with Lord Bathurst, to authorise a grant of land; but Mr. Wilmot
Horton, then Under Secretary, objected that there were millions of
British subjects, whose claims were of the same kind, and that the
precedent would be inconvenient. At the same time, men in chains were
receiving grants of land, and emancipists as a matter of course; but the
minister was opposed to admit a claim founded on birth, orphanage, and
civilisation, lest it should multiply applicants. As if anything could
have been more desirable to the philanthropist and politician: who can
wonder that convicts despised that which the ministers of the crown
repudiated? Excepting the often pernicious donatives, occasionally
conferred, the aborigina was treated only as a foreigner, a slave, and
an enemy. Thus the order of Lord Hobart stood alone: it was a record of
intention, not a development of government. The ministry washed their
hands, and averted their eyes; and threw upon the colony the
responsibility of inevitable crime.[36]

But the government of England, not only left undefined the obligations
it seemed to confess: it did more; it let loose on the shores of
Tasmania its outcasts, its robbers, and its homicides; it released their
bonds, and sent them forth to contest with the native for the animals of
chase--to cross his path unwatched--to destroy him unpunished. Crimes of
every kind were visited, save this. For a word, or a look, the felon was
brought to the triangle; but when he shot down the native, and acquired
distinction by his butcheries, justice became scrupulous: the laws were
silent--religion and humanity were silent; and the fallen black, like
the uprooted forest, was thought of as an encumbrance removed!

The state of the census was equally reprehensible: England not only
forgot the prescriptions of nature, and formed communities of _men_, but
the inevitable consequence to the natives was utterly neglected. It
would be impossible even to hint the series of facts, which are
authenticated to the writer, and which strangely blended ferocity and
lust. The sealer, or stockman, who periled his life to accomplish the
abduction of a native female, thought that danger but fairly avenged by
the destruction of her relatives! Thus far the government was remiss and
culpable. The crimes of individuals, without diminishing _their_ guilt,
must be traced to those general causes, which are subject to the
disposal of statesmen and legislators.

But when the co