women wished to leave and the sealers did not consent, he was particularly warned not to interfere should the females object to go. The sealers declared, and with some show of reason, that these orders were not strictly obeyed. Some of the more intelligent and determined, as Munro, memorialised the Government upon the question, and made out a strong case. Mr. Robinson replied to the charges on May 9th, 1831, saying, "I then required of them, in the name of his Majesty's Colonial Government, to deliver up all such native women then in their possession, and assured them that, unless they complied with my demand, compulsory measures would be resorted to to accomplish this purpose."
This was taking a lofty position. But the Colonial Secretary notified "the women were not to have been taken from the sealers against their will, which Mr. Robinson in his notices seems to have overlooked." Mr. Robinson charged some of his crew with complicity in these affairs, and with giving notice to the sealers of his intended visit. He was very bitter against the sealing race, declaring that they had rendered themselves more obnoxious to the Blacks than any other white persons.
The sealers return to the charge, and certain demands are made for women taken violently from their roofs. They complain of the loss to themselves in being deprived of their helpers in the fishery, and of the cruel wrong to their children in tearing the mothers from their embrace, and depriving their tender infancy of maternal care. The list is sent back to Mr. Robinson. But he is not the man to yield. He wishes to know if he is to free women against their own free-will and consent. He tells the Governor that the applicants seek their object "with a view to reinstate them in the same state of slavish and licentious concubinage." He then particularises and selects one name, showing that the man's treatment was cruel, and the female averse to return. He goes further, and looks at the demand from another point of view. "The feelings of the male Aborigines," says he, "would be materially excited on beholding their female partners thus taken away, and associated with men whom they regard as common enemies of their race."
The end of the discussion was an order from Colonel Arthur, on June 18th, that "until we have more certain information of
