Some attempts have been made in nearly all the British Settlements of Australia to improve the condition of the aboriginal population; the results have, however, in few cases, met the expectations of the promoters of the various benevolent schemes that have been entered upon for the object; nor have the efforts hitherto made succeeded in arresting that fatal and melancholy effect which contact with civilization seems ever to produce upon a savage people.  It has already been stated, that in all the colonies we have hitherto established upon the continent, the Aborigines are gradually decreasing in number, or have already disappeared in proportion to the time their country has been occupied by Europeans, or to the number of settlers who have been located upon it.

Of the blighting and exterminating effects produced upon simple and untutored races, by the advance of civilization upon them, we have many and painful proofs.  History records innumerable instances of nations who were once numerous and powerful, decaying and disappearing before this fatal and inexplicable influence; history will record, I fear, similar results for the many nations who are now struggling; alas, how vainly, against this desolating cause.  Year by year, the melancholy and appalling truth is only the more apparent, and as each new instance multiplies upon us, it becomes too fatally confirmed, until at last we are almost, in spite of ourselves, forced to the conviction, that the first appearance of the white men in any new country, sounds the funeral knell of the children of the soil.  In Africa, in the country of the Bushmen, Mr. Moffat says—­

“I have traversed those regions, in which, according to the testimony of the farmers, thousands once dwelt, drinking at their own fountains, and killing their own game; but now, alas, scarcely is a family to be seen!  It is impossible to look over those now uninhabited plains and mountain glens without feeling the deepest melancholy, whilst the winds moaning in the vale seem to echo back the sound, ‘Where are they?’”

Another author, with reference to the Cape Colony, remarks—­

“The number of natives, estimated at the time of the discovery at about 200,000, are stated to have been reduced, or cut off, to the present population of about 32,000, by a continual system of oppression, which once begun, never slackened.”

Catlin gives a feeling and melancholy account of the decrease of the North American Indians, [Note 99:  Vide Catlin’s American Indians, vol. i. p. 4 and 5, and vol. ii. p. 238.] and similar records might be adduced of the sad fate of almost every uncivilized people, whose country has been colonized by Europeans.  In Sydney, which is the longest established of all our possessions in New Holland, it is believed that not a single native of the original tribes belonging to Port Jackson is now left alive. [Note 100 at end of para.] Advancing from thence towards the interior