.] On the
other hand, where natives commit offences against Europeans, if they can
be caught, the punishment is certain and severe. Already since the
establishment of South Australia as a colony, six natives have been tried
and hung, for crimes against Europeans, and many others have been shot or
wounded, by the police and military in their attempts to capture or
prevent their escape. No European has, however, yet paid the penalties of
the law, for aggressions upon the Aborigines, though many have deserved
to do so. The difficulty consists in legally bringing home the offence,
or in refuting the absurd stories that are generally made up in
justification of it.

[Note 50: Vide Chapter 9, of Notes on the Aborigines.]

A single instance or two will be sufficient, in illustration of the
impunity which generally attends these acts of violence. On the 25th
January, 1843, the sheep at a station of Mr. Hughes, upon the Hutt river,
had been scattered during the night, and some of them were missing. It
was concluded the natives had been there, and taken them, as the tracks
of naked feet were said to have been found near the folds. Upon these
grounds two of Mr. Hughes' men, and one belonging to Mr. Jacobs, another
settler in the neighbourhood, took arms, and went out to search for the
natives. About a mile from the station they met with one native and his
wife, whom they asked to accompany them back to the station, promising
bread and flour for so doing. They consented to go, but were then
escorted AS PRISONERS, the two men of Mr. Hughes' guarding the male
native, and Mr. Jacobs' servant (a person named Gregory) the female.
Naturally alarmed at the predicament they were in, the man ran off,
pursued by his two guards, but escaped. The woman took another direction,
pursued by Gregory, who recaptured her, and she was said to have then
seized Gregory's gun, and to have struck at him several blows with a
heavy stick, upon which, being afraid that he would be overcome, HE SHOT
HER. Mr. Hughes, the owner of the lost sheep, came up a few moments after
the woman was shot, and heard Gregory's story concerning it, but no marks
of his receiving any blows were shewn. On the 23rd of March, he was tried
for the offence of manslaughter; there did not appear the slightest
extenuating circumstances beyond his own story, and his master giving him
a good character, and yet the jury, without retiring, returned a verdict
of Not Guilty!

At the very