Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/366

done and sanctioned which was disgraceful. Lord Hobart's despatch (30th Jan. 1802) respecting the men found guilty of murdering peaceful native boys during Hunter's government, was received by King late in 1802. It might have been barbarous to execute the men after so long a delay, but they might have been transported, deported, or imprisoned. To condone their offence was to court its repetition, and it was repeated by rough borderers without compunction.

King himself, while the murderers were under respite, had lent the authority of the government to open warfare against all natives without proof of their hostile intentions. On the 1st May 1801, a government notice declared that the wanton manner in which a body of natives of Parramatta, George's river, and Prospect, had killed sheep and threatened white men, and the killing of one Conroy, a stockman, and wounding of a settler, Smith, made him direct that "this as well as all other bodies of natives in the above district be driven back from the settlers' habitations by firing at them." He added that the order was not to extend to natives in other districts, and that they were not to be molested in "the harbour at Sydney, or on the road leading to Parramatta." He could hardly have expected that, while he commanded that natives, friendly or otherwise, should be fired at throughout a considerable district, their brethren outside of that district would remain at peace, or draw the distinction between guilty and innocent white men which King declined to draw between the blacks. The sable wanderers, whose district from Port Jackson to the Hawkesbury was occupied by their well-armed foes, made such reprisals as they could with their wooden weapons. In 1801^[1] King wrote:

"Since grain has been so very scarce among the settlers the natives have been exceedingly troublesome and annoying to them, which has made it necessary to allow them to repel their predatory attacks. It is much to be apprehended that they are incited to several acts they have committed by some worthless vagabonds, who have associated with them for the express purpose of plundering the settlers. However, I hope when grain is more plentiful, the inconvenience will cease."

It is difficult to imagine what the settlers wished the natives to do but submit to be shot. Their means of living