it in great abundance. Let us hope that such an addition to her other resources may not damage her peace, her freedom, or her liberty of conscience. That unlike the Californians, her people will remember generously the country from whence they sprung, and the uncultivated, uncivilized children of the forest, and appropriate to them lands they may yet call theirs.—It would be unjust toward the Victorians, in a work of this kind, did I not acknowledge that they have already done so, and that excepting in solitary instances, the settlers have treated the Aborigines with every consideration and kindness.
It would also be despicable cowardice, and a great sacrifice of everything politically and morally honest, did I not take this opportunity of contrasting their conduct with that pursued by the first gold finders of the present age in the Pacific—the Californians. The latter boast of their Constitution. Whilst upon this subject, I feel commanded by that love of liberty which all of British descent should cherish, to say a few words:—indeed I know not how better to close my labours than by an effort in favour of universal rational liberty,—to the black as well as to the white man,—of every creed, class, and colour.
The reader is perhaps aware, that the Californian people have given themselves a Constitution, which Constitution and Declaration of Rights, begins after the French fashion, by saying that all men are by nature born equal; and then it goes on to state, that therefore all men who have resided in that particular land of
