It
Stands At The Base Of Mount Wellington, A Mountain 3100
Feet High, But Of Little Picturesque Beauty; From This Source,
However, It Receives A Good Supply Of Water.
Round the cove
there are some fine warehouses and on one side a small fort.
Coming from the Spanish
Settlements, where such magnificent
care has generally been paid to the fortifications, the
means of defence in these colonies appeared very contemptible.
Comparing the town with Sydney, I was chiefly struck
with the comparative fewness of the large houses, either
built or building. Hobart Town, from the census of 1835,
contained 13,826 inhabitants, and the whole of Tasmania 36,505.
All the aborigines have been removed to an island in
Bass's Straits, so that Van Diemen's Land enjoys the great
advantage of being free from a native population. This
most cruel step seems to have been quite unavoidable, as
the only means of stopping a fearful succession of robberies,
burnings, and murders, committed by the blacks; and which
sooner or later would have ended in their utter destruction.
I fear there is no doubt, that this train of evil and its
consequences, originated in the infamous conduct of some of
our countrymen. Thirty years is a short period, in which to
have banished the last aboriginal from his native island, -
and that island nearly as large as Ireland. The correspondence
on this subject, which took place between the government
at home and that of Van Diemen's Land, is very interesting.
Although numbers of natives were shot and taken prisoners
in the skirmishing, which was going on at intervals for several
years; nothing seems fully to have impressed them with
the idea of our overwhelming power, until the whole island,
in 1830, was put under martial law, and by proclamation the
whole population commanded to assist in one great attempt
to secure the entire race.
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