86 



THE RISDON SETTLEMENT. 



H. of Com. 

 Paper, 23rd 

 Sept., 1881, 

 p. 53. 



Knopwood, 

 11th May. 



Collins to 

 King, 15th 

 May, 1804. 



It seems clear that, the natives had no hostile intention 

 in their visit, and this was the conclnsion of Governor 

 Arthur's committee. Everything goes to show that 

 they were a party coming from the east, probably the 

 Oyster Bay tribe, engaged on a hunting expedition, and 

 that they were more astonished than the English on 

 coming into contact with them. The fact of their having 

 their women and children with them is a perfectly con- 

 clusive proof that no attack was contemplated. We 

 can easily understand how terrifying to the Risdon 

 people must have been this sudden inroad of a horde of 

 excited savages, yelling and gesticulating. Utterly 

 ignorant of their customs, unable to understand them, 

 or to make themselves understood, the panic of the 

 English, convinced that the natives had collected in force 

 to destroy them, was natural enough. Doubtless the 

 soldiers shared in the general scare, and, moreover, were 

 probably quite inclined to take pot shots at the black 

 savages. But Lieut. Moore ought not to have lost his 

 head. He at least should have grasped the situation, 

 and restrained his men. A little more presence of mind 

 on his part, the exercise of a little tact and forbearance, 

 and a collision would have been avoided, the natives 

 would have been conciUated, and the history of the black 

 race in Tasmania might have been different. That the 

 aborigines of Tasmania would in any case have melted 

 away before the white man, as the aborigines of the other 

 colonies are melting away, is certain ; but if it had not been 

 for Lieut. Moore's error at Risdon, a war of extermination, 

 with all its attendant horrors, might have been averted. 



There is little to add respecting this occurrence, 

 except that, according to White, some of the bones of 

 the slaughtered natives were sent in two casks to Port 

 Jackson by Dr. Mountgarret, and that the chaplain, 

 ever anxious to extend the bounds of his church, 

 records that he went to Risdon a week later and " xtiand 

 a young native boy whose name was Robert Robert 

 May" — the good chaplain having thus the honor of 

 bestowing his name on this first innocent aboriginal 

 Christian. Collins tells Governor King' that the baptism 

 had taken place without his knowledge or consent, and 

 when he found that Dr. Mountgarret intended to take this 

 two-year old native to Sydney, he had the boy brought 

 to the camp and directed that he should be returned to 

 his own people, for fear they should think he had been 

 killed and eaten by the Enghsh. " For," he remarks, 

 *' we have every reason to believe them to be cannibals, 

 and they may entertain the same opinion of us."* The 



* There is no foundation for this opinion. 



