Risdon, and brought the earliest intelligence of their progress upon its return to Sydney. The little craft did much colonial service; having been the first to enter the Heads of Port Phillip, the first to colonize Southern Tasmania, and subsequently the convoy of some of Captain Collins' Port Phillip party to the shores of the Derwent. This is the report it brought:—
"The Natives are very numerous, and undaunted even at the explosion of a musket; but were very friendly to small parties they meet accidentally, though they cannot be prevailed on to visit the encampment. During the Lady Nelson's stay a large kangaroo was taken in the woods by Henry Hacking, attended by a Sydney native; but being interrupted by a tribe of the sooty inhabitants of the neighbourhood, the kangaroo, being fifty or sixty pounds' weight, was, for a moment, considered as lost. The Blacks made use of every policy to wheedle Hacking out of his booty; but as they did not offer or threaten violence, he, with counteracting policy, preserved it. Although they treated him with much affability and politeness, yet they regarded his companion with jealousy and indignation; and the poor fellow, sensible of his critical and precarious situation, appeared very thankful when safely delivered from their unwelcome presence."
Such a story as this leaves the military without excuse for their barbarous onslaught upon the Natives at Risdon. They must have known by all experience that, though too shy to approach the camp,—or rather too fearful to place themselves and wives within reach of an armed soldiery,—they were gentle in their manners, under circumstances where numbers and forest freedom give confidence, if not audacity. The Sydney printer may well put the word "politeness" in small capitals. No wonder the Tasmanians were jealous of the stranger from New Holland, and indignant that a Black should appear in their presence with two front teeth knocked out, with an improper escutcheon of cicatrices, and with flowing hair, instead of the approved crisp and corkscrew ringlets.
There are two interesting communications from Van Diemen's Land settlers, correspondents of the Sydney Gazette, directed from Port Dalrymple, on the northern side of the island, nearly opposite the present site of George Town, the Port of Launceston, which had been colonized from Sydney about the same time as
