Condition of the Aborigines of Australia. 37 



There is a Roman Catholic Mission at Stadbroke Island in More- 

 ton Bay, where there are four Missionaries employed. This island 

 is a band of sand about 20 miles long, and was selected as the site 

 of a Mission in the hope that the barrenness of the spot might pre- 

 vent its being settled on by the colonists. Parties have since settled 

 there, however ; and the Pilot Station is on the island. The Wes- 

 leyan Mission at Buntingdale, will be noticed hereafter. 



The Protectorate. — Missions to the Aborigines having proved 

 unsuccessful, a generous effort was made by the British Government 

 in the establishment, about eight years since, of the Port Philip 

 Protectorate, by which it was intended to protect and provide for the 

 considerable number of Aborigines scattered throughout the then 

 newly colonized territory of Australia Felix. The Protectorate was 

 established in conformity with instructions issued in 1838, under the 

 Colonial Secretaryship of Lord Glenelg ; and owes its existence to 

 the results of the inquiries of a Committee of the House of Commons, 

 which sat in 1833—4, to ascertain what measures should be adopted 

 for the general benefit of Aboriginal races in British Colonies. The 

 district was accordingly sub-divided, and four sub-protectorate stations 

 were occupied. 



According to general opinion in the colony, the Protectorate has 

 entirely failed in the accomplishment of the objects for which it was 

 benevolently intended. But some consideration is due to the opposite 

 testimony of the Protectors themselves. They have been able in 

 some decree to restrain the Aborigines from robberies and mutual 

 warfare. Mr Robinson claims that they have demonstrated that 

 large bodies of Aborigines may be associated together without injury 

 to themselves or to Europeans. Mr Thomas attributes much of the 

 harmony of his district to his continually moving about with the 

 Aborigines, and settling their mutual disputes and the aggressions. 

 They have doubtless been instrumental, within the sphere of their 

 influence, in checking the practice on the part of the colonists of 

 shooting or otherwise destroying the blacks, whom hunger or revenge 

 had impelled to rob them, and whose lives w r ere frequently sacrificed 

 on very slight pretexts. The inconvenient scrutiny whjch the Pro- 

 tectors have exercised with reference to the commission of any violence 

 upon the population placed under their care, is not to be ranked in the 

 list of their non-efficiency. " Indeed, the virulent opposition evinced 

 against the department, I am sure," says Mr Robinson, " must 

 be considered rather as a proof of its efficiency than otherwise." 



In most other respects, however, the Port Philip Protectorate 

 appears to have been equally unsuccessful with other experiments on 

 the Aborigines ; one of the assistant Protectors himself honestly 

 acknowledging, that though he cannot charge himself with dereliction 

 of duty towards the Aborigines, to whom he has endeavoured to 

 communicate religious truth, yet as far as regards his own exertions, 

 no visible benefit has resulted. 



