Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land, 1830-1840 - Page 7
Primary tabs
Transcription
[page 7]
In introducing to the notice of my
readers the Customs and Manners of the
Aborigines of Van Diemen's Land as set forth
in the advertisement of the 28.th of July last
it may not be thought improper here to offer
a few preliminary observations in connexion[sic] with a subject which must prove as interesting to the English as it is to the Colonial Leader.
I do not recollect another instance upon
record where a whole nation carrying on for
a series of years an interminable warfare with
the inhabitants of a British colony and then
finally, as if by magic, surrendering themselves into the hands of the government.-
The philanthropist will regret the necessity of
a measure which went to deprive the aboriginal
tribes of this island of their independence and
consign them to a more remote place, but common justice and a concern for the national honour of our mother country induces me to set the matter before the public in its just position, and the grounds which compelled our late Governor Sir George Arthur to consult the safety of the Colonists in putting an end to these outrages which for several successive years inflicted inexpressible injuries of on
the white as well as black inhabitants of the
colony.
Nothing but absolute necessity can excuse
the violation of a territory seemingly settled by the hands of the creator on some aboriginal race,
but it is a standing and unerring maxim that
necessity is to all intents and purposes part and
parcel of the law of nature, and it cannot
be supposed that providence would decree any country,