“In reply to the latter part of your letter, I beg leave to bring to your notice that, at considerable risk, two years ago, I apprehended a native for the murder of one of Mr. Learmonth’s men, near Bunengang.  He was committed to Sydney gaol, and at the expiration of a year he was returned to Melbourne to be liberated, and is now at large.  In the case of Mr. Thomson’s, that I apprehended two, and both identified by the men who so fortunately escaped.  It is a difficult thing to apprehend natives, and with great risk of life on both sides.  On the Grange, and many parts of the country, it would be impossible to take them; and in my opinion, the only plan to bring them to a fit and proper state is to insist on the gentlemen in the country to protect their property, and to deal with such useless savages on the spot.”

Captain Grey bears testimony to similar feelings and occurrences in Western Australia.  In speaking of capturing some natives, he says, vol. 2. p. 351.  “It was necessary that I should proceed with great caution, in order not to alarm the guilty parties when they saw us approaching, in which case, I should have had no chance of apprehending them, and I did not intend to adopt the popular system of shooting them when they ran away.”  And again, at page 356, he says, “It was better that I, an impartial person, should see that they were properly punished for theft, than that the Europeans should fire indiscriminately upon them, as had lately been done, in another quarter.”

Even in South Australia, where the Colonists have generally been more concentrated, and where it might naturally be supposed there would be less likelihood of offenders of this kind escaping detection and punishment, there are not wanting instances of unnecessary and unprovoked, and sometimes of wanton injury upon the natives.  In almost all cases of this description, it is quite impracticable from the inadmissibility of native evidence, or from some other circumstances, to bring home conviction to the guilty. [Note 50 at end of para.] On the other hand, where natives commit offences against Europeans, if they can be caught, the punishment is certain and severe.  Already since the establishment of South Australia as a colony, six natives have been tried and hung, for crimes against Europeans, and many others have been shot or wounded, by the police and military in their attempts to capture or prevent their escape.  No European has, however, yet paid the penalties of the law, for aggressions upon the Aborigines, though many have deserved to do so.  The difficulty consists in legally bringing home the offence, or in refuting the absurd stories that are generally made up in justification of it.

[Note 50:  Vide Chapter 9, of Notes on the Aborigines.]