Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

James Erskine Calder - Aborigines of Tasmania, 1821-1877
A 597

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[Cover of Journal]

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[Book Plate – David Scott Mitchell]

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[Inside front cover]

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Write page 20 again
25.
AA (Fate of Montipelita etc)
AB (Risks he ran)
199 Macquarie Street
16th July1895

Dear Graves

I have read a paragraph in this day's Mercury that I have no doubt was written by you concerning the Native Bread root – the Mylitta Australis of civilized man and the Bringgally of the uncivilized one or Aboriginal of Tasmanian

The Tasman journal spoken of before which was published here & in London late 1892, and '46 originated with what was called the "Philosophical Society from which I think the Royal Society sprang and is described as follows in the Introductory paper written by the Rev [indecipherable] were gone some minutes before Mr K reached the homestead and the by then afterwards and [indecipherable]

To the laird of Caldew.

[mylitta australis – born in the region in which one lives; as a native inhabitant, race; grown or originating in the region where used or sold; not foreign or imported; original]

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The following is McKay's account as communicated to the Gov. in 1873 of the early life of the man the last of his race as communicated when by himself on
his many rambles though the bush with the natives after

That part of this rite that is included with the double red lines may be rejected according to the please of the Editor. If the former I understand the responsibility of proof.

JEC

Truganini

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(Left by me at Mr Kennerly's residence 15th May 1876.)

Copy 179 Macquarie Street, 13th May 1876

Sir, . . . I beg of you to pardon me troubling you on a topic, which it maybe lay not quite within my province to address you upon; but as one who for many years has taken some concern in the condition of our aborigines, I ask the privilege which I doubt not will be conceded me, of directing your attention to a matter to be presently explained, connected with the obsequies etc of the last of the race who held the country before us.

Of the action of the Executive, pertaining to the burial of the woman Trucanini, in which all the precautions taken for the preservation of her remains, were so unavoidably necessary I for one at least, believe this to have been very satisfactory, not only its refusal to surrender them for scientific uses (the plain English of which was their certain reduction to a skeleton) but its choice of their place of sepulture which in my view is one of the most suitable that could have been selected to secure them from invasion. But I think that something still remains to be done to keep alive the remembrance of one, whom I shall presently take occasion to explain, has rendered good service to the country that has hitherto met with but scant recognition, and which, as it seems to me it would be a graceful act of the Executive in power at the time of her death to acknowledge, by initiating a movement amongst us for providing a more fitting monument for her than an ordinary tablet, which is probably what will be accorded her.

In such an effort as the one now proposed, I believe you would find many willing coadjutors amongst the number to whom this design would assuredly commend itself. Such an invitation might appropriately come either direct from the Executive, or from any body of influential persons, whom I take it you would have no difficulty in assembling for the work whenever the proposal were made to them; and I much mistake public sentiment if the appeal for assistance did not meet with a generous response in the shape of substantial aid to provide

The Honorable Alfred Kennerly.

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Tuesday 6th February 1877: – Saw Mr Kennerly today who authorized me if I wrote to Mr Reiby about Truganinis grave, to name that I had written to him about it and make extracts for my letter to him JEC

the funds for such a monument for the grave of the last member of a now extinct race as it would be creditable to Tasmania to have erected over her

Allow me here to say it was but yesterday that I was accosted by a none too wealthy tradesman of this town (Mr Molloy, stone-mason, Harrington Street) who with much good feeling made the proposal, which in a slightly modified form, I have now the pleasure of remitting to your consideration. To test his sincerity I asked him if he would give a subscription, which he promised directly – a pound – adding that he would pay it at any moment it was asked for, and further that he believed he was only one of hundreds who would readily contribute to the erection of a handsome monument which he thought the occasion demanded of us.

I introduce this little incident as illustrative of the feeling of the class he is associated with, and which I have little doubt is general enough amongst us.

It may be new to you to hear that Tasmania owes much to this very woman Trucanini, who acting under the late Mr Robinson, was largely concerned in the removal of all the native tribes from the mainland of Tasmania, who but for the assistance herself and a few others of her people gave him, would never have been subdued. To him the merit is doubtlessly due of devising the means that led to their capture, but it was to others, and prominently Trucanini, that the perilous duty was assigned of opening every negociation with them for their surrender; and she it was who once saved him from death in a savage onslaught made upon the lives of his party by a horde of blacks (called by him the Tackine or Sandy Cape natives) who having separated these two from the others, drove them into the Arthur river, then greatly swollen by recent rains, where he must have perished, for he could not swim, but for her constancy and courage. In the end she got him safely through the torrent, just in time to save him from his pursuers

In his official accounts of this repulse (29th of July and 14th Septr 1832) written doubtlessly in haste and perhaps excitement,

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the funds for such a monument for the grave of the last member of a now extinct race as it would be creditable to Tasmania to have erected over her

[Copy of previous page]

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he speaks of this service as the work of "a woman", but without distinguishing her; but in his private conversations, he always named Trucanini as his preserver.

To those who are unacquainted with the history of the surrender of the blacks, it may seem none too creditable to her or others of her race to have aided in their subjugation. But Robinson was no ordinary person, and those of them whom he had subdued to his will, held him in such reverential awe, as to induce the conviction that they regarded him as something more than human. His supremacy over them was too complete for opposition, and his will too potent to be withstood. Hence he impelled them into perils that any others would have shrunk from in pure terror. In some of his Reports, he acknowledges engaging them in embassies to the still unsubdued tribes, from which they expected nothing but death; but such was his ascendancy over them, that he gives but a solitary instance of disobedience, in the case of one of them, a chief, whose fears of his wild countrymen so over-mastered every other faculty, that he fled from the camp, rather than face them. Some of their escapes like his own read more like miracles than ordinary facts, and the poor woman who has just died had a full share in the dangers, if not in the rewards and honors, of his many sensational enterprises

The age of Trucanini was not so great as it has been computed at, for at the date of her capture, 16th January 1830, she was only about eighteen, which fixes her birth at some time near 1812*, when Colonel Andrew Geils was Commandant of Hobart Town.

In conclusion I solicit your attentive consideration of the subjects of this letter

I remain Sir
Your very obedient Servant
JE Calder

* her age was therefore not more than 64.
 
(The note, of which the above is a copy, was left by me at Mr Kennerlys residence, 15th of May, 1876)

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179 Macquarie Street
1st. September, 1876.

Dear Dr Agnew

I take leave to hand you a paper that I have prepared for the use of the Royal Society, containing the remains of the language of the aborigines of Tasmania, of which the best informed writer on these people, says there were six dialects; which though probably referable to a common origin, varied so much in some instances, that the tribes could not always converse with each other. It will indeed be obvious to any one taking a cursory view of the table herewith, that many terms used by the people of one part of the island, are quite different from those of another, though representing the same objects or ideas.

The compilation now submitted, embodies all that is preserved in the vocabularies of seven writers, to which are added the few words which occur in the massive correspondence of Mr. George Augustus Robinson, on the subject of his enterprises against and intercourse with the blacks.

These remains I have so arranged, that the expressions of the different tribes, as given by each authority for any object, may be compared, which I have done by writing them on the same line

Dr Agnew
Secretary

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lines of the paper along with their English equivalents.

In the first five columns of the table, after the one used or English words, is the list complied by the once well known Jorgen Jorgenson, taken partly from the narrative of Admiral Bruny d'Entrecasteaux – partly from a paper by the Reverend Thomas Dove, but chiefly from his own stores of information which were pretty considerable. This portion of the table, embracing all he could collect or remember of the native dialects, contains about two hundred and sixty expressions.

The next division, in three columns, includes all of Dr. Joseph Milligan's vocabulary – the most considerable of any known to exist, of nearly nine hundred words.

Following in order, is the compartment devoted to the researches of the Reverend James Norman, which (exclusive of a multitude of proper names, that are rejected) comprehends about two hundred and twenty-five expressions, that seem to have been obtained from several tribes; but as this is uncertain, no distinctions being made in the original, they are all ranged in one column.

Mr. Robert Arthur Robert's contribution follows after Norman's, and was published about forty-eight years ago – a fragment only of a larger vocabulary of the language of the Bruny Island tribe, of which the unpublished part is, I believe, lost.

In the last column are the few words extracted from Robinson's letters spoken of before.

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The total number of words given in the vocabularies that I have followed, is about fifteen hundred; but as the most familiar ones are often used by each compiler – as in such cases as fire, water, spear, kangaroo, and the like – you will not count nearly so many in the M.S. volume now presented you, which though it contains all they have preserved, are reduced by the arrangement I have made, to a total of about eleven hundred and thirty.

Before saying anything of the several writers above named, I will take leave to observe that a little study of the vocabulary I have drawn up, will reveal several peculiarities in the composition of the words, if not of the structure of the language. As I proceeded with the work of compilation, I could not help noticing the frequent repetition of certain suffixes, and the identity of many of the terminal syllables of words, some of which were very generally used in some particular class of expressions. Thus in the dialect of the tribes inhabiting the Eastern districts, nearly all the words ending with ack, which are numerous, relate to objects or sensations that are either disagreeable or odious. Of these there seventy-two in Milligan's list, about forty being of this description from which I select as examples, acrid, apparition, bad, bitter, cold, corpse, dark, dead, dirty, drown, earthquake, fever, fright, hunger, pain, rage and sick, all of which and many more like them, terminate as above. Again, in the dialect of the south, the suffix noite, and its variations noitee and noiteh, seem also, when coupled with other words, to have

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indicated something obnoxious, as acid, imp, demon, elf, effluvia, falsehood, filth and the like; whilst nire or niry, also peculiar to the south, are always added to words having quite a contrary signification, of which handsome, true, fresh, water, fine face, heal, are examples. Le, lee and leah – ne and nee – mena and meena, were in very frequent use, but do not seem, so far as I can trace, to have had any influence on the signification of the words to which they were united; the first of these three double examples, if I may so express myself, was used by the north and north-western people only; the next chiefly by those of the east, while the last belonged almost exclusively to the south.

Perhaps further study of the composition of the words, by some one more able than myself to examine them critically, may yet throw a ray or two of light on the subject of a language of which if we have not preserved much, all is not quite lost; and it is hardly too much to hope, that some one may be found who will take up the task.

The authors of the different vocabularies, that are now, so to speak, melted into one, are either historically or locally too well known, to need more than a passing notice here. The name of d'Entrecasteaux will of course be familiar to all readers of maritime enterprise; and his visit to these shores just eighty-four years ago, and his intercourse with the natives, will also be known to them; while the connexion of Robinson, Milligan and Dove with the primitive race, will or should be remembered

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by every one who has studied the subject of their decay. But in what manner it was that the Reverend Mr. Norman was associated with them, I am unable to say.

Of Mr. Robert Arthur Roberts, now nearly forgotten, who has contributed to the scanty stock of our knowledge of the language of the aborigines, I may explain that he was originally a settler on Bruny island, where he held a grant of land of five hundred acres, which he abandoned after a few years occupation, to go into commercial life. Being a person of good understanding and education – addicted to bush enterprise, and fond of investigations not much thought of here fifty years ago, he acquired some knowledge of the tribe he had, as it were, established himself amongst, and of their language, which he perpetuated in a vocabulary, published in part in the Courier newspaper of the 3rd of May, 1828.

