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in vain attempt the physical, mental or moral instruction of the natives. Indeed the attempt would be presumptuous, as it certainly would be foolish and fruitless, to frame laws for a people whose manners, customs, and capabilities are perfectly unknown to us.
letter to Southern Australian
Extracts No. 6 p. 180
Perhaps there is no race of savages known to Europeans, more susceptible of kindly [?] influences, or less addicted to ferocious and repulsive vices, than the Aborigines of this continent .... at present we know little, next to nothing, of the legends, laws and customs - of the notions of morals, and their ideas of immaterial existence.
Southern Australian June 26/37
Extracts No 6 p 185.
Those who come into contact 1st with the Aborigines are mostly men who are worse than savages in moral principle - our