Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/590

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paper thua: **Let them have ejioiigh of red-coats and bullet-fare. For every man they murder hmit them down, j and drop ten of them* This is ourspecitie; try it/* There^ was an Aborigines* Protection Society in Hobart Town, which pointed out that the blacks were driven to retaliation. Arthur offered a reward for the apprehension of Mnsqiiito,! For a long time the wary Australian defied all efforts to " capture him. At last, by the aid of a black native lad, secret inforniatioii was obtained, Mnsquito was surprised unarmed, shot, imprisoned, and executed. The author of a work on the uative tribes of Tasmania (Mr. Calder) de-J clares that '*it is not easy to understand on what it' was the" grim chieftain ** was convicted, there being** no legal proof '* of any guilt.'* But he adds that it may have been necessary to ** intimidate his surviving brt?thren into submission/* To remove bini from his old haunts by capture or death, was, in Mr. Calder's pln-ase, '* no longer a simple desire, but an overpowering necessity/' Mr. Calder relates that Musquito was notable for his pursuit of j Micha.el Howe, the bushranger, and that the Government I might have conferred** something more than mere dismissal" on their benefactor. They preferred to drive him to despera- tion. The Tasmaniaa natives had become deeply attached to him. The}^ interceded for him in vain, and his death deepened their hatred of his slayers. Henceforward there was no hope. Musquito died on the scaffold in sullen silence, in 1825. As doggedly his companions met their fates in the forest. In 1826, Arthur issued a proclamationJ lamenting the failure of his efforts to conciliate the natives,' He invited settlers to arm themselves and join with the military in repelling attacks, as well as in capturh felons. Where to be black was to be a felon, such tern were dangerously wide, and were widely availed of.^ 1 ^One HfiDry Wiilow«t>ti iii IHiJo we^it to Vuii Dieiiien'a Lami as **Ageii1» for the Vail DiemeE's LslimI Agriculturul EatabliHbunjnt, "' He dedicated to Lord Althorp a volatile on the State of Van Dienien's Laud (Londoo,! 1829). He said that "'of hite tJie audacious atrocitbs of the natives havel been lamentably great ; although itt tlic m.niii time I have little liesitatioiij in saying they have arisen from tbts cruel treatment experienced by Bonittl of their women from the bnnds of the distant stoek-keepera. Indeed thesaJ poor njortalfi have, 1 know, been shot at merely to gratify a most barbarouil cruelty (p. 191). Colontl MlViui uu thti occasion of the execution of two]