WITH THE ABORIGINES. 
173 
tion around it ; and may not one foolish indiscretion, 
one thoughtless act of contumely or wrong, arouse 
to vengeance the passions that have long been burn- 
ing, though concealed ? With the same dispositions 
and tempers as ourselves, they are subject to the 
same impulses and infirmities. Little accustomed 
to restrain their feelings, it is natural, that when 
goaded beyond endurance, the effect should be 
violent, and fatal to those who roused them ; —the 
smothered fire but bursts out the stronger from 
having been pent up ; and the rankling passions 
are but fanned into wilder fury, from having been 
repressed. 
Seventhly , There are also other considerations to 
be taken into the account, when we form our opinion 
of the character and conduct of the natives, to which 
we do not frequently allow their due weight and 
importance, but which will fully account for aggres- 
sions having been committed by natives upon un- 
offending individuals, and even sometimes upon 
those who have treated them kindly. First, that the 
native considers it a virtue to revenge an injury. 
Secondly, if he cannot revenge it upon the actual 
individual who injured him, he thinks that the 
offence is equally expiated if he can do so upon any 
other of the same race ; he does not look upon it as 
the offence of an individual, but as an act of war 
on the part of the nation, and he takes the first 
opportunity of making a reprisal upon any one of 
the enemy who may happen to fall in his way ; no 
