Blacks hanging for the murder of Whites, and of Whites suspending for the slaughter of Blacks. There were the soldiers with their red coats, stiff necks, and naked bayonets. There were the slain victims, with striking streaks of vermilion to delineate currents of blood. There was the great chief, the Governor, with a feather in his hat. There was a white woman nursing a black child, and a black woman a white child, to exhibit the blessings of peace. But the accompanying plate will tell its tale sufficiently for the reader's comprehension. It is photographed from an illustrated pine board found under the floor of Government House a few years ago.
A friend informed me that he saw one of the boards, about 1828, in Hobart Town, all in its fresh and glowing condition ready to be nailed to a gum-tree. It will be painful to the lover of true art to learn, that the island Aborigines were such utter barbarians as to be insensible to these appeals of fancy grouping and gay colouring.
On another occasion an artistic effort was made to communicate with the Natives; and this was through the Surveyor-General, Mr. Frankland. The Hobart Town Review of November 26, 1830, has this paragraph: "Before the departure of Numarrow, Mr. Frankland presented him with a little sketch, executed with much spirit, of the consequences of the Aborigines adopting a peaceable demeanour, and of continuing their present murderous and predatory habits. In one part of the sketch, the soldiers are represented firing upon a tribe of Blacks, who were falling from the effects of the attack; on the other side, another tribe, decently clad, receiving food for themselves and families."
Martial Law, with all its stern enactments, was proclaimed on November 1, 1828. This was followed by the Order, in which a reward of five pounds was offered for the capture of an adult native, and two pounds for a child. "Capture Parties" were organized, and the war went on with undiminished energy.
The year 1830 was particularly distinguished as the period of the parties after the Blacks, and of the great event, known as the Line, when the colonists attempted to thrust the whole of the Natives, by a sweeping process, into a neck of land on the east coast, and so by one effort capture the turbulent tribes. For the
