Page:Last of the tasmanians.djvu/80

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COLONEL SORELL'S ORDER, 1819.
53

"From information received by his Honor the Lieutenant-Governor, there seems reason to apprehend that outrages have been recently perpetrated against some of the Native People in the remote country adjoining the River Plenty, though the result of the enquiries instituted upon these reports has not established the Facts alleged, further than that two Native children have remained in the Hands of a Person resident above the Falls:—Upon this subject, which the Lieutenant-Governor considers of the highest Importance, as well to Humanity as to the Peace and Security of the Settlement, His Honor cannot omit addressing the Settlers.

"The Lieutenant-Governor is aware that many of the Settlers and Stock-keepers consider the Natives as a Hostile People, seeking, without Provocation, Opportunities to destroy them and their Stock: and towards whom any attempts at Forbearance or Conciliation would be useless. It is, however, most certain that if the Natives were intent upon Destruction of this kind, and if they were incessantly to watch for opportunities of effecting it, the Mischief done by them to the Owners of Sheep or Cattle, which are now dispersed for grazing over so great a part of the Interior Country, would be increased one hundredfold. But so far from any systematic Plan for Destroying the Stock or People being pursued by the Native Tribes, their Meetings with the Herdsmen appear generally to be accidental; and it is the Opinion of the best informed Persons who have been longest in the Settlement, that the former are seldom the Assailants, and that when they are they act under the Impression of recent Injuries done to some of them by White People. It is undeniable that in many former Instances, Cruelties have been perpetrated repugnant to Humanity and disgraceful to the British Character, while few attempts can be traced on the Part of the Colonists to Conciliate the Native People, or to make them sensible that Peace and Forbearance are the Objects desired. The Impressions received from earlier Injuries are kept up by the occasional Outrages of Miscreants whose Scene of Crime is so remote as to render detection difficult, and who sometimes wantonly set fire to and kill the Men, and at others pursue the Women for the purpose of compelling them to abandon their children. This last Outrage is perhaps the most certain of all to excite in the Sufferers a strong Thirst for revenge against all White Men, and to incite the Natives to take Vengeance indiscriminately, according to the General Practice of an uncivilized People, wherever in their Migrations they fall in with the Herds and Stockmen.

"It is not only those who perpetrated such Enormities against a People comparatively Defenceless, that suffer; all the Owners of Stock and the Stock-keepers are involved in the Consequences brought on by the wanton and criminal Acts of a few.