Natives slaughtered and wounded. I don't know how many. Some of their bones were sent in two casks to Port Jackson by Dr. Mountgarrett. They went in the Ocean. A boy was taken from them. This was three or four months after we landed. They never came so close again afterwards. They had no spears with them—only waddies. They were hunting, and came down into a bottom."
Another witness, Robert Evans, belonging to the Risdon party, was examined by the Committee. He was not present at the time, though on the ground immediately afterwards, and learned the news. He was told then that when they came on in a large body they did not make any attack, but they brought a great number of kangaroos with them for a corrobory. He never heard that they interrupted any one, but that they were fired upon. He did not know who ordered them to be fired upon, or how many were said to have been killed, though he had heard that there were men, women, and children, and that some were killed, and that some children were taken away.
In 1823, the well-known colonial barrister and statesman, W. C. Wentworth, Esq., published some notice of the affair in his work on New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. In it he writes concerning the Tasmanians:—
"Their deep-rooted animosity, however, did not arise so much from the ferocious nature of these savages, as from the inconsiderate and unpardonable conduct of our countrymen, shortly after the foundation of the settlement on the river Derwent. At first the Natives evinced the most friendly disposition toward the new-comers; and would, probably, have been actuated by the same amicable feeling to this day, had not the military officer entrusted with the command directed a discharge of grape and canister-shot to be made among a large body, who were approaching, as he imagined, with hostile designs; but, as it has since been believed with much greater probability, merely from motives of curiosity and friendship. The havoc occasioned among them by this murderous discharge was dreadful, and since then all communication with them has ceased; and the spirit of animosity and revenge which this unmerited and atrocious act of barbarity engendered, has been fostered and aggravated to the highest pitch by the incessant encounters that have subsequently taken place between them and the whites."
