Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, 1830-1840 - Page 242
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 242]
It would indeed be the height of injustice on my part was were I to neglect offering some remarks on the mode in which the Aborigines of this island were treated by Sir George Arthur, and the respectable inhabitants. As to the ignorant, the uneducated and illiterate of any community, they are not above the uncivilized savage.
Mr Batman fell in with some of the natives beyond the Ben Lomond, and found himself compelled to fire at them. Alexander McGeary McKay, at the Hampshire Hills, was obl compelled, in his own defence, to shoot four. Both Mr Batman and McKay, had to undergo the ordeal of a severe investigation, and had they not been able to prove by positive evidence that they were forced by actually necessity to do as they did, they would infallibly have been handed over to a Court of Justice.