinder's Island, they re- 

 mained there till 1847, but — and I think this important — their number 

 was then reduced to 47, of whom 13 were men. They were then 

 assigned to an old convict station at a beautiful spot on the shores of 

 D'Entrecarteaux's Channel ; but here again they died away so rapidly 

 that, as I have said, in 1855 there were only 16 left. 



When the late Sir John Franklin was Governor of Van Dieman's 

 Land, he and Lady Franklin took a particular interest in the aborigines, 

 and, on Lady Franklin's nomination, a gentleman named Milligan was 

 appointed " Protector," with special instructions to devote himself to 

 the preparation of a complete history, philological and general, of the 



