Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, 1830-1840 - Page 260
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[Page 260]
the poor savages on that occasion by [insert from] a discharge of round of grape and cannister shoot was truly appalling and since and all intercourse with the Whites were interrupted.
I cannot conceive the reason that this cowardly? escaped [?condign?] punishment for so wanton and sanguinary an aggression and levying open war on a nation without the sanction of his the government, and particularly on an inoffensive and defenceless people, when at the same time it is asserted by Lieutenant Jeffries that "two persons armed with muskets to traverse the island from one extremity to the other with perfect safety". - Still, I think that it is pretty plain that the cruel affair must have in a great measure been obliterated from the memories of the Blacks, though it is not likely that a conviction of the treachery of the Whites could be altogether effaced. The natives at the very time I am however Mr Evans wrote his narrative frequently visited Hobart Town, without distrust and was hospitably entertained. On one of those visits to the Capital [insert in the time of Colonel Sorrel] when the Black tribes were encamped in the Government paddock, a young native woman, merely in a joke threw a spear at a man in the street, but without doing him any hurt. A Captain Hamilton, of the military affected or was really much alarmed, he proceeded with doleful tales tale to the Lieutenant Governor, upon which all the Aborigines were ordered out of Hobart Town. This made a deep impression on the Blacks, and they felt a great resentment, or perhaps more than on any former occasion.