204 
WRONGS OF 
trust that I have sufficiently shewn that the cha- 
racter of the Australian natives has been greatly 
misrepresented and maligned, that they are not 
naturally more irreclaimably vicious, revengeful, 
or treacherous than other nations, but on the con- 
trary, that their position with regard to Europeans, 
places them under so many disadvantages, subjects 
them to so many injuries, irritates them with so 
many annoyances, and tempts them with so many 
provocations, that it is a matter of surprise, not that 
they sometimes are guilty of crime, but that they 
commit it so rarely. 
If I have in the least degree succeeded in estab- 
lishing that such is the case, it must be evident that 
it is incumbent upon us not only to make allow- 
ances when pronouncing an opinion on the charac- 
ter or the crimes of the Aborigines ; but what is of 
far greater and more vital importance, as far as they 
are concerned, to endeavour to revise and improve 
such parts of our system and policy towards them 
as are defective, and by better adapting these to the 
peculiar circumstances of this people, at once place 
them upon juster and more equal terms, and thus 
excite a reasonable hope that some eventual amelio- 
ration may be produced, both in their moral and 
physical condition. # 
* “ We say distinctly and deliberately that nothing compara- 
tively has yet been done — that the natives have hitherto acquired 
nothing of European civilization, but European vices and diseases, 
and that the speedy extinction of the whole race is inevitable, save 