Mr. Roberts, who, I believe was in early life connected with the collieries of Wales, was certainly the first man to investigate the coal fields of Southern Tasmania. He it was, who along with two others, discovered the coal at South Cape and Adventure Bay, and was the first who proved its existence at Three Hut Point, which he did by sinking for it, about eighty feet, in 1832. But, as he once told me, he did not think much of what he really reached, he gave it up.

As it may interest you to see the report of the two first named discoveries in 1826, I attach a reprint of it to this letter.

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The last person to be named, to whom we are indebted for some trace of the aboriginal tongue, is the remarkable Mr. Jorgen Jorgenson, whose name is associated with the first dawnings of Tasmanian history. He visited this island some years before it was settled, and afterwards took part in the very first establishment of the colony, at Risdon in 1803, as Chief Officer of the little brig Lady Nelson, (she was only 65 tons) and then assisted to remove Colonel Collins' expeditionary party from Port Philip to the Derwent. This person, who was more of a notoriety than a celebrity, was a Dane, born in Copenhagen in 1780, where his father was an opulent tradesman. He had received an excellent education, but of which he did not always make a good use in after life. Besides being an incurable gamester always, he was at different periods of an adventurous life, a common seaman, whaler, sealer, doctor, captain of a Man of War, a Governor, an author, a spy, explorer, constable, pursuer of the blacks, and a convict in the colony he had assisted to establish, where he died in the Hospital of Hobart Town, about 1842.

It was when in pursuit of the aborigines between 1828 and '30, as chief of a "roving party", having several trained blacks with him, that he picked up a good deal of their language, and a knowledge of their habits. The intelligence thus acquired, he always designed publishing, but was restrained by his poverty; and it was probably with this view that he drew up the vocabulary now incorporated with others I have used; and which paper of his, luckily falling into good hands afterwards, was preserved in the Tasmanian Journal of Natural Science, and will be found in the first volume of that excellent work, between the pages 308 and 318.

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If it be allowable in a paper like this, to say more than I have already done of this unfortunate person, to whom we are indebted for much intelligence about this island, I will take leave to give some account of his remarkable career, condensed from his autobiography, which has been written at great length. He was also the author of many other works, that were mostly written when under the eye of the police, and revised and finished when in gaol, to which he found the way pretty often.

One peculiar and commendable feature of his written life is, that though he had to endure much that was painful both here and elsewhere, he has no evil word for anyone but himself whom he never spares. His delinquencies, were rather trivial, and his history may be reproduced without offending even the most sensitive.

He commenced his naval career as an apprentice when only fourteen, and was still a youth when he joined the surveying vessel Lady Nelson at the Cape. She was then on her outward voyage, to settle the question of the insularity or otherwise of Tasmania. Arriving in these waters, she passed through the Straits, discovered Kings island, then, he says, abounding with seals and "stupendous emus", and sailed on to Sydney, where her commander Lieutenant Grant, received the unwelcome intelligence of the enterprise of Flinders and Bass, who had gone through the Straits just before him.

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In one part of his narrative he gives a mournful account of the fate of both these gentlemen, the first named dying soon after a long imprisonment by the French, and the other, for an infraction of the maritime laws at Valparaiso, by "forcing trade", as it was called, being sent to the quicksilver mines where he perished, or as Jorgenson says "was never more heard of."

The Lady Nelson, with Jorgenson still on board, joined Flinders' ship, the Investigator, to survey the northern coastline of New Holland; but the first named losing her anchors at Northumberland island, the two vessels parted company, and the brig returned to Sydney.

At the time of the first occupation of this island, Jorgenson had reached the post of Chief Officer of the Lady Nelson, now commanded by a Lieutenant Simmons, when the services spoken of before, of landing the detachments that first broke ground here, were performed.

Jorgenson's account, written in 1835, of the site of Hobart Town, as he saw it thirty-two years before, is worth quoting. He says, "During our absence" (that is on the second trip of the brig to Port Phillip, for the last draft of Collins' people) "the station at Risdon was found ineligible, and the present site of Hobart Town was ultimately determined on. We landed at Sullivan's Cove, and having pitched our tents, spades, hoes and axes, were put into the hands of the prisoners, and we

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commenced clearing away as fast as we could. As I walk up and down the streets of this now crowded and large town, I cannot always divest myself of the remembrance of what it was at that time – 32 years ago. The spot where the Bank of Van Diemen's land, the Hope and Anchor and the late Mrs. Kearney's habitation now are, was then an impervious grove of the thickest brushwood, surmounted with some of the largest gum trees that this island can produce, and all along the rivulet as far up as where the Old or Upper mill now is, was impassable from the denseness of the shrubs and underwood, and the huge collections of prostrate trees and dead timber which had been washed down by the stream and were strewed all around. These had in parts blocked up the channel, and many places which are now dry and built upon or cultivated in fruitful gardens, were covered with rushes and water."

It was in 1804 or '5, that Jorgenson quitted the Royal Navy, and commenced sea-faring on his own account, as master of a small vessel engaged at one time in sealing, and at another in the whale trade; and the first whale taken in the Derwent, he says was killed by himself. This was in 1806, when what was called the Bay Fishery was first started. He soon afterwards returned to Europe, and reached London the same year.

In his homeward voyage, he took with him some of the natives of New Zealand and

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and Otaheite, which circumstance procured him the friendship of Sir Joseph Banks, who compassionately took charge of them, and supported them during the short remainder of their lives, for they returned no more to their homes.

Note abt new Zealand language.

Having now been absent from his native city for so many years, one of his first impulses was to revisit it; and he reached home during its bombardment and the defeat of the Danish army by the British, which he says cost his country fifteen hundred lives.

In a natural feeling of resentment against England for this invasion, he offered his services to his countrymen, and was appointed to the command of a ship mounting twenty-eight guns. The sea was frozen at the time, and the ice not expected to break up for some weeks. But Jorgenson was determined to get amongst the English shipping at once at any cost of exertion, and cut his way out a month before any reprisals were expected; and his appearance in British waters, was rapidly followed by the capture of eight or nine merchantmen. Encouraged by these successes, he stood boldly over to the English coast, and was in sight of Flamborough Head, when he was picked up and disposed of by the Sappho sloop of war, which knocked his ship to splinters after a plucky fight of near an hour. "My masts, rigging and sails" he says, "were all shot to pieces, and I was under the necessity of doing what many a brave man has done before, to strike my flag and surrender." An account of this action he says, was published in the London Gazette of the

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time, and his victor raised to the rank of post captain for this service. Jorgenson and his defeated crew were then carried into Yarmouth, where by some oversight, he was not placed on parole.

One of the remarkable features of Jorgenson's character, was his capacity for making useful friends amongst classes best able to serve him; but the advantage that his address and undoubted talents thus easily secured him, was as easily lost by his ever recurring indiscretions. Before he had been a day in Yarmouth, after the loss of his ship, his good angel sent him one of these kind ministers, to mitigate and relieve his distresses.

In his recent visit to Copenhagen, he had formed a slight acquaintance with some high official personage connected with the English ministry, who probably appreciating his intelligence and courage, kept an eye on him, as a fitting agent to conduct any enterprise requiring the qualities of daring and address.

One of the minor consequences of our attack on Copenhagen, was to put an end to our trade with Iceland, a dependency of Denmark, by which the inhabitants of that remote island were reduced to absolute want, and their sufferings were heard of in England with so much commisseration, as to prompt Sir Joseph Banks and some other persons of active benevolence, to send them immediate relief. This scheme having the approval of the government, Jorgenson, through the influence of his new friend, was sent for at once, and offered the command of a vessel, with stores for

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the starving islanders, which he accepted directly.

Though it was now mid-winter, and the voyage a perilous one at this season, he set out immediately for Liverpool to take charge, and sailed for Reikjavik on the 29th December, 1807. The voyage was made chiefly in darkness, night, he says, being even lighter than day, from the brilliancy of the aurora.

Reaching Iceland, he landed his stock without opposition from the authorities, for the says, "we met with the most grateful welcome from the starving inhabitants."

But the relief afforded by a single ship of only 350 tons, to a population of thirty or forty thousands, was a very insufficient one, and he promptly returned to Liverpool for a second supply, and two ships were despatched to the same port. The well known botanist, Dr. Hooker, accompanied the expedition, as a passenger.

But the success of his first adventure, seems to have been heard of with much displeasure by the Government of Denmark; and orders had reached the Governor of Iceland, Count Tramp, to prohibit all future intercourse with the English, and Jorgenson was not permitted to land his cargoes. But at no time of his life was he a person to be trifled with, and resolved to do it whether the Governor liked it or not. His mode of procedure was quite characteristic of the man and very original. Landing on the Sunday following his arrival, with a strong party of armed sailors, when the church-going people

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of Reikjavik were at their devotions, he marched them straight up to Government House, which he surrounded, and then cooly walked in himself.

By some unlucky stroke of Fortune – for himself at least – the Count was not at church that morning. "Had he gone with the rest," says the narrative, "I should not so easily have effected my purpose. – He was reposing on a sofa, and was a little surprised by my abrupt appearance," as he might well have been, for the captain was at his side in an instant, with a brace of pistols in hand, ready for any contingency. No words passed between them, or if any, not pleasant ones, for without giving him one moment for consideration, he seized and marched him off a prisoner to his ship.

The captain's plans were all quietly matured beforehand, so that no time might be lost except in executing them, for there was much to be done before the pastor dismissed his flock; and the first things they learned when service was over, was the Count's deposition, and that they had a new Governor.

These astounding facts were made known to them in a formal proclamation, which stated that "the people being tired of Danish oppression, had unanimously called me" Captain Jorgen Jorgenson "to the head of the government," though not a single man of them knew anything of it a moment before;

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but as he had plenty of armed seamen with him – who no doubt regarded the entire proceeding as capital fun – while the people had none, they quietly submitted to the new order of things.

His government, so long as it lasted, seems like that of most revolutionists, to have been a very popular one. He went to work with his usual energy, reforming abuses, remitting taxes, introducing trial by jury and representative government, establishing schools and fisheries, doubling the pay of the clergy, raising an army and building fortifications; all of which he paid for out of the "iron chest" he had seized on directly after the dethronement of the legitimate ruler. He also threw open his ports to foreign commerce, and made several progresses through the country, never forgetting wherever he went, to make prize of the iron chest, as an indispensable act of good government.

In one of these progresses, the prefect of a district, a hundred and fifty miles from Reikjavik, refused either to acknowledge His Excellency or surrender the public treasure, which he proceeded to compel in his usual summary manner. "Having only six attendants with me, I had few means to enforce my authority. However I called from his door to the people around who could hear me, to collect a quantity of brushwood and place round the house, in order to set it on fire," which brought the prefect to his senses pretty quickly; so he – like the Governor himself had done a few months before – prudently struck his flag, and surrendered, – iron chest and all –, with the

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contents of which the captain walked off of course.

He concludes his account of this really serious drama with the complacent remark, "I have the satisfaction to think, that the laws and regulations I then made, remain for the most part in force and undisturbed to the present day."

