174 
STATE OF OUR RELATIONS 
matter whether that person injured him or not, 
or whether he knew of the offence having been com- 
mitted, or the war declared. And is not the custom 
of civilized powers very similar to this ? Admitting 
that civilization, and refinement, have modified the 
horrors of such a system, the principle is still the 
same. This is the principle that invariably guides 
the native in his relations with other native tribes 
around him, and it is generally the same that he 
acts upon in his intercourse with us. Shall we then 
arrogate to ourselves the sole power of acting un- 
justly, or of judging of what is expedient ? And are 
we to make no allowance for the standard of right 
by which the native is guided in the system of policy 
he may adopt ? Weighing candidly, then, the points 
to which reference has been made, can we wonder, 
that in the outskirts of the colony, where the inter- 
course between the native and the European has 
been but limited, and where that intercourse has, per- 
haps, only generated a mutual distrust ; where the 
objects, the intentions, or the motives of the white 
man, can neither be known nor understood, and 
where the natural inference from his acts cannot be 
favourable, can we wonder, that under such circum- 
stances, and acting from the impression of some 
wrong, real or imagined, or goaded on by hunger, 
which the white man’s presence prevents him from 
appeasing, the native should sometimes be tempted 
to acts of violence or robbery ? He is only doing 
what his habits and ideas have taught him to think 
