420 
FRUITLESS EFFORTS 
of such a mixture of tribes, and their constantly 
changing their localities, to have obtained an 
accurate account of all. 
Under the circumstances of our intercourse with 
the Aborigines as at present constituted, the same 
causes which produced so exterminating an effect 
in Sydney and other places, are still going on 
in all parts of Australia occupied by Europeans, 
and must eventually lead to the same result, if no 
controlling measures can be adopted to prevent it. 
Many attempts, upon a limited scale, have already 
been made in all the colonies, but none have in the 
least degree tended to check the gradual but certain 
extinction that is menacing this ill-fated people ; nor 
is it in my recollection that throughout the whole 
length and breadth of New Holland, a single real or 
permanent convert to Christianity has yet been made 
amongst them, by any of the missionaries engaged in 
their instruction, many of whom have been labour- 
ing hopelessly for many years. 
In New South Wales, one of the oldest and 
longest established missions in Australia was given up 
by the Rev. Mr. Threlkeld, after the fruitless devotion 
of many years of toil. # Neither have the efforts 
* Vide Parliamentary Reports on Australian Aborigines, 9th 
of August, 1844, pages 160 and 161. — “ In submitting to this 
decision, it is impossible not to feel considerable disappointment 
to the expectations formerly hoped to be realized in the conver- 
sion of some at least of the Aborigines in this part of the colony, 
and not to express concern that so many years of constant atten- 