Having made all his arrangements for the good order of the colony, he was at leisure to return to England, that he might in his new character of Governor, establish a treaty of commerce with the British government. His voyage was a disasterous one at first, though one of his ships, loaded with oil and tallow, taking fire at sea and sinking, by which he was forced to return to port with the other. He left again about the same time as the Talbot, a fast sailing King's ship that soon outstripped him and reached home first.

The captain of the Talbot seems to have taken quite a different view of Jorgenson's government from what he held of it himself, and forwarded a most unfavorable report to the British Cabinet of what he had both seen and heard of it when at Reikjavik, which concluded with the damaging remarks that there was great disaffection in Iceland, and that "he was highly unqualified to hold the command of a kingdom"; the effect of which was to bring his government to an end, and he was arrested soon after his arrival.

Of course no cognizance could be taken of what he had done in an enemy's country; but ministers

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were out of humor with him, and as those times were not times when there was much ceremony in governmental transactions of any kind, he was sent up to London as a prisoner, charged "with being an alien at large without the King's license", and sent to gaol, where he remained best part of a year before he was liberated, on parole, by the interest he says, "of friends at Court."

After this liberation, he was much befriended by Sir Joseph Banks, who used good humoredly to introduce the fallen potentate to his friends, as the King of Iceland; a title by which he was always distinguished when in Tasmania.

During several following years he was variously employed; sometimes as an author, but generally on certain missions to the continent for the Enlish goverment, his engagements being of a very secret nature, and himself only a spy. But his embassies whatever they were, were often half marred, by the terrible passion of the man for gambling; and though he was most liberally supplied with money by the Foreign Office, it was no sooner in his pocket, than he was off with it to the gaming table till it was gone, and the duties he was charged to perform were often much neglected. He played most desperately, and was frequently reduced to the extremest poverty, and to the meanest shifts for a dinner and bed; all of which he relates most unblushingly, in the account he has left us of a generally ill-spent life.

He however travelled much at this period, and

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as usual with him, made many acquaintances, even in circles from which he would assuredly have been ejected, had his occupation been suspected.

Prince [indecipherable] & others

After a hundred curious adventures on the continent, he followed the English army to Waterloo, at which he was present as a spy and spectator, in the disguise of a quaker, and continued with it during the occupation of Paris.

He returned to England in 1817; and the most of the next three years were passed by him in gambling houses, where he played with varying success.

The life he now followed necessarily led him amongst evil associates, and by a certain transition, to an acquaintance with the police; for about this time, 1820, he received a sentence of what Byron styles "the usual term of transportation", namely seven years, for a presumed delinquency, but of which he was not really guilty, and was accordingly liberated, but not before he had passed twenty months in gaol, when it was that the real offender was discovered. It was whilst he was in this situation, acting as hospital assistant, that he picked up by observation, reading and practice, some knowledge of treatment of disease

His discharge was however accompanied by a condition which, in these times at least, we should consider an extraordinary one, namely, that he should quit the United Kingdom within a month. But the times I am speaking of were arbitrary enough, and governments not overnice, and he had now

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no friends in the Foreign Office, to which his indiscretions on the continent, must have given extraordinary offence. The condition was an imperative one and not to be disregarded. But the infatuated gamester, having still some funds in hand, again resorted to what the truly calls his former wretched haunts for a last chance; but the fates were unpropitious, and in a few weeks, he was not only a ruined but a lost man, by having overstaid the period allowed for his departure; for which rather trumpery infraction – as it must appear to us – of an order of the Home Office, it seems it was that he was transported to this colony for life.

Such is the story of his conviction as told by himself; and which whether true or not, seems to receive some confirmation from the time and circumstances under which he published it. At no time of Jorgenson's career in Tasmania, was he actually free, and under the government of 1835, would hardly have dared print a libel on the Home authorities, – most certainly not with impunity; and the publication proceeding as it did from the private establishment of the Government Printer, Dr. Ross, could not have been ventured upon, if absolutely false.

Once more under restraint, he served several years of his time in gaol at home as a Hospital assistant again, when by an order of the Home Secretary, the late Sir Robert Peel, in 1825, he sailed for Tasmania in the ship Woodman, finding himself he says "an exile and a captive on that element on which I had once

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been a commander." His former experiences in the sick wards at home, made him an useful assistant to the surgeon, and his station was in the ship's hospital. The voyage was a disasterous one, sickness in the dangerous form of brain fever attacking many of the convicts, which the treatment of the surgeon did not abate, his favorite remedy for all cases being thirty grains of calomel, that drove such of his patients whom it did not kill, into raving madness. But before long, he fell a victim to the disease himself, and the management of the sick devolved on Jorgenson, who by adopting the means he had seen used at home, restored all to health.

His first occupation in Tasmania, was that of a convict-writer in the Customs department, with the usual emoluments of his class, namely sixpence a day for clothes, lodging and fuel, and a starvation allowance of another penny for board. The office was then in charge of Mr. Rolla O'Ferrall, a man more devoted to pleasure than business, and who cared very little about his office. Jorgenson gives a curious account of the loose way then in practice of keeping the trade returns of the colony, which his own ignorance of departmental usages, helped to confuse. He says, "I committed a hundred blunders; for instance, I often placed bales of wool and other colonial produce in the import-book, and English imported goods in the export book. How this was not observed, is to me a matter of surprise. But Mr O'Ferrall was not a man to trouble his head about such matters," or indeed any others dissociated from personal gratification and money making.

A good deal of interest was made about this period, to obtain some mitigation of his punishment, but without effect; for Colonel Arthur appears to have had some intelligence of his antecedents, and probably private instructions from home about him; and for a long time would not

[Page 29]

hear of it, saying he could do nothing for him, as he was "a violent political character, and a dangerous man in any country," but he relented at last, and after about a couple of years, restored him to comparative freedom as a ticket-of-leave holder.

From the Customs department he was transferred to the services of the Van Diemen's Land Company, and was much employed in exploring some of the still little frequented districts of the north-west, of which services he afterwards published a very long account in a local magazine, in a series of papers that have considerable merit.

He was next appointed to a post, he was better qualified for by his previous occupations, than for the Customs department, namely the Field police of Oatlands, where sheep-stealing was then practised on such a scale, as we can have little conception of at present; for which a man like him, so long versed in clandestine negociation and enquiry and ferretting out intelligence, was well fitted to grapple, that had so long infected the midland districts and the associates of midlands that was speedily extinguished, mainly by his efforts. It was also by his intelligence and peculiar means of acquiring information, that a gang of forgers, having their head-quarters at Sydney, who were engaged in Tasmania in negociating forged bills on the British Treasury, were detected and broken up.

It was at the time of his connection with the Oatlands police, that he had the conduct of the roving party in pursuit of the blacks, spoken of before, besides some control over five others. It was the duty of these parties, to restrain the never-ceasing attacks of the natives on the settlers, and

[Page 30]

keep them in check, more by beating up their quarters, driving them from place to place, than by active hostilities. The natives were then very daring and troublesome, and in a very short space had committed, in the two districts of Bothwell and Oatlands, that were scoured by these six parties, nearly a hundred and fifty robberies and murders, more than thirty being of the latter class.

These roving parties were afterwards disbanded, that is in 1831, at the instance of Mr. G.A. Robinson, who thought they did more harm than good, by exasperating the blacks and retarding his own operations.

In Colonel Arthur's own operations of 1830, to enclose the natives within "the Line", or levy en masse of the colonists, Jorgenson took an active and rather conspicuous part, with the Oatlands volunteers.

The Line commenced its march southerly on the 7th. of October, its various parties converging on East Bay Neck, which they reached on the 26th. of the following month, when it was discovered for the first time, that the enemy was not within it. The volunteers were then dismissed to their homes.

For his various useful services to the colony, he received a small grant of land, and a Conditional pardon for past offence, such as it was.

The remainder of his life was passed chiefly in Hobart Town in partial penury and home disquietude, his wife being a woman of warm temperament and despotic

[Page 31]

habits, who maintained order within doors very magisterially, even – so the historian West reports – subjecting the ci-devant Governor himself to disciplinary processes of great potency, that never failed, when words were ineffectual.

I remain, dear Dr. Agnew,
Very faithfully yours'.
J.E. Calder.

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Copy of prefatory remarks to a small pamphlet lent me by Dr Agnew

"VI. – Some Remarks on a Short Vocabulary of the Natives of Van Diemen's Land; and also of the Menero Downs in Australia (1). By Dr John Lhotsky F.R. Bot. Soc. of Bavaria.

Although more than half a century has elapsed since colonization commenced in Australia, we are still very ignorant of the languages and dialects spoken by the natives of that extensive country. With the exception of Mr Threlkeld's Australian Grammar, compiled at Lake Macquarie; a short Vocabulary of the natives of King George's Sound, at the S.W. angle of the island, by Mr Scott Nind (2); and a few words printed in Captain Dumont D'Urville's account of the Voyage de l'Astrolabe (3), I am not aware that anything has been published on this head: yet it is a subject that cannot but be highly interesting to geographers, as probably affording a clue to the solution of that difficult geographical problem – the origin and migration of nations.

Such considerations may give value to the following short vocabularies which they otherwise might not possess. The Australian Vocabulary was compiled during a journey I made to the Menero Downs, lying about 200 miles S.S.W. of Sydney, in the year 1834. On this journey I ascended Mount Bulka (4) one of the highest points of that mountainous region, lying in the south-eastern angle of the island, marked in our maps as the Australian Alps, and which, if we may rely upon the height indicated by the temperature of boiling water, would give an elevation of upwards of 8,000 feet as water boiled at the temperature of 196° Fahr.

It was on the Downs, at the foot of these mountains, that I obtained this vocabulary from young people between the ages of thirteen and nineteen,

(4) The general name for mountains in New South Wales.
(3) Philologie, vol 11. p. 6.
(2) Geographical Journal, Vol i. p. 47.
(1) The words of the Menero Downs natives are omitted from this Manuscript JEC

[Note: footnotes in the text are marked with an asterisk. The transcription uses numbers.]

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who, as I have observed elsewhere, (1) are always the most intelligent and communicative: the words snow and ice found in the list, will show the localities to which these tribes occasionally resort; localities which, perhaps, may not exist elsewhere in Australia. In writing down the words I have, for simplicity's sake, invariably adopted the sound of the vowels as in Italian, or as in the English words father, these, fatigue, cold, rude; the consonants are to be sounded as in English, except the termination ng, which has a nasal sound resembling the ao in Portuguese; several syllables also commencing with the letter j would be far more accurately rendered by the Polish dz, which has no exact equivalent in the English tongue. In Australian words the emphasis falls usually on the penultimate syllable; the general sound has the common, rough, coarse, unorganized character of other uncultivated languages, and, especially when the natives quarrel, it sounds like a huge rattle. The people are not very loquacious, except the children; and I often observed the chief and his two spouses sit for hours without uttering a word.

The Van Diemen's Land Vocabulary was obtained by me at Hobart Town in 1836, from Mr. McGeary, who had been upwards of twenty years resident in the island, and is well acquainted with the language and manners of the people.

When we consider that notwithstanding all the kindness now shown to them these aborigines are fast perishing away, and that the whole number on Flinders' Island does not amount to one hundred persons, this short vocabulary becomes of more value, especially as we possess none but about seventy words given by Labillardiere, and 100 words procured in the Voyage de l'Astrolabe, from a Van Diemen's Land woman then living at King George's Sound.

