Such Is The Account Of This Melancholy Affair As Given To Dr. Harvey By The Boy, Who, I Believe, Also Made Depositions Before A Magistrate To The Same Effect.

Supposing this account to be true, and that the natives had not received any previous provocation either from him

Or from any other settlers in the neighbourhood, this would appear to be one of the most wanton, cold blooded, and treacherous murders upon record, and a murder seemingly as unprovoked as it was without object. Had the case been one in which the European had been seen for the first time by the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, it would have been neither surprising nor at variance with what more civilised nations would probably have done under circumstances of a similar nature. Could we imagine an extraordinary looking being, whose presence and attributes were alike unknown to us, and of a nature to excite our apprehensions, suddenly appearing in any part of our own country, what would be the reception he would meet with among ourselves, and especially if by locating himself in any particular part of the country he prevented us from approaching those haunts to which we had been accustomed from our infancy to resort, and which we looked upon as sacred to ourselves? It is not asserting too much to say that in such a case the country would be raised in a hue and cry, and the intruder would meet with the fate that has sometimes befallen the traveller or the colonist when trespassing upon the dominions of the savage.

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