"And all officers, civil and military, and other persons whatsoever, are hereby required to take notice of this my Proclamation, and to govern themselves accordingly.
"Given, &c.,
Having disposed of the official history of one part of the Black War, let us turn to the general facts of this melancholy period, and particularize some incidents of the "Outrages of the Blacks."
MOSQUITO.
This desperate leader in many an outrage by the Aborigines appears so prominently in the Black War, as to demand a separate and particular notice. He was not a Tasmanian, but a New Holland, or Australian native. Although endowed with superior physical powers, as well as a vigorous intellect and indomitable will, he was indebted to his acquirements in civilization for his extra ability in working mischief. Belonging to the Broken Bay tribe, located to the north of Sydney, he soon associated with a low class of convict population in his neighbourhood, and became an English scholar in our national vices of drinking and swearing, as well as in the employment of our tongue.
The crime that brought him under the penal care of Government, was one with which he was associated with another wretched man, known by the settlers as Bulldog. These two Blacks waylaid a woman, ill-used, and then murdered her. To gratify their horrible propensities, they ripped open the body of the poor creature, and destroyed the infant she carried. Strange to say, for want of some European evidence, the authorities simply sent them to the penal settlement of Norfolk Island. After the death of his bulldog accomplice, Mosquito was forwarded to the convict island of Van Diemen's Land in 1813.
There he was, according to the mode of the day, assigned as servant to Mr. Kimberley of Antill Ponds. It was not far from that place that I heard some account of the man. For some years he conducted himself tolerably well, or so carefully guarded his acts as to keep out of the hands of the constable. An old man, named Elliot, who came to the colony in 1815, told me that