[The Society is indebted to Mr Robert Brown, the companion of Flinders in his memorable voyage, for a list of about 200 words, obtained by him from Mrs Paterson, widow of the late Governor, when he was at Sydney in 1803; the vocabulary is drawn up in French, and bears the name of Peron, an X. Repub. compiled from the inhabitants of Van Diemen Land and the Isle Marian (2): – it is placed in the comparative list, under the date of 1803; most of the words agree with those given by Labillardiere. A few words

(1) Australian Alps, p. 41
(2) Probably Maria Island – JEC

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are added which were obtained at Adelaide in 1838 (South Australia) by Mr G. Windsor Earl; apparently they have no resemblance to the language spoken elsewhere in Australia as far as our knowledge extends.]

[Page 35]

J.E. Calder Esq

My Dear Sir,

Appended is a copy of the few aboriginal words I have been able to find among my father's papers, noted down when he was surveying at the East Coast. The names of the survey party may interest you, so I give them –

G.W. Evans - Depy Surv. Gent.
Thos. Scott - Asst Surv. Gent.
Tom - An aboriginal lad as guide to fords etc. (he soon ran away from the party)
Dennis McCabe - Cook & head man
Patrick Murphy - Chainman
Gilbert Hayes - Chainman
Thos. Kearney – in charge of horses & baggage

I remain
Yours very truly
James R Scott
Newtown 17 May 1877

[Page 36]

Words of the Oyster Bay Tribe of Tasmanian Aborigines, obtained by Thomas Scott, Assistant Surveyor General, in September 1821 when surveying the coast from Prossers River northwards.

Flint or native knife – Teroona
Flint or native knife – Trawootta
Water – Mookana
Blood – Baloogana
Marrow – Moomelena
Bread – Ta-oorela
Shell used for drinking out of – Ka-ana
Feather, a. – Kaa-u-legebra
Bird, a – Darwalla
Emu – Padanawoonta
Kangaroo, Boomer – Rena
Kangaroo, Brush – Lena
Skin of Kangaroo – Bleagana
Dog, a. – Booloobenara and
Dog, a. – Kaayetta
Stone, a – Peoora
Trees, wood – Moogootena
Deadwood, brush – Weegena
Grass – Rawinooina
Spear, a – Preeana

Hand, the – Dregena and
Hand, the – Reegebena
Thumb – Nanamera yagina
Ear – Roogara
Eyes – Nepugamena
Nose – Megrovera
Mouth – Moonapena
Chin – Coomegana
Forehead – Druanamalla
Hair – Nookakala
Neck – Loobeyera
Arm – Nanimpena
Head – Neeanapena
Scar or mark on the arm – Troobenick
White man, a. – Ragma and
White Man, a. – Ragi-Rytia
Fire – Nooena
Sun, the – Paganubrana
Moon, the – Wee-etta

Obtained from Aborigines about Ross in 821

Tooms' Lake – Moyenteleea

[Page 37]

Nic-a-mi-nic, otherwise Thursday: – This man who belonged to one of the native tribes inhabiting the north-west quarter of the island, was a very savage and cruel fellow, prone to mischief, and quite forgetful of past kindnesses, of which latter no native ever experienced more from the colonists than he. When an infant he had accidentally lost all the middle toes of one foot, which were burned off at the camp fire. Thus in tracking the north coast natives afterwards, it was always known whether he were amongst them or not from his footmarks on the ground. The blacks – whether from their fighting propensities, carelessness or what not – where not infrequently deficient of some member or organ, of which the loss of an eye, or even a hand or an arm, was not uncommon amongst them.

As this young barbarian grew beyond boyhood, it is thought that his innate disposition to evil and bad practices even amongst his own people, brought him into such disrepute, as led to his expulsion from his tribe, for until his association in after years with a ferocious horde called the Stoney Creek tribe, that at certain seasons of the year hovered about the Launceston districts, he roamed the bush with no other companion than another youth who had been similarly expelled. This last young fellows name was Pe.wa (anglice "Redbill") but known amongst the whites as Cape Grim Jack. These two solitary [indecipherable] kept together for years unnoticed by the other blacks, in those districts of the northwest that were afterwards occupied by the V.D. Land Company, with every nook of which they were quite familiar, as well as with all the stations, outstations and stock huts of the Company after they had established themselves

[Page 38]

there, which was in early 1826.

Before this time the natives of this quarter had seen very little of the whites, and the few whom they had met with were chiefly boatmen whom from stress of weather or other causes, were sometimes forced to land on their desolate coast. But as the savage of Tasmania was naturally an aggressive fellow, and as crafty as aggressive, the few who landed here seldom escaped assault, if through a moments incircumspection they gave the others a chance. Of their proneness to aggressiveness Captain Kelly who made the circuit of the island in a small whale-boat in 1815, '16 had many examples, for almost as surely as his party landed on the Northwest shores, the natives assaulted them if they were even momentarily off their guard. But as then barbarians never attacked at a disadvantage, and invariably retired directly when overmatched which was a part of their system of warfare. They were reputed to be a cowardly and even an inoffensive race, as may be still read of even in several old governmental proclamations. But this was a very false description of them for they were not deficient of pluck, and their so called harmlessness seems to have a consisted in their making at least a thousand attacks on the colonists, and fighting them as long as one of their own race was left on the mainland; and so soon as the Company established themselves at Circular Head and elsewhere, their servants were made to understand that they had got amongst very bad neighbors, and that Mr Nicaminic was one of the worst of them

When the agents of the Company made their land selections in Wellington and County Devon, (against the advice it is said of their more experienced "Agriculturalist" Mr Goldie who wanted them to settle on the beautiful unoccupied lands about Westbury)

[Page 39]

the savages were very numerous in the North West, and hardly a day passed without reports reaching the chief agent, that their tracks had been seen on the beaches or in the bush. But about Circular Head itself, none of the latter had been observed as yet excepting the small prints of two of them which were supposed to be those of women, one of which was a peculiar one from the absence of some of the toes. They were those of Pewa and Nic. who were then sojourning in the neighborhood. They were both of them good for nothing squabbling fellows, but having no one else to quarrel with except themselves they fell out of course, and were now separated, each living wretchedly enough and alone

Up to May of 1826, the natives who dwelt in those parts were the Company had pitched their tents though frequently tracked by these people had not yet been seen, but the first of them who was observed was the youngster Nic. and his discoverer was the late Mr Adey the next in rank to the Chief agent Mr Curr. Adey was a timid and rather an effeminate person, and about the last in the world to confront the wild man of the woods by himself, and we may be assured that on his part the meeting was quite an undesigned one. He had heard so much about the perfide Tasmanian black, of his craft, cruelty, villainy, sure aim, and so forth, that the image of the salvage man was almost ever before him. But having now lived here for months some without the other making his undesired appearance Adey like the rest of the Company's people grew bolder and bolder every day, till some of them began at last to venture abroad by themselves in open day, and Mr Adey in an oblivious moment did the very same thing. He was at this unlucky time in that happy contemplative frame of mind, that begets a desire for solitude, and separation from the rest of the world, and being a man of taste and an admirer of natural beauties he wandered forth alone like Dr Syntax in search of the picturesque, to explore the

[Page 40]

the charming recesses of Circular Head. It is easy to imagine the pleasing reveries of such a man, in a scene where all was so new so wonderful and beautiful to an emigrant and one regrets they should have been disturbed as they were through unthought of and unpleasant rencontre with an odious black, as naked as an unfledged nestling, grasping a ten-foot spear in the dexter and a waddie in his sinister hand, the look of the young savage being a little sinister also. Adey as said above had never seen a black before nor the black a whitefellow though he had heard a good deal about them and what terrible fellows they were, and this innocent believed that the most kind and harmless of men, Adey, was just as bad as the rest of them so he poised his spear at once for a shot at him keeping his waddie in reserve to finish him with when he fell. The whole current of Adey's thoughts changed in an instant like the ever varying scenes of a vision from pleasurable sensations to fear for his personal safety, and though he had never run a mile in his life before he turned tail and was off home with the rapidity of a thunderbolt. The unexpected and hasty flight of the terrible white-man, and his awkward agility in retreat so excited the mischievous young scamp to laughter that for once he missed his aim, the spear, which hardly flew faster than the retreating foeman, whizzing past him fully six inches wide of him. The lameness of the black preventing any pursuit Adey reached home, blowing like a coach horse at the end of a stage, but otherwise unhurt. Such was the first of the many inauspicious meetings of white and black on the Company's estates.

It was Nic's own turn to get into trouble next which took place about a year or two after that in 1827-28 not with any of the Companys emigrant servants but with one of their hired boatman, and old chum named Jack Weavers who was used to the blacks. Weavers was out duck shooting at West

[Page 41]

Bay – on the Western side of the isthmus that unites the long projection called Circular Head to the main land. He was concealed in a creek that flows into West Bay, and whilst awaiting a chance for a shot he espied a native advancing towards him across the broad sandflat left at low water by the fast receding tide. The native approached unsuspiciously close to where Weaver was hidden, and he started up and ran at him. The black being too lame to escape from him, quietly surrendered.

It was this young fellows ill fortune to be taken frequently afterwards through the accident that had befallen him in infancy; but here was no such thing as keeping hold of him long at any time for what he wanted in agility, was fully compensated him in craft, and he was as difficult to retain in the grasp as quicksilver itself.

Weaver next proceeded with his prize across the isthmus spoken of before. But Nic did not like the road he was going at all and slinking behind his captor hid himself in some high ferns. He was however discovered by their shaking a little, and was retaken almost directly.

To make matters doubly sure Weaver now squeezed him into his own long tailed coat, and as it happened luckily to fit the young savage just like a straight waiscoat all chance of a second escape was cut off, for Nic having no more notion than a child how it was put on, had just as little of getting it off again, and he was eventually handed over to Mr Curr.

This gentleman like a hundred others, had strange notions of the possibility of taming and conciliating the black man of the wilderness and raising him above the level in which had pleased the Almighty to place him, for which the constitution of his mind better fitted him than for any other condition. As a general rule, the aboriginal man had neither envy of nor desire for the civilized state. A wild bush life with its manifold dangers and discomforts had an ineffaeable charm for him which highly civilized man cannot be

[Page 42]

made to comprehend, and he was as incurably attached to liberty with all its drawbacks as AEsop's wolf, preferring it to subjection under any condition, whatever.

Not only by Mr Curr himself, but by all the employes' of the company was Nicaminic treated with the greatest favor and attention. He lived at their tables and was accommodated in their houses in a manner more befitting a relative than a stranger. Enamoured for awhile of his new life, he remained at the settlement though free to leave whenever he chose. But these kindnesses were quite thrown away on him, and the only change that was observed in him, after he began to understand in language was, that he repaid with indifference, intolerance or ingratitude all that was done for him, for unlike many of his race he was naturally disposed to evil which doubtless occasioned them even in his boyhood to cast him out from amongst them. Wearied of his malevolence the Companys people were as glad to get rid of him as his own tribe had been before them: and he was now as much neglected as he had been caressed by them at first. The Captain of a large schooner called the Friendship that arrived from London at this time with stores for the establishment was the next to receive the youthful ingrate. This gentleman has been described to me as one of the most kindhearted of men; and having heard before quitting England a few of the very questionable tales that had reached home about the ill treated and oppressed aborigines who had done nothing to merit harsh usage except to molest and murder the colonists, whenever they got a chance, was so touched with the pitiable condition of the young outcast, that he took him on board the Friendship not as a servant but a companion and friend. The schooner remained in Tasmania for a considerable time and Nic made several coasting voyages in her, as the guest and cabin passenger of the Captain, who sailor like took care that he wanted for nothing.

