hesitation in stating, that the civilized party was far from being blameless.
It is well known to every person who has had the slightest intercourse with savages, that they are invariably addicted to thieving. It is, therefore, not to be denied, that the natives committed many petty thefts; but the policy of being unnecessarily annoyed thereat, and the humanity of putting them to death for such offences, may be safely called in question.
If I am rightly informed by those who were actors in the business, many of the natives were put to death in a very unwarrantable manner; and I think I may assert, that, had mild and conciliatory conduct been adopted, and uniformly continued towards these ignorant creatures while their depredations were unattended with violence, several valuable lives might have been saved, and many inconveniences and privations prevented.
Latterly, it was unsafe to venture out of the camp unarmed;—a melancholy instance of this insecurity occurred in the massacre of the surgeon and the commissariat-officer, who, while taking a walk a few yards from the settlement, fell victims to the vengeance of these irritated and undiscerning savages.
Shortly after the formation of the settlement, sickness made its appearance. I was in Sydney when alarming accounts of the unhealthiness of Melville Island arrived there; and, as the surgeon of the settlement wished to be relieved, a young man who had just arrived in the colony, surgeon of a trading vessel,
