Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/157
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SMALL POX. THE FRENCH.
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from restraint. His behaviour gave good reason for forming a more favourable opinion of the people of this country than has been drawn from the report made by those who formerly touched on this coast."
While Arabanoo was alive small-pox was raging amongst his countrymen, and from motives of humanity two suffer-
had been introduced by the crews of the French ships then in Botany Bay; since that period no vestige of the disease has ever appeared."
Early colonists saw in the interior old men apparently marked with the strange disease whose introduction was attributed to the French. The natives concurred in declaring that only at that epoch were its ravages heard of amongst the tribes, and none but the aged bore traces of it in 1835. Some inquirers have thought otherwise, but the proofs on which they relied have been resolved into instances of a disease known as native pock which sometimes produced severe pustules. In 1831 there was an outcry in the Bathurst district against the Government for allowing the settlers' lives to be endangered by the "small-pox" alleged to be raging among the aborigines. On examination by medical men it was found that native pock, of more impressive character than usual, had been mistaken for the dreaded disease. 1896. In the "History of New South Wales from the Records," the editor discredits the idea that the French introduced smallpox in 1788. He says "the testimony of the early settlers and the natives thus alleged (by Rusden) amounts to nothing more than tradition, and is not entitled to any weight unless it can be connected with ascertained facts." But the editor misses the important point that the authority of Thomas Jamison, the principal surgeon in 1804, whose serious statement was quoted from the Gazette, was unimpeachable, and was that of an expert. He accompanied Phillip in the Sirius from England as surgeon's first mate in 1787. He became assistant surgeon during Phillip's rule. He knew the "medical gentlemen" whose opinion he cited; and he was himself principal surgeon when he published it. If such testimony can be brushed aside as "not entitled to any weight," it is difficult to imagine how any testimony can be accepted as trustworthy. Governor Phillip, writing in Feb. 1790 after the capture of Bennilong, said: "Whether the smallpox was brought by the French ships, we have not yet attained sufficient knowledge of the language to determine." [Ninety years after the publication of the determination, it is rather late to dispute it. Mr. Barton, in an appendix (La Perouse at Botany Bay), accumulates a number of statements made by Tench and others, but they are all dated before the arrival of the time when exhaustive conversation with Bennilong could enable the colonists to form a correct judgment as to the facts. The reference to Sir T. Mitchell's seeing natives suffering from an eruption in 1831 near the Liverpool Range, is pointless. It was in that year that medical men (as referred to in the foregoing note of 1883) ascertained that the fears of the dwellers beyond the Dividing Range (of which the Liverpool Range is a part) were groundless, and that the affection of the natives was merely the native pock.] Some time, of course, elapsed before conversation with Bennilong should be free and instructive. He was captured in Nov. 1789; he escaped after a few months, and only took up his abode in Sydney permanently in Nov. 1790. None of Tench's observations extended beyond 1791, and allowing considerable intelligence to Bennilong, it must be admitted that the "medical gentlemen" could not expect to "determine," in Phillip's phrase, before 1792, with regard to the introduction of small-pox.]