[Page 43]

But no kindness could subdue Nic's evil propensities, nor restrain his abusive tongue. The foremast hands, who were not so forbearing as the Captain, sickened of him first, and one or two of them who could hit pretty hard, gave him a cuff or two on the sly, when the skipper was ashore; and the talk atween decks, about "young two-toes", as they had nicknamed him was, – firstly, that he was a dirty, lousy lubber; – secondly, a lying, saucy, cross-grained, good-for-nothing, rum-swigging, grub-consuming, hard-swearing varmint and other sea-jaw breakers; – and thirdly and lastly, that they would "break the articles, sooner nor sail with him again"; and even the Captain feeling his partiality for him sensibly subsiding, unwillingly came over to their side at last, and promised (but with a groan or two) to land him at Circular Head, first chance. But Nic saved him any trouble on this account, by landing himself elsewhere; for as the Friendship was dropping down the Tamar, the tide made so strong, that they were forced to anchor her. There were smokes ashore at the moment; so as soon as they made all snug, they lowered a boat and pulled inshore to see the strangers, our too forward friend Nic jumping in, uninvited, with the rest, and "squatted hisself down, as impudent as be damned", (so the wicked sailors said) "alongside the Captain hisself, in the starn-sheets". The smokes proceeded from the camp fires of the Stoney creek tribe, (etc.)

[Page 44]

Copy.

179 Macquarie Street
21st September. 1876.

Dear Dr Agnew,

I take leave to hand you a paper that I have prepared for the use of the Royal Society, containing all that the remains of the language of the aborigines of Tasmania, of which the best informed writer Mr G.A. Robinson on these people, says there were six dialects, which though probably referable to a common origin, varied so much in some instances, that the tribes could not always converse together. It will indeed be obvious to anyone, taking even a cursory view of the Table herewith, that many of the terms used by the people of one part of the island, are quite different from those of another, though representing the same objects or ideas.

The compilation now submitted, embodies all that is preserved in the vocabularies of seven writers; to which are added the few words which occur in the massive correspondence of Mr George Augustus Robinson on the subjects of his enterprises against, and intercourse with the blacks.

These remains I have so arranged, that the expressions of the different tribes, as given by each authority for any object, may be compared; which I have done by writing them on the same line or lines of the paper, along with their English equivalents.

In the first five columns of the table, after the one used for English words, is the list compiled by the once well-known Jorgen Jogenson, taken partly from the narrative of Admiral Bruny d'Entrecasteaux – partly from a paper by the Reverend Thomas Dove, but chiefly from his own stores of

Dr Agnew
Secretary of the Royal Society

[Page 45]

information, which were pretty considerable. This portion of the table embracing all he could collect or remember of the native dialects, contains about two hundred and sixty expressions.

The next division, in three columns, includes all of Dr Joseph Milligan's vocabulary of nearly nine hundred words, being the most considerable one known to exist

Following in order, is the compartment devoted to the researches of the Reverend James Norman, which (exclusive of a multitude of proper names, that I have rejected) comprehends about two hundred and twenty-five expressions, that seem to have been obtained from several tribes; but as this is uncertain, no distinctions being made in the original, they are all ranged in one column.

Mr Robert Arthur Roberts' contribution follows after Norman's, and numbers less than one hundred words. It was published about forty-eight years ago, but as a fragment only of a larger vocabulary of the language of the Bruny Island tribe, of which the unpublished part, I believe, is lost.

In the last column are the few words that I have extracted from Robinson's letters spoken of before

The total number of words given in the vocabularies I have followed, is about fifteen hundred; but as the most familiar ones are often used by the same compiler – as in such cases as fire, water, spear, kangaroo and the like – you will not count nearly so many in the M.S. volume now presented you, which though it contains all they have transmitted to us, are reduced by the arrangement I have made to about eleven hundred and thirty.

Before saying anything of the several writers above named,

[Page 46]

Robinson never presented himself to the natives, except as an unarmed man; and he was quite defenceless at the moment of confronting this merciless band of savages

In his Reports (5th and 30th January 1832) of his meeting with, and the ultimate capture of these men, he says "In less than half an hour I heard their war-whoop, by which I knew they were advancing upon me. I also heard the rattle of their spears as they drew near." It must have been a moment of deep anxiety and fear to all; but the wonderful presence of mind of the man which never deserted him in danger, now carried him successfully through this awful interview and the extraordinary negociation which concluded it.

They were now within about 30 yards of him; and with their spears poised were just about discharging them, when they were thrown completely off their guard at hearing themselves addressed by him in their mother tongue. The effect of this on the minds of these unsophisticated people of the wilderness was magical, and they lowered their weapons and it is a singular fact that before day-close they had consented to accompany him to Hobart Town, a hundred miles off, and surrender themselves to the Government. These people had with them one hundred dogs.

In thus giving up their wild liberty, they were seduced by the fair promises made them, firstly of an interview with the Governor, and secondly of future support and Governmental protection against outrage.

It was an awful day for the native tribes when they trusted the good faith of the Government, who seized them directly. They got hold of them as prisoners and shipped them off the straits; and I have been

[Page 47]

Robinson was often heard to express regret, that the promises made them on which they surrendered their liberties, were so faithlessly kept.

(The fate of Lenereglelargener)
(Robinson at the best then. His first acquaintance with whites (from book of autographs)

Mr McKay tells me that our natives were no strangers to the natural sentiment, of the respect due to persons of position, of which he gave this example:– a number of them who had taken part in the murder of Captain Thomas, a well known military settler, (whose remains were discovered by McKay,) were afterwards placed under his charge. In one of his many conversations with his prisoners, the death of Thomas was spoken of. McKay then told them that he was a person of rank, (using the term great man as the most suitable one their language supplied to express exalted position) at hearing which they said they were very sorry they had killed him, or to use the language of my informant, they seemed horrified at what they had done – and McKay who quite understood them believed their regret to be sincere.

Wyne then as the now chief

A white man amongst the blacks.

There prevailed at one time an universal belief that a white man was living with the blacks not only on terms of amity, but as the active abettor of, and [indecipherable] in all their hostile achievements against his own race. This story it is said originated with mendacious witness who first told it to the Aboriginal Committee of whom I have spoken before. Information so startling and yet so probable when considered connectedly with the multiform & well matured [indecipherable] of the blacks surprising the settlers which mere barbarians were thought incapable of designing received for a long time a too ready credence from the public; and the intelligence was thought to be so valuable that the Committee I have been told recommended the author of it to the Govt as worthily entitled to a considerable grant of land, 500 acres

[Page 48]

it is said being proposed and perhaps given. But McKay says the natives one and all denied the truth of the report, or that there was the smallest ground for it; but it nearly cost him his life on one occasion through his being mistaken for the mythical "white man".

A military settler, but whom Mars might have disowned had just finished a residence for himself and wife, so far at least as to make it passably habitable, on his location at . . . ; and in a placid frame of mind, such as steals upon us when quite at ease with ourselves and at peace with the world, he was making an occular survey of this conception of his finances, in company with his partner of his worldly cares & hopes when a tribe of blacks who had approached it as stealthily as so many cats got possession of it by the back entry, whilst he was contemplating its front elevation with a feeling of satisfaction to be speedily replaced by a sentiment of an opposite character. The loving couple having satisfied themselves by a minute examination that every thing was quite to their mind outside retraced their steps, but only to find every room in fact occupied by a horde of perfectly naked black armed savages as wild as the winds of winter armed at all points and who looked more like demons, than beings of this world at sight of which the placidity and pluck of the soldier evaporated simultaneously. He dropped his wifes arm as if she belonged to him no longer and made for the garden fence (to which as luck would have it he had secured his house not long before) and vaulting into the saddle the fine fellow was off almost with the velocity of Camilla herself or McKay in his half poetical phraseology has it "hooked it", without giving the natives a chance of a shot at him

As he was tearing along like the spectre men & hell dogs of Bocaccio he chanced to meet my honest friend McKay who was accompanied at the time by a lot

[Page 49]

Cook.
Desk.
Hoe.
Public Works
Bran

Saturday
Apl 13th 1878

10am. called on Dr Agnew returned my letter of the 21st Sept '76, to him (about the native Vocabulary embodying the life of J. Jorgensen) told him that as I saw from the word FINIS being written in pencil in the middle of the letter I presumed the Rl Society had no intention of publishing the biographical portion of the letter, he said I was right – told him that I should use the Geographical list in any way I liked to which he agreed. I requested him to understand me rightly & to understand each other. Another afternoon saw Mr Robinson at the museum told him all that had passed just before between Agnew & myself

[Page 50]

an acknowledgement of my letter of the 15th recd 23/5/76

J.E. Calder Esquire
179 Macquarie Street

Recd. 23/5/76
Darcy St
May 23. 1876.

J.E. Calder Esquire

My dear Sir,

I have delayed answering your letter of the 13th inst with the expectation of being able to give a definite reply to the subject of our communication, but regret to say that

[Page 51]

from various causes I have not yet been able to bring the matter before the members of Government – on the return of the Colonial Secretary to town I will endeavour to do so and let you know the result.

Believe me
My dear Sir
Yours sincerely
A. Kennerley

[Page 52]

Copy of letter to the Honorable Thomas Reibey, Premier

179 Macquarie Street
6th of February, 1877.

Sir

As it is not usual for any member of the public service to address the head of the Executive on a subject unconnected with his own office, I ask pardon for now disregarding the customary practice; but which in reliance upon your forbearance, I have little doubt will be accorded me.

Without more preface therefore, I beg respectfully to urge you to complete a slight work, which you predecessor – to whom I introduced the subject – intended, I believe, to have undertaken, but which, from a pardonable oversight, was left uncommenced, through his retirement from office soon afterwards, when I presume his attention was too seriously engaged, to give anything but a minor consideration to the matter then pressed upon him.

The time when I wrote, was very shortly after the occurrence of an event, which attracted a large share of public notice, namely, the death of the last representative of the race who preceded us in the possession of this country, when I sought his influence to have placed some more durable monument than a mere mound of soil – already half obliterated – over the grave of the aboriginal woman Truganini.

My letter to your predecessor, though failing of its object, doubtlessly from the exigencies of the moment, was politely acknowledged, and a promise given that some action would be taken upon it, but which the circumstances of the time interrupted.

In a case like the one I am writing of, I apprehend no offence will be taken in soliciting you to remedy an accidental omission of the late Executive, which even the most

[Page 53]

ill-natured could view in no other light than a graceful act of your Government.

I will here claim permission to say, that something more than a slight interest will be long associated with the name and memory of this poor woman, not only as the last of her race, whom we have dispossessed and superseded, but from her personal history having been an eventful one; and her services to our own people, at the time when her own countrymen were still struggling – as they did to the last – for supremacy, having been of the highest value to the colonists.

