mittee of the Legislative Council of New South Wales, with a Protestant Bishop for their chairman."
After the departure of Mr. Robinson, and the failure of their hopes of transmission to Port Phillip, the Aborigines sank into an apathy from which they never emerged. Captain Smith officiated for a time, and then Mr. Fisher; but Dr. Jeanneret received the appointment of Superintendent in 1842, at the hands of Governor Sir John Franklin, who, like his benevolent and learned lady, was ever interested in the condition of the Blacks.
Dr. Jeanneret was much shocked at the island affairs. He found the rations inadequate for his charge, and even tampered with by the small military party still esteemed necessary for the safety of the settlement. Of an impulsive, energetic nature, and highly sensitive in his conscientiousness, he was led from the rebuke of wrong-doing to active denunciation, and was early involved in personal collision with the soldiers, whom he accused of malpractices with the Natives; he, also, engaged in voluminous correspondence with Government. The officials, long tired of the Native question, and never appreciating the pertinacious exhibition of abuses in any of their departments, preferred to get rid of the difficulty by the suspension of the Superintendent, in 1844.
Not made of yielding material, the Doctor fought out the battle in England, and was reinstated by Lord Derby in 1846. His triumph over the local authorities did not lessen the spleen of his enemies, nor silence the voice of calumny and reproach. Almost immediately upon his return to Flinders, a petition against him was got up by somebody, and signed by eight of the Natives. He was charged with frivolous offences against their personal comfort. The poor men afterwards repudiated their own act, and attributed it to bad counsel. Inflexible in justice, the Doctor needed suavity to soothe. Earnest in the discovery of a wrong, he may have lacked that judicious prudence which refuses to see everything, or which perceives extenuating and ameliorating circumstances. His very integrity dissociated him from the sympathies of his subordinates, and the rigidity of his righteous rule perhaps increased the restlessness and discontent of his little state. Yet, knowing him well, and honouring him much, I am sure he misrepresented himself; for, of all
