long afterwards was his trusted councillor in all matters connected with the so called conciliation of "this unfortunate and helpless people," as he was fond of calling them.
Of the asylum at Bruny, Robinson volunteered to take charge—an office more of love than profit—for the consideration of £100 a-year, and a personal ration. He was, by trade, a master builder, but gave up his business, said to have been a lucrative one, for a more congenial occupation, which exactly accorded with the natural tastes of the man. His appointment is dated "March 1829."
He was a person of uncommon energy, and possessed of that indomitable perseverance that never yields to difficulties that the will can overcome. In his many well-planned enterprises, for what he always calls the "subjugation" of the savages, he was often in great danger of their spears; but no risks, however iminent, daunted him for a moment. If they repulsed his advances, or even beat him off, he was at them again next moment. When once on the trail of a tribe, the days, or even the hours, of their liberties were numbered, and their long-known haunts "knew them no more for ever." His heart and soul were devoted to the work of ridding the country of them, without shedding their blood; and when he undertook the seemingly hopeless task, he never doubted his ability to remove every one of them from the main land, which he ultimately effected, with the exception of four, of whose existence he seems to have been misinformed. They must have been reported dead, for at the close of his labours he assured myself who knew him, not intimately, but pretty well, that only one man was unaccounted for, who he believed had died in the bush; and which circumstance I have since seen mentioned in one of his official reports. He was a man of strong common sense, but imperfect education. His first reports, though not badly worded, betray his ignorance of spelling, and also that his grammatical studies were not very complete. But he either improved in these little matters afterwards, or placed his writings for correction in the hands, probably, of a convict clerk, who was subsequently attached to his service. In quoting from these, which I shall have to do rather largely, I shall of course not adhere to his peculiar method of jumbling the letters of the alphabet together, which practice he seems to have learned in the schools of Mrs. Tabitha Bramble or Jeames Yellowplush. He was rather pompous in manner, and vain of his services, in having almost single-handed put an end to 30 years of petty warfare; and his "dispatches," as he invariably calls his interminable reports, in magniloquence of style, throw into the