To your predecessor I took occasion to give a faint outline of these too scantly requited services, which I will here repeat.

As the most active and fearless of the associates of the late Mr. G.A Robinson, she was largely concerned in the removal of all the aboriginal tribes from the Mainland, who, (particularly towards the close of their existence at large) were much more pugnacious and destructive than at any other period of their history, as the ample records preserved in you own office and the public journals of the time, will convince anyone who will take the trouble to study them. To Mr Robinson himself, no doubt the merit is due of great perseverance in pursuit of them and devising the plans for their capture, but to others, and prominently to Truganini, it was, that he assigned the perilous task of opening every negociation with them for their surrender; and she it was who once saved this most useful and energetic public servant from death, in a savage onslaught made upon the lives of his party, by a horde of blacks (called by him the Tackine or Sandy Cape tribe) who having separated these two from the rest, drove them into the Arthur River, then greatly swollen by recent rains, where he must have died, for he could not swim, but for her constancy and courage. In

[Page 54]

the end, she got him safely through the torrent, just in time to save him from his pursuers.

In his official accounts of this repulse, (29th of July and 14th of September, 1832) written doubtlessly in haste, and perhaps excitement, he speaks of this service as the work of "a woman," but without distinguishing her; but in his private conversations, he always named Truganini as his preserver.

To those who are unacquainted with the history of the surrender of the blacks, it may appear none too creditable in her and some others of her people, to have aided in their subjugation. But Robinson was no ordinary man, and those of them whom he had subdued to his will, held him in such reverential awe, as to induce the belief that they regarded him as something more than human. His supremacy over them was too complete for opposition, and his will too potent to be withstood. Hence, he impelled them into perils, that others would have shrunk from in pure terror. In some of his Reports, he tells us, of his engaging them in embassies to the still unsubdued tribes from which they expected nothing but death; but such was his ascendancy over them, that he gives but a solitary instance of any disobedience, which was in the case of a chief, where fears of his wild brethren, so overmastered every other faculty, that he fled from the camp rather than face them. Some of their escapes like his own, read more like romance than fact; and Truganinini had a full share in these dangers, if not in the rewards and honors that followed them.

To the late Premier I proposed, while this woman's death was a subject of frequent conversation, to give his influence to a movement for an appropriate monument by subscription; but the time for any such organization I fear has gone by; but as anything is better than the little mound, now

[Page 55]

almost level with the surface, that still indicates the grave, I would respectfully suggest that a substantial slab at least be placed over it, while any trace of it remains; the trifling cost of which, even if made a charge on public funds, would assuredly evoke no other remark but one of general approbation; though for may own part, I still think it would be more to our credit, if something better than a plain tablet were raised to her memory by public subscription

I remain, Sir,
Your very obedient Servant
JE Calder

The Honorable
Thomas Reibey
Premier

(The note, of which the above is a copy, was left by me at Mr Reiby's residence on Wednesday 7th of February, 1876)

[Page 56]

Copy

179 Macquarie Street, Hobart Town

Sir,

In returning replies, etc., which His Excellency the Governor has through you, directed me to give to the questions contained in the circulars issued by Mr. Edwd. M. Curr with the view of eliciting information about the aboriginal tribes who once inhabited Tasmania, it seems to me proper that I should explain how I, who have had but a very slight intercourse with this people, acquired the information which I think I possess, concerning their habits, their former intercourse with our own people, their wars and ultimate extermination

Some of this intelligence I beg to say, I have collected at various times in the long series of years that I have resided here, partly from persons who were of all others the most prominent in the capture and removal of our natives from the mainland, and the rest from a study of the only authentic records extant, in which the history of this people, in so far as it can ever be known to us, is contained, namely, the many volumes of M.S. reports that are preserved in the office of the Colonial Secretary, of which there are about nineteen. This great mass of evidence I think I may venture to say that no one has ever gone completely through except myself, who have toiled patiently through it all thrice to master the subject perfectly

Lieutenant Colonel H. Hill
Private Secretary

[Page 57]

This vast accumulation of official reports I then abridged and re-abridged until compressed within readable limits, when I presented it to the Australasian newspaper in which it found a place much about seven years ago.

More lately than the time spoken of just above I gathered together from authentic sources whatever anecdotes of this people still remained unforgotten, which I also published – but in local papers this time – under the heading of "Legends of our Native tribes".

These contributions to different journals were next collected and published in a small volume pamphlet of nearly one hundred and twenty pages, a copy of which accompanies the packet now transmitted and will be found to contain much information such as Mr Curr is in search of about our natives which I pledge myself has been derived from no other sources than those precedingly named

Having at all times during the past fifty years taken great interest in the race of men whom we have displaced, I have been further induced to get together into one massive vocabulary all the words I could trace out of the languages or dialects once spoken by the aboriginal tribes of this country. This vocabulary – the completion of which cost me more labor than I care to boast of – I deposited, in the museum of the Royal Society, where I suppose it still is, and will remain until either forgotten or lost.

[Page 58]

A few words, and but a few, about the two printed circulars now before me of Mr Curr's. In one of these he has given about 125 English words, desiring to be furnished with the aboriginal equivalents of the same. Of these, I have been able to supply about 83. But as the list I have taken them from, gives these equivalents with three dialects that were known to the compiler, (In Robinson's time six were spoken (this to be in the margin)) Mr Curr will see that I could not have written them on his own circular paper, which was too small. He will find them on a separate, but larger sheet, which I had furnished before it occurred to me to enclose the printed list from which I took them, which I now do in compliance with his remark, that any addition to his own vocabulary "will be welcome".

In answering as many of the 83 such as I could, that are given on the other sheet, I have so written over the paper, that it looks to me too confused to be presentable; I have therefore written this over on a larger sheet of paper.

As requested, I have also supplied a number of the names of the old race

I remain Sir your very obedient servant JE Calder

[Page 59]

Copy of letter about aboriginal matters written for Mr E M Curr Victoria sent through Lt Col H Hill private secretary

[Page 60]

[Sketch of Church layout]

Two Governments (vizt those of Mr Kennerly and Mr Reibey – his first Govt) whom I addressed on the subject of placing a memorial over the grave of Trucanini – the last of the aboriginals – who was buried in the yard of the House of Correction for females, having refused compliance, I got the measurements, within, of the site of her grave to be taken by one of the Officers of the Establishment, directly after her interment, in order that the spot may be traced at any time hereafter. These measurements are those on the rough sheet of paper within

JE Calder

[Alfred Kennerley – Premier of Tasmania before Reibey]

[Page 61]

Plan showing the exact spot where Trugnaini is buried

Truganini's Grave

[Page 62]

27th February 1877

Sir,

In reply to your letter of the 6th Instant, upon the subject of erecting some monument over the grave of the last Aboriginal, Trucanini, I have the honor to state that the Government concur in the propriety of recording her death and services in a durable manner

JE Calder Esquire,
Hobart Town

[Page 63]

manner, but they consider that the placing of a slab over the grave in the Cascades Gaol would not accomplish the end in view.

It would be better to select a public site such as the Franklin Square, or some part of the Queen's Domain, rather than the precincts of a Gaol although the body was there deposited, and it is also considered, as you yourself remark, that it would be more

[Page 64]

more appropriate if something better "than a plain tablet were raised" to her memory by public "subscription", rather than it should be the work of the General Government, for though justified in providing liberally for her support while in life, it is questionable how far they would be warranted in devoting public funds to perpetuate her memory.

I have the honor to be Sir,
Your obedient Servant
Tho. Reibey.

[Page 65]

Extracts
8th July, 1829

Wednesday, A.M. – The Aborigina Jack apparently much worse. Apprehensive that he would not survive his complaint, as it seemed to bear a similarity to that of which others had previously died; and being anxious to be confirmed in my opinion, I manned my boat and went on board the ship which was aground off the Establishment, to solicit the opinion of a Medical gentleman, named Fattorini, belonging to the vessel, who was formerly one of Buonaparte's pages. On our return ashore, this gentleman, after examining the dying man, averred that his complaint arose in an affection of the lungs, and fully concurred with me as to the improbability of his recovery. He further stated that his complaint, might have been checked in its early stage by bleeding, and that his throat was filled with purulent matter, which caused a difficulty of respiration. At 7 P.M. the aborigina Jack, breathed his last. The usual ceremony was observed and his body committed to the flames. The wife of the deceased when life was extinct, sung a song of mournful lamentation, which lasted about half an hour.

[Page 66]

11th July, 1829

Saturday, 5 A.M. Catharine breathed his last. This man during his long and lingering illness, had invariably refused to take any sustenance save a bird (of which species of food, all aborigines are excedingly fond) which he was now and then prevailed to eat. This appears to be a privation which their untutored natures have led them to adopt, from a supposition that they are propelled to their fate by a strong and irresistible power, and therefore that no human means can avert the doom to which they are consigned. No doubt some superstitions feeling is interwoven with this belief, to ascertain which, is an essential part of my study, but my observation hath not yet carried me to the truth. After interrogating the tribe as to whether they would suffer to bury underground the deceased (to which they readily agreed) the corpse was interred in due form, in an eligible spot selected for the purpose, and followed by the chief part of the aborigines, who attended it to the burial ground, and witnessed the interment. They appeared highly satisfied at the sight it presented, and I am certainly of opinion, that they could easily be brought to dispose of their dead in a similar way. As far as my observation has ever carried me, I am happy to say that I have never found any of

[Page 67]

them loth to receive a rational and civilized impression, but on the contrary have always shewn a disposition, to embrace and profit by any precept I have strove to impart, and to succumb to any habit, which I have suggested, with a view to promote their mutual comfort and happiness

11th August.

Tuesday, 4 A.M. Heard William the orphan Boy groaning in a most piteous manner. Rose up and found him in apparent great agonies. Would have resorted to bleeding, but having no light, and not being an experienced operator, I was obliged to abandon the idea; besides, the boy appeared to be in a dying state, and little hope remained of his recovery. At 6 o'clock, A.M. the Boy breathed his last. From the moment the deceased left the Colonial Hospital, up to the period of his death, he invariably evinced a constant and uniform show of sickness, which seemed to arise from an oppression of the chest; for whenever he betook himself to rest, he was invariably troubled with pain, which he manifested by his groans. Poor lad! At one time I was inclined to impute this circumstance to inertness or mental debility, but latterly his approaching dissolution was too obvious to escape my notice. I therefore procured him whatever luxuries I could obtain the chief of which consisted of bird which he enjoyed

[Page 68]

above all other diet. A coffin was made for him of the bark of trees. At 10 A.M. the men on the Establishment were summoned to attend the funeral, as also the civilized aborigina Robert, and the two orphan children. I spoke on this occasion of the frailty of human life, and endeavoured to call their attention to the importance and necessity of being prepared to die – that those awful dispensations might lead us to plead for mercy at the throne of Grace, so that we may be prepared when the dread summons shall arrive to resign our lives into the hands of him who first gave it. Adverted also to the death of the two men drowned off the entrance of the river Huon.

