"Nor do the other missions hold out any greater encouragement. That at Moreton Bay is admitted by Mr. Handt to have made but little progress, as neither children nor adults can be persuaded to stay for any length of time; while that at Lake Macquarie had, at the date of your despatch, ceased to exist, from the extinction or removal of the natives formerly in its vicinity. The Wesleyan missionaries at Port Phillip, notwithstanding an expenditure, in 1841, of nearly thirteen hundred pounds, acknowledge that they are far from satisfied with the degree of success 'which has attended our labours,' and that 'a feeling of despair sometimes takes possession of our minds, and weighs down our spirits,' arising from the frightful mortality among the natives.
"In the face of such representations, which can be attributed neither to prejudice nor misinformation, I have great doubts as to the wisdom or propriety of continuing the missions any longer. I fear that to do so would be to delude ourselves with the mere idea of doing something, which would be injurious to the natives, as interfering with other and more advantageous arrangements, and unjust to the colony, as continuing an unnecessary and profitless expenditure."
With regard to the protectorate, he says:
"After the distinct and unequivocal opinion announced by Mr. Latrobe, supported, as it is, by the expression of your concurrence, I cannot conceal from myself, that the failure of the system of protectors has been at least as complete as that of the missions."
The concluding paragraph of the despatch expresses so well the feelings of every right-minded man on the subject, that I shall give it, even at the risk of spinning out this chapter to too great a length:
