122 PHILLIP 1788 orders* ; the savages, friendly at first, were provoked from time to time by the convicts, and of course retaliated; Sees every act of retaliation increased the ill-feeling on botH sides, and at last led the way, in after times, to open vio- lence and bloodshed.f So far as his own efforts were concerned, Phillip appears to have been peculiarly fortunate in his intercourse witH the natives, seldom failing to make friends of them at on^ce whenever he met them. A passage in Lieutenant King's Journal, J in which he relates his adventure with the natives Kinirandthe at Botauy Bay on the day the Sirius arrived there, furnishes "* ^^ an illustration on this point. King and his party had met several of them and endeavoured to gain them over : — I advanced before them, unarmed, presenting some beads and ribbands ; two of the natives advanced armed, but would not come close to me; I then dropped the beads and baize which I held out for them, and retreated ; they took it up and bound the baize about their heads. They then in a very vociferous manner desired us to begone ; and one of them threw a lance wide of us, to show- how far they could do execution. King, who was accompanied by Lieutenant Dawes and Compelled three marines, thought it judicious to beat a retreat, and accordingly did so, the natives following them up ; but — they were ten times more vociferous, and very soon after a lance was thrown amongst us, on which I ordered one of the marines to fire with powder only, when they ran off* with great precipitation. I embarked, and Governor Phillip joined me from the south side of the bay, where he had found the natives very sociable and
- The difficulty experienced by Phillip in enforcing obedience to his re-
iterated orders on this subject may be seen in the fact, previously noted, that, in March, 1789, a party of convicts actually set out in pursuit of the natives for the purpose of avenging the death of a man whom they had killed. t At Swan River, the natives are extremelv inimical to the Europeans. They have murdered several persons, besides destroying a great numoer of sheep. When I was there, soon after the formation of the settlement, we found them friendly and quiet, nor did I hear of a single act of aggression on their part ; the ouly way, therefore, of accounting for the bad feeling which now exists between them and the settlers, is by supposing they must have been ill-used, or that some misunderstanding has taken place." — Lien- tenant Breton, Excursions in New South Wales, 1834, p. 166. X MS. in the, possession of the Hon. Philip Gidley King, M.L.C. Digitized by Google