[Page 69]
  
Thos Savage of White Hills. Oct 20. 1830

Anstey discredits

Alex.r M Geary, applies for a free pardon – about Decr. 29. States he was tried at Derby in August 1816. Transported for Life and arrived in Tasmania in March 1817 per ship Shipley

AMK. T Leave man, applies to go in pursuit of the Natives Decr. '29 Col Arthurs directs him to join Robinsons Party. 18 Decr. 29

Extract from a letter of Mr Ed Curr to the Col Secty. 5 Feb. 30. "I learned from him" (a native boy of about 18) "some curious facts regarding his countrymen, particularly that they burn their dead, who are then supposed to go to some very distant place over the sea to the North West which they name Moo-ai"

Major E. Abbott reports to the Col Secty 19 Mar 1831, that "Mr Alexander McKay has this day brought in from the Surry Hills, four Aboriginal Black Natives whom I have lodged in Gaol"

Major Ed Abbott reports that he has acquainted "Alexr McKay that his Services are dispensed with in compliance to a communication made by Mr Robinson in his letter of the 17th Inst. (25th Feby. 1832)

Thos Harper of Bruny Is. applies for an appt over the natives then (12.3.29) says he came to the Colony Free i 1817 on the ship Charlotte

G A Robinson applies for the situation of Supt of Natives (no date) Recommended by the Revd Jas Norman 16th March 1829. Col Arthurs memo on application: "Be so good as to let me see Mr Butler's letter or certificate respecting the Penitentiary affair– G.A." (no date). Col Sec's memo on same sheet "Mr Emmett will recollect the transaction in which Mr Robinson seemed to be

[Page 70]

implicated in the abstraction of Bricks from the Penitentiary. The papers required by the Lt Governor refer to that business J B 18 March"
Written No 484
(Robinson appointed 25th March '29 so that the brick business must have been cleared up satisfactorily)

14th March 1830
C Sterling applies to attempt the conciliation of the Blacks; say he knows "a sufficiency of the Northern Tongue to enable him to fulfil the main desideratum" etc etc

Note: C Sterlings letters state that he is acting as Schoolmaster at the "Aboriginal Asylum" under Mr G A Robinson I presume he means the Asylum at Bruny

Robinson's report of Charles Sterling "7 years – Was assigned to the Establishment in July 1829, in which service he has here continued to the present period – becomes free in about 14 months i.e. on the 6th of April 1833 from his long services I beg to recommend him."

Black associates of Robinson
1 Tom & his wife Pagerly
1 Wooradedy & his wife Truganana
1 Nannalargarnah & his wife Sarah
Jimmy
James
Richard
Robert
1 Eumarah & his wife
Tib

Translation of the first chapter of Genesis into the language of the Ben Lomond tribe:- "May it please Yr Excellency"

I have translated into the language of the Ben Lomond tribe of Aborigines the principal part of the four first chapters of Genesis a specimen of which I presume to send Your Excellency. I do not know but what a more correct knowledge of the idiom of the Tongue may lead me to make a few alterations in what I now translate, but I am certain they understand what I read to them and show at times a considerable interest in what they hear

Three are able to read easy letters & nine fine youths are learning to

[Page 71]

put letters together, these only want encouragement and I am persuaded they will rapidly learn.
Your Excellencys – Humble servant – Thomas Wilkinson
Wybalenna – Flinders Island Sept 17. 1833.

To His Excellency Col. Geo Arthur
(Col Arthurs remarks:- The perusal of this leads me deeply to regret that a person who can be so useful. shd have unfortunately acted so imprudently! 27 Jany 34 G.A.)

Genesana – 1st Chaptena
1. Trota, Godna Pomale Heavena Coatana
1. In the beginning God created the Heavens & the earth

2. Lewara Crackne –
2. And darkness was upon the face of the deep,

3. Godna Carne Tretetea, Tretetea Crackne
3. God said let there be light and there was light

4. Godna Capra Tretetea narra Coopa Godna dividena Tretetea Lewara
4. And God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness

5. Godna carne Coantana, mingane Rotharia Rothana tibre
5. God said let the Earth bring forth Grass and it was so

16. Godna Pomale Cathabewa Tretetea lackrana Wakalenna Tewara, Narra pomale Purbanna
16. God made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day & the lesser light to rule the night, he made the stars also.

17. Godna propara narra weaticata Tringane tretetea
17. God set them in the firmament of Heaven to give light upon the Earth

21. Godna pomale lackeana Penungana cardea Penugana
21. God made great Whales & every living creature that moveth which the waters brought forth abundantly

25. Godna pomale Paccala, Illa, Pabela, Theepama, Godna Capra narra coopa
25. And God made the Beast of the Earth and he saw that it was good

26. Godna carne, mena pomale Wiba, lika mena
26. And God said let me make Man in our own Image, after our own likeness

27. Godna pomale Wiba lika narra
27. So God created man in his own Image

31. Godna Capra, cardea narra pomale narre carne, narra coopa! coopa!
31. And God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good.

A Natives name – a mans – furnished by Mr Loftus Dickinson 13.7.35 Motalangana

In a letter of Mr GA Robinson 13.9.36 the names of 59 males & 47 Females but very few, comparatively – of either sex are aboriginal names. The mens being such as Alexander Alphonso, Achilles Washington & the Womens Queen Adelaide Andromache & the like from the number I expect the following there were at this time 116 altogether at the Settlement of Flinders Id.

Men's – Warnee; Rowbebanna; Moultehelargene; Lenerugwin; Tonec; Nicomenic; Problattener; Penerncroic (one=eye); Peinay; Noemy; Bally-winny; Larmodrick; Tomter; Pennebucke;

[Page 72]

(Mens' names continued)

u liken
g like y
also u likea
Capital Q in middle of word

Heedewick; Mackamee (Washington)

Women's names:- Larrentong; Kittewah; Teddeburne; Narrucker; Ryenrope; Larmodrick; Wongeneep; Bangham; Mytermoon; Trugenhanna (Princess Lalla Rookh); Bung; Pyterunner; Petuch; Goneannah; Perepedar; Ponedimenneep; Pillah; Tylo; Gingenoop; Tarehemennene; Tidderop; Tinedeburnic; Wyree; Younah.

Robinsons remark "On my arrival at the settlement I found the names of most of the Aborigines both vulgar and uncouth, which will be seen by referring to the column. Consequently I altered the most offensive but was importuned by the remainder that I had no alternative but to give them all new names. There are several infants not included in the above" GA Robinson Commandant

[Page 73]

Red 23/1/75

About the beginning of Jany 1830 I left Hobart Town under Mr Robinson and arrived at Launceston in October of the same year G Arthur at this time was forming the Lines when he gave Mr Robinson orders to proceed to the East Coast and Capture what Natives he could fall in with he also sent another Whale Boat in Charge of a Mr I Parish who was one of the Pilots on the Tamar and had been a sealer for many years. We left the River Tamar I in the boat we had from Hobart Town and Parish in the other coasting to Mussel River the party with Mr Robinson meeting us there we could see nothing of the Natives they having gone in land after being some time on the Coast Mr Robinson fell in with them betwixt Cape Portland and the Bay of Fires got them down to Mussel River and landed them on Swan Island Mr Robinson sent me to Waterloo Point in the boat with letters to the Government when I came back Mr Robinson had gone to the Straits Islands in the Boat with Parish leaving a letter for me to take charge of the Island until his return during his absence I went on the main land with some of the natives which went round the Island with us and found the natives near Mussel Row River where they were encamped and got them to the Boat landing them on Swan Island they were a portion of the Cape Portland Tribe having got so many to feed we got short of Provisions when Mr Robinson came back he sent me to Launceston by land with letters for the Governor also to get provisions for the Island Mr Abbot was Commandant at this time and he sent of the Government Cutter Person at a few hours notice with plenty of Provisions and arrived at Swan Island all well. When Mr Robinson went to the Islands it was the sealing season the sealers having gone

[Page 74]

to the Islands in Bass Straits leaving the women on Gun Carraige Island where Mr Robinson found them and brought them to Swan Island

After coming back to the Island Mr Parish and him quarraled and Parish left the servise and went back to Launceston in the Cutter After this Mr. Robinson left for Hobart Town taking one Boat with him and leaving the other on the Mainland and to get Rations from me once a week but never to land on the Island without first seeing me for fear of the natives rushing the boat I was now left in charge of the natives and there I remained for thirteen weeks living in the midst of them taking part in all there games learning there Language and hearing from them of the ill usage they had received from the white people which had made them commit the murders in revenge for the murders and other cruelties commited on them I found them to be a really good hearted race of people when they had nothing to fear I never knowed them to quarrel or steal but always kind to each other and particulary so to me. they would never go from the Huts to get birds or cray fish without asking my leave although I never required them to do so I also allowed them to make spears which they used in their Games.

As soon as the Morning star appeared they would get up and commence there Toilet which would take there wifes till after sunrise to dress a naked man they had each woman 2 flat stones with plenty of mutton bird and penguin fat which the pounded with a kind of ochre and sometimes charcoal which they rubbed on the mens hair making it hang over their shoulders in ringlets then each man had his body done according to fancy varying it each day when dressed & each man would come singly with a spear in his hand and show himself when I would call him a fine fellow and he would walk of quite pleased

[Page 75]

They were also very superstitious sometimes of an evening about a dozen of them would come in to my place and tell ghost stories and about the Devil untill they would be frightened to go to there sleeping places they also believed in a future state

There was a woman that we captured with the Cape Portland Natives who was a sort of a Doctor she had a thing which they called Powwadina it was a small wallaby skin sewed up full of bones and other thing and when any one was bad it was tied on to the place sometimes a man would come to me of a morning with it tied to his Ear afterwards another with it on his stomach it was in there opinion a cure for all diseases when not in use the woman I mentioned carried it tied round her body ready for the next patient I gave her the name of the Medicine Chest which she had ever after

When the sealers came back from the seal rocks and found there women gone the manned a boat and came over to swan Island I told them the women was on the Island and if they wanted to take them I had no means of preventing them but I advised them to see G Arthur and state there case to him After consulting among themselves they agreed to take my advice but they declared if Mr. Robinson had left Mr Parish in charge they would have landed every native on the Mainland

After being thirteen weeks with them a Government vessel arrived with Mr Robinson also soldiers and a Doctor with others to form a settlement we then got all the stores on board and went to preservation Island where we landed the natives Mr Robinson then sent me to Gun Carriage Island the residence of the sealers where they had good huts and Gardens with an order from the Governor to give up Possesion as it was wanted for the Natives the sealers thought it was very hard for them to be forced at so short a notice but on my showing them their Governors order the agreed to Leave at two days notice

[Page 76]

which they did taking all their things to Flinders Island

I then went to Report to Mr Robinson when he came and took possesion of GC Island I then left the service and was landed at Mussel Row when I took my rout by the bay of Fires and Georges River and after a long travel arrived at Hobart Town having been gone nearly eighteen months

I will now send you some more next week

I remain Yours Respectfully
Alec McKay

[Alexander McKay (1802-1882) – convict, explorer, farmer]

[Page 77]

Deaths of Capt. B.B. Thomas and Mr J. Parker,
31st August, 1831.
Account of taken from "The Independent."
a Launceston newspaper.

[Page 78]

Extracts.
from "The Independent,"
(a Launceston newspaper.).
From the Supplement of Saturday 3, 1831 (September.) (No. 24).

