194 
WRONGS OF 
peace and good order, have inadvertently become 
the means of subverting them. 
Several very lamentable instances of this kind, 
have occurred in Port Lincoln. The following is 
one among others. Soon after the murder of Messrs. 
Biddle and Brown, a party of soldiers was sent 
over to try and capture the aggressors. In one of 
their attempts a native guide was procured from the 
Eastern tribe, who promised to conduct them to 
where the murderers were. The party consisting 
of the military and their officer, the police, a settler, 
and the missionary, in all twelve or fourteen persons, 
set off towards Coffin’s Bay, following as they sup- 
posed upon the track of the murderers. Upon 
reaching the coast some natives were seen fishing in 
the water, and the party was at once spread out in 
a kind of semicircle, among the scrub, to close upon 
and capture them ; the officer, missionary, and guide, 
being stationed near the centre. As the party 
the effectual protection of these people, and especially of those 
which must originate from the exasperation of the settlers, on 
account of aggressions on their property, which are not the less 
irritating, because they are nothing else than the natural results 
of the pernicious examples held out to the Aborigines, and of the 
many wrongs of which they have been the victims. Still it is 
impossible that the Government should forget that the original 
aggression was our own ; and that we have never yet performed 
the sacred duty of making any systematic or considerable attempt 
to impart to the former occupiers of New South Wales, the 
blessings of Christianity, or the knowledge of the arts and 
advantages of civilized life.” 
