took another direction, pursued by Gregory, who recaptured her, and she was said to have then seized Gregory’s gun, and to have struck at him several blows with a heavy stick, upon which, being afraid that he would be overcome, he shot her.  Mr. Hughes, the owner of the lost sheep, came up a few moments after the woman was shot, and heard Gregory’s story concerning it, but no marks of his receiving any blows were shewn.  On the 23rd of March, he was tried for the offence of manslaughter; there did not appear the slightest extenuating circumstances beyond his own story, and his master giving him a good character, and yet the jury, without retiring, returned a verdict of Not Guilty!

At the very next sittings of the Supreme Court Criminal Sessions, another and somewhat analogous case appeared.  The following remarks were made by His Honour Judge Cooper, to the Grand Jury respecting it:  “There was also a case of manslaughter to be tried, and he called their attention to this, because it did not appear in the Calendar.  The person charged was named Skelton, and as appeared from the depositions, was in custody of some sheep, when an alarm of the rushing of the sheep being given, he looked and saw something climbing over the fence, and subsequently something crawling along the ground, upon which he fired off his piece, and hit the object, which upon examination turned out to be a native.  The night was dark, and the native was brought into the hut, where he died the next day.  He could not help observing, that cases of this kind were much more frequent than was creditable to the reputation of the Colony.  Last Sessions a man was tried and acquitted of the charge of killing a native woman.  That verdict was a very merciful one, but not so merciful, he trusted, as to countenance the idea that the lives of the natives are held too cheaply.  The only observation that he would make upon this case was, that it was one of great suspicion.”

[Note 51:  I believe this case was not brought to trial.]

Other cases have occurred in which some of the circumstances have come under my own notice, and when Europeans have committed wanton aggressions on the Aborigines, and have then made up a plausible story to account for what had taken place, but where, from obvious circumstances, it was quite impossible to disprove or rebut their tale, however improbable it might be.  In the Port Phillip District in 1841, Mr. Chief Protector thus writes to the local Government.

“Already appalling collisions have happened between the white and aboriginal inhabitants, and, although instances, it is possible, have transpired when natives have been the aggressors, yet it will be found that the largest majority originated with the Europeans.  The lives of aboriginal natives known to have been destroyed are many, and if the testimony of natives be admissible, the amount would be great indeed; but even in cases where the Aborigines