77
false colouring; and this communicated by a gentleman described as filling at the time a judicial situation. But it is to be borne in mind, that Mr. Moore was then a judge in the Civil Court only, and had not the slightest connexion with the judicial inquiries and proceedings which terminated in the acts alluded to.[1]
As in this work there are frequent complaints of indentured servants, a few words respecting them may here be called for. The character of this class of persons is about the average of that of persons in similar occupations in England, except so far as it is modified by the new circumstances in which they are placed, of which they very naturally avail themselves. Feeling their own importance to their employer’s comfort and success, and that he cannot easily dispense with them, or in most instances readily supply their places, they are apt to presume on this knowledge, and thus, in some instances, become an occasion of considerable annoyance to their masters. Too much pains cannot be taken to draw them off from the use of spirits, to which they have already become greatly accustomed, from the absence of malt liquors in the colony. As brewing succeeds well, and the hop has begun to be planted, it is hoped that the evil will receive a timely check. The
- ↑ Though not at all of the spirit, yet certainly of the heedlessness, with which Col. Napier has commented upon one especially of these acts, the writer feels he has occasion to complain. The following passage occurs in page 129 of the Colonel’s last work, when alluding to the execution of Midgegoroo. “Now, if this man had committed any crime, which may perhaps have been the case, though it does not so appear by Mr. Moore’s account, &c., &c., &c.” Will the reader believe that the Colonel had himself just recorded, in the next preceding page of his work, the following extract from Mr. Moore?—“May 22nd. Midgegoroo, after having been fully identified as a principal actor in three murders at least, has been shot at the jail door by a party of the military.” Incredible as it may appear, such is actually the inconsistency into which mere heedlessness has betrayed Colonel Napier.
