with other native tribes around him, and it is
generally the same that he acts upon in his intercourse with us. Shall we
then arrogate to ourselves the sole power of acting unjustly, or of
judging of what is expedient? And are we to make no allowance for the
standard of right by which the native is guided in the system of policy
he may adopt? Weighing candidly, then, the points to which reference has
been made, can we wonder, that in the outskirts of the colony, where the
intercourse between the native and the European has been but limited, and
where that intercourse has, perhaps, only generated a mutual distrust;
where the objects, the intentions, or the motives of the white man, can
neither be known nor understood, and where the natural inference from his
acts cannot be favourable, can we wonder, that under such circumstances,
and acting from the impression of some wrong, real or imagined, or goaded
on by hunger, which the white man's presence prevents him from appeasing,
the native should sometimes be tempted to acts of violence or robbery? He
is only doing what his habits and ideas have taught him to think
commendable. He is doing what men in a more civilized state would have
done under the same circumstances, what they daily do under the sanction
of the law of nations--a law that provides not for the safety,
privileges, and protection of the Aborigines, and owners of the soil, but
which merely lays down rules for the direction of the privileged robber
in the distribution of the booty of any newly discovered country. With
reference to the particular case in question, the murder of Master
Hawson, it appears from Dr. Harvey's report (already quoted), that in
addition to any incentives, such as I have described, as likely to arise
in the minds of the natives, there had been the still greater provocation
of their having been fired at, but a short time previously, from the same
station, and by the murdered boy's brother. We may well pause, therefore,
ere we hastily condemn, or unjustly punish, in cases where the
circumstances connected with their occurrence, can only be brought before
us in a partial and imperfect manner.

The 7th was spent in preparing my despatches for Adelaide. On the 8th I
sent in a dray to Port Lincoln, with Mr. Scott's luggage, and those
things that were to be sent to Adelaide, comprising all the specimens of
geology and botany we had collected, a rough chart of our route, and the
despatches and let