THE BLACK NATIVES.
The arrival of the post on Thursday brought the mournful intelligence of a new series of murders, com- mitted by this savage and indictive race, among whose victims we lament to state, is Mr. George Taylor, jun. youngest son of Mr. George Taylor, of the Macquarie
River. He is the same young gentleman who distin- guished himself two years ago, with such valour and in- trepidity in warding off an attack of the gang of rob- bers conducted by Brady. He had left his father's stock hut, on the Lake River, after breakfast on Saturday last, but not returning that night as he had intended, his brother became anxious for his safety, a search was made for him next day, and in the evening his dead body was found at two miles distance from the hut, transfixed with many spears, and his head dreadfully shattered from blows, inflicted either with stones or waddies. On the Tuesday previous, the tribe of natives headed by black Tom, the same which had perpetrated the murders at the Clyde and Shannon, appealed at the hut of Mr. George Simpson in the same neighbourhood, and after having been kindly treated with all the bread in the house, the horrid wretch Tom most basely and unprovokedly speared one of the men named John Guinea, who lingered in great agony till Saturday morning, when he died. In their progress down the
Macquarie River, they visited different huts, and besides continuing these murders, they dangerously wounded five others. The recital of these distressing events is too painful and too awfully impressive of itself to re-
quire the smallest opinion from us. The sensation which it creates, and the universal regret for what is past, are already too strong to require any farther excitement. The whole attention and energy of the Colony must rather be applied, to devise the best means to check the evils arising from that invincible spirit of revenge with which this particular tribe ap- pears to be actuated. Did they form a nation of them- selves - had they a king or government, with courts of justice - those who committed aggression upon them, whether black or white, would be fairly open to their laws, and subject to their decision. But they are not:— they are a lawless, debased, brutal mob, under the guidance of this black Tom, who had, at a former pe- riod, voluntarily become a member of this community, who lived many years as a free servant to one of our settlers, and who now with the basest treachery turns the very weapons which he then acquired, to the de- struction of that society whom he had deceived into confidence. He is therefore, not a deserter, but a rebel,
a civil or internal enemy, and those who have joined him are alike guilty with himself. To collect such people, to send them to a place of safety, we for our parts could not look upon, but as an act of the purest justice and humanity. We form but one community, but one government in this Island, and if any aggres- sion was put upon the rights of these original natives, it was done at first in planting the British Standard, and in entering the first plough in the soil. Since our
last we have had the satisfaction to receive numerous communications from among the most respectable mem- bers of the community in all parts of the Island, urging us as public journalists to enforce the measure. It has been proposed to place them on a part of the western coast of New Holland, but for ourselves we cannot ap- prove of such a proposition. No part of those coasts forms a dependency of this Island, to place them on it might be considered an encroachment also by the blacks there, and battles and contentions might ensue,
in which those from Van Diemen's Land would have the worst, not being used to the woomera or throwing stick, and other more powerful weapons of war. Great numbers of kangaroo, oppossums, shell-fish, penguins and their eggs, and every other kind of their usual and favourite food abound in King's Island. Where a small party of troops to be placed there and a settlement formed, they would be afforded protection and supplies in case of need, and if there were a possibility of civi- lizing them, it might be attempted with probable
success. Such a measure would also check the enormities
of the sealers there. One thing is certain, these be- nighted people cannot continue in their present state. The daily extension of the inhabited districts, not to mention Cape Grim, where, although they are on friendly terms with the settlers, they must nevertheless be circumscribed in their hunting grounds, and the vast increase of their dogs must besides conspire to shorten their present means of subsistence, and to ren- der their repeated attacks of aggression on the whites still more probable.