("Monday Night.) – The Aborigines. – The town," L'ton of course, "is thrown into very great excitement in consequence of a report that Captain B. B. Thomas, and Mr Parker, his overseer, have both fallen a sacrifice to the barbarity of the aborigines. On the 31st. ult. they both went in search of a native they had seen, accompanied by two whom they had just captured. The two natives returned soon after, with five others, but without either the Captain or Mr P.; nor could they give the slightest account of them! The natives, however, were taken prisoners, and with the exception of one, still remain so. We trust no exertion will be spared by the authorities in endeavouring to find the unfortunate individuals; a hope however of their safety may be entertained, as it is by no means infrequent, we are told, for the Captain to be a week or two together travelling about the bush. The boat left Captain Thomas's on Sunday last."

From "The Independent", of Saturday, September 10th 1831.

"We have not been enabled to learn any further particulars of the melancholy occurrence briefly noticed in our supplement, respecting Captain Thomas and Mr Parker; who met an untimely end in following up the spirit of the government notice lately issued, desiring the colonists to use every means to concilliate the aborigines. Considering that it would inspire the natives with a degree of confidence not otherwise to be imparted, they took but one piece with them, and but one charge of buck shot! They gained so much of their end as to gain their confidence – but it was a confidence in their own power – the natives have long been

[Page 79]

aware that some time must elapse between the firing of a piece and its being again ready for action – they saw the weakness of the unfortunate gentlemen, and most likely drew them on to fire* when they must have been entirely at their mercy. We have been asked how it is the authorities of Launceston have not made any stir in the business, but we cannot answer, unless it be that they are destitute of instructions from head quarters as to the made "(mode)" in which government intend to act towards these miserable creatures. If this be the case, we earnestly call upon the authorities to at once come to a decision thereupon, and relieve the magistrates and settlers from the intense anxiety which prevails upon this subject. Two correspondents** this week insist upon it that nothing but a war of extermination now remains to be adopted; but this is something stronger than we are prepared to recommend. That something must be done – and that immediately is evident to every one who takes the trouble of thinking. Who can tell to what lengths they may run this season, beyond all precedence, in taking vengeance upon the settlers for the routing they experience by the "Line" business? It will not bear even anticipation – and, if to us in Launceston, who are out of danger, the subject is so painful of consideration, we entreat of the government that the feelings of the settlers may no longer be played with."
 
* No such thing; no shot was fired, JEC
** Their letters, of ever written, were not published, JEC

From "The Independent", of Saturday, September 17th, 1831.

"Captain Thomas and Mr Parker. – The bodies of these unfortunate gentlemen were brought up to Launceston from George Town on Wednesday last," (i.e. 14th) "having been found – by means of a partly civilized aboriginal woman, who persuaded a woman of the tribe, who was taken prisoner by Captain Thomas's servant, to conduct them to the spot where they had killed them – two days previously. The next morning the bodies were removed to the Commercial Tavern, and a Coroner's Inquest was instantly convened by Mr. Lyttleton, at the Police Office. The Jury (which was highly

[Page 80]

respectable, being composed – Captain Ritchie, foreman, Captain Kyle, Dr. Westbrook, Mr. Gunn, Mr Dowling, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Robson, Mr. Sherwin, Mr. Beveridge, Mr. A. Wales, Mr. Robertson, and Mr. Wilson) having been sworn, proceeded to view the bodies, and upon their return took the following evidence:–

George Warren, sworn. Started from George Town on Sunday last*, by order of Mr Clark, in search of Captain Thomas and Mr. Parker; got to Port Sorell on Monday morning, the 12th Instant, when I saw Dr. Smith and Ensign Dunbar; two women offered to take us (that is Alexander M'Kay and me) to the bodies; they took us into the bush about two miles, when they stopped and cried, and would not go any further, but pointed to the place where the bodies were to be found; we went, and found the body of Mr. Parker on his back, the head towards the root of a tree; he had on no hat, handkerchief, coat, or waistcoat; saw blood under the head; saw 10 spear wounds in his body; I found a spear at about 10 yards distant from the body; we then asked the women to shew us where the other body was; on my way, I found the tail of a coat; found Captain Thomas's body about 100 yards off, among some long grass; saw some wounds about the body, and a black stake under the head; there were 12 wounds by spears – 3 in the right thigh, 2 or three in the right side, 1 in the back etc.; the head was not bruised so much as Mr. Parker's, but a quantity of blood was under him; from the appearance of the bodies, thought they had been dead a fortnight; part of the neck of Captain Thomas was destroyed by vermin; some notes were lying about him (one produced); we left the bodies, and returned with the women to Dr. Smith, at Port Sorell; on the way the women appeared sulky; Dr. Smith then accompanied us to the bodies, together with several others; this time, the women thought the soldiers had come to kill them; one of the women said (through the other who interpreted,) that Captain Thomas and Mr. Parker came to one of their tribes – that one of

* i.e. 11th

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the black men took a gun which the stout man, meaning Mr. Parker had under his arm, and ran away with it – that one of her own tribe speared Mr. Parker in the back – that Captain Thomas then ran away, but was overtaken and knocked down; the bodies were removed to George Town; the women told us "Tum" assisted in spearing them; Tum is now in Gaol at George Town. This woman exactly described the position the bodies lay in before reaching the place (here the skirt of a coat was found, and certified as being* to part of that worn by Captain Thomas.)

Thomas Carter, sworn. Assigned servant to Captain Thomas; I was at Port Sorell on the 31st ult; I was at Port Sorell with Captain Thomas and Mr. Parker; I was in charge of the boat with three others of the crew; before Captain Thomas came down two natives came into our tent; we were eating some damper; they called out for "Breadlie"; we told them to come in; they did come in; we gave them some damper and some cheese; at this period, or within a quarter of an hour, Captain Thomas and Mr. Parker arrived on horseback, and then Captain Thomas said, have you seen the natives? I replied, I have two in the tent; he then got off his horse; he asked the blacks if there were any more; when they held up all their fingers and said "good many more;" Captain Thomas asked them to take him to them, which they readily agreed to do; Mr. Parker then advised him not to go by himself; Captain Thomas said "I will go by myself"; Mr. Parker however, fearful of trusting Captain Thomas amongst the natives by himself, walked behind at some little distance, with a double barrelled gun under his arm; this is all I saw of Captain Thomas or Mr. Parker; – about two hours after, the two native men who went with the Captain, returned with three others besides – two women and a man; M'Kay** shook hands with them; in a few minutes we saw another woman, who we enticed to us, and gave her some bread; before we left, (which was about two hours) we cooed, but were not answered; after having started, taking with us the horses belonging to Captain Thomas and Mr. Parker, about three hundred

*Correct
** This is not consistent with McKays relation who told me he was not on the ground

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yards homewards, another native came up, whom we enticed to us but he ran away before we reached Northtown" (Northdown?)". Beach, where Captain Thomas resided; we then asked, what had become of the white men? They said they had "tabbity", meaning ran away; we did not ask them before we started; the next morning Mrs Parker sent four men out in search of Captain Thomas and Mr. Parker; after being absent two days and one night, returned, but without success.

Dr. Smith, sworn. On the return to George Town of Chief Constable Freestone and Mr. Haims (who had been in search of the bodies of Captain Thomas and Mr. Parker) on Thursday last, I was requested to see Mrs. Parker, who was very ill; I left George Town on Friday last, with Ensign Dunbar, and arrived at Port Sorell about 2 o'clock, where we found Mr J. Thomas, jun., and Captain Moriarty on the beach, who had not found the bodies, but were waiting for a man (M'Kay) and a partly civilized native woman; next morning they arrived, when we proceeded to Port Sorell in search of the bodies; but did not succeed in finding them: we then returned to Northtown Beach, with the exception of M'Kay and the native woman who were sent on to George Town for one of the native women, who had been taken there. He returned with the two women, and upon his firing a gun, we sent a boat over for them. M'Kay said one of the women had told them where the bodies were to be found: and then went with Warren and the two native women by my order; they returned in about an hour, and said they had seen the bodies; I then proceeded with them and a man of the name of Jones, to look at the bodies, about a mile up from the Creek in the direction of the Northtown Beach: the women conducted me straight to a body which I recognized as that of Mr. Parker; I called one of the constables to remove the dress, so as to enable me to examine the body; I found on the breast, five or six spear wounds, on the left side, near the heart; every wound would have caused death. – I found six open wounds on the back, and an extensive contusion on the side of the head: we then proceeded with the women eastward about 50 or 60 yards, and found another body, lying dead, which I recognized to be that of Captain Thomas; upon removing his dress,

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I found one wound very near the heart, and three others on the right side, one of which had bled profusely: one wound by the clavicle: I then had the body turned and found five spear wounds on the back; the upper part of the throat was eaten by crows or native cats: on the following morning the bodies were conveyed by my orders to George Town.

The evidence of the native women was then called for, and in consequence of their not having yet arrived from George Town, the inquiry was adjourned to 11 o'clock of Saturday (this day*) when it was again adjourned to Monday**, in consequence of the meeting of the Quarter Sessions for the purpose of granting Licenses to the Publicans."

Extract from same issue of "The Independent;" vizt. 17th September, 1831.

"The murdered bodies of the much lamented Captain Thomas and Mr Parker were buried yesterday morning – followed to the grave by a numerous concourse, comprising nearly the whole of the public officers, civil and military, and a great number of the respectable inhabitants of Launceston. Such an unequivocal mark of the public sympathy on this truly melancholy occasion, cannot but be highly gratifying to the friends and relatives of the unfortunate deceased gentlemen."

From the "Supplement to The Independent" for Saturday, September 17, 1831.
Coroner's Inquest.
"The adjourned inquiry into the deaths of Captain Thomas and Mr Parker, was held this morning. The following are the particulars of evidence:–

Thomas Carter, sworn. Should know the two natives again that took Captain Thomas and Mr Parker away, two of these (pointing to two of the three in custody) are them.

Thomas M'Kay, sworn. (should be Alexander M'Kay.) I am attached to Mr Robinson's party. I left Port Sorell on Saturday week,

* 17th
** This must be a mistake, for the Report of the conclusion of the Inquest, is published in the Supplement of The Independent of Saturday, September 17th, 1831.

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by order of Captain Moriarty and Mr J. Thomas, jun.; on the following day I went to the Gaol at George Town where I saw the natives who were in custody; I was informed by the women that the white men were killed; they told me they were lying near the water; one of the bodies were lying under a tree, the other in an open place; this was told me by "Black Sal"; I left George Town on Sunday the 11th instant, accompanied by Constable Warren, Black Sal, and one of the native women from the Gaol, and got to Port Sorell the next morning; we then went into the bush and found the dead bodies about 2 miles off, when we got within about 100 yards from the bodies, the woman (whose name I do not know) stopped and pointed to where they were; I found the body of one man partly under a tree; he was lying partly on his back, with his arm stretched out; I went about 100 yards further, and saw part of a coat; a little farther, pointed out by the native woman, I found another body on its back; I did not examine it, but found a spear not far distant from it; I afterwards found another spear and a waddy near the body, which I was told was that of Captain Thomas; I then returned to Port Sorell, told Dr Smith, and returned with him and others to examine the bodies