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reluctantly compelled" to direct that the natives should be shot, and two (he said) were killed. Marsden and Arndell could hope to pacify the black more easily than the white race.

A settler at Portland Head presented to King a memorial "said to be signed by all the settlers in that district, requesting they might be allowed to shoot the natives frequenting their grounds." On inquiry it was "found that none of the settlers had authorized the man to put their signatures to the paper," and that his fears had actuated him. The attempted imposition was punished by imprisonment.

"Wishing to be convinced myself (King wrote) what cause there was for these alarms, three of the natives from that part of the river readily came on being sent for. On questioning the cause of their disagreement with the new settlers, they very ingeniously answered that they did not like to be driven from the few places that were left on the banks of the river where alone they could procure food; that they had gone down the river as the white men took possession; if they went across white men's grounds the settlers fired upon them or were angry; that if they could retain some places on the lower part of the river they would be satisfied, and would not trouble the white men. The observation and request appeared so just and equitable that I assured them no more settlements should be made down the river. With that assurance they appeared well satisfied, and promised to be quiet, in which state they continue."

Some compunction was felt, and a paragraph in the Sydney Gazette in 1804 was well fitted to sharpen it. Some years previously a black child had been seized at Toongabbe, when its father and mother were shot. A man named Bath pitied and reared the boy, who never spoke any language but English, and, as was usual with native children so circumstanced, had no hankering for the life of his forefathers. So vile a pariah had the child of the soil become on its native land that we are told he "testified a rooted and unconquerable aversion to all of his own colour, also esteeming the term native as the most illiberal and severe reproach that could ever be uttered." He was named (by his foster-father) James Bath, and died in 1804, having given "undoubted proofs of Christian piety, frequently repeating the Lord's Prayer shortly before his dissolution. Thus touched by the words of the Healer, James Bath vanished from the evil days.

In April 1805 King reported further outrages. He was "confident that the settlers had been extremely liberal to