stop to the repetition of such atrocities." It then adds: "It seems at present impossible to conciliate the several tribes of that people." Then come the awful words:—
I the said Lieutenant-Governor, do by These presents declare and proclaim, that from and after the date of this my proclamation, and until the cessation of hostilities shall be by me hereafter proclaimed and directed, Martial Law is and shall continue to be in force against the several black or aboriginal Natives, within the several districts of this island; excepting always the places and portions of this Island next mentioned (that is to say)—
"1st. All the country extending southward of Mount Wellington to the ocean, including Bruni Island.
"2d. Tasman's Peninsula.
"3d. The whole of the north-eastern part of this Island which is bounded on the north and east by the ocean, and on the south-west by a line drawn from Piper's River to Saint Patrick's Head.
"4th. And the whole of the western and south-western part of this island, which is bounded on the east by the river Huon, and by a line drawn from that river over Teneriffe Peak to the extreme Western Bluff; on the north by an east and west line from the said extreme Western Bluff to the ocean, and on the west and south by the ocean."
A people so well acquainted with our language and our geographical nomenclature, would surely have no difficulty in recognising their duty and ability to abide within these accurately described limits. Though, with all their compass aid and trigonometrical learning, the English colonists would have been puzzled to have drawn these said lines, and still more puzzled to have hunted after kangaroos for twelve months without passing the boundaries,—yet it was sagely conjectured that such difficulties would not exist in the minds of savages who were such admirable Bushmen. A reference to the map will show the reader the desirable nature of the country thus allotted to the Natives. It will be seen that sixty years' occupation of Tasmania has never induced the adventurous stockholder to advance into those sterile realms. The editor of the Colonial Times of that period has thus well hit off the absurdity. "An Aborigine named Black Tom, who was brought up by Mr. E.
