AlWIVEESABT ADDEESS. 5 



Five moutlis after this was spoken, the late Sir Eoderick Mur- 

 cMson, in Ms last Address to the Eoyal Greographical Society of 

 London, delivered exactly this day twelve months (22nd May, 

 1871), speaking of the difficulties of negotiation with the natives 

 of New Griiinea, used this language : — 



" We learn from an official report of Lieutenant Chester, the 

 Government Resident at Somerset, Cape York, that he himself 

 visited a native settlement on the South Coast, in company with 

 Captain Banner. 



" It appears that a display of armed force and great precau- 

 tion are necessary in these undertakings ; and the native interpreter 

 brought from "Warrior Island, in the Straits, was careful to recom- 

 mend to Lieutenant Chester to say to the Papuan chief of the 

 village that, although desirous of being on friendly terms with him, 

 he was prepared to fight, if the natives preferred it. 



" No progress, in fact, has been made towards winning over 

 these formidable people to peaceful commercial relations with the 

 traders of the Australian Seas," [Froceed. H.G.S., vol. xv,, 

 M. iv., p. 302.] 



It is with no unfeeling desire to comment unnecessarily on the 

 sad destiny of those who, in following out what they considered a 

 laudable enterprise, not only neglected preparation for possible 

 hostile encounter with the Papuans, but rashly intrusted lives 

 which were sacrificed and fortunes which were destroyed, to a too 

 ready confidence in the ignorance and incapacity which have 

 proved as formidable to the adventurers as the poisoned arrow or 

 the warlike ferocity of the savage.^ 



Had the conduct of the maritime part of the expedition been 

 intrusted to our fellow-member who so successfully searched out 

 the dead and the missing of the party, it would have been well ; 

 and it is earnestly to be desired that men whose courage and zeal 

 might have made them, under proper protection, the pioneers of 

 civilization and moral advancement, will not be a second time 



* See Forsfer's Journal of the Voyage {St/dney, 1872.) 



