"Thus ended our interview with the inhabitants of Diemen's Land. All the descriptions which I have given are of the most rigorous exactitude, and without doubt it would have been difficult to deny oneself the sweet emotions which similar circumstances ought to inspire. This gentle confidence of the people in us, these affectionate evidences of benevolence which they never ceased to manifest toward us, the sincerity of their demonstrations, the frankness of their manners, the touching ingenuousness of their caresses, all concurred to excite within us sentiments of the tenderest interest. The intimate union of the different individuals of a family, the sort of patriarchal life of which we had been spectators, had strongly moved us. I saw with an inexpressible pleasure the realization of those brilliant descriptions of the happiness and simplicity of the state of nature of which I had so many times in reading felt the seductive charm."
Such were the sentiments entertained of a people almost universally regarded by English colonists, a few years later, as tigers and demons, whose destruction would be a deed of merit, as well as an act of necessity. Smile as we may at the simplicity of Peron, had our faith in the poor creatures been more like that of the kind-hearted Frenchman, the reader might have been spared the story of the crimes and horrors of the "Black War," and the mournful record of "The Last of the Tasmanians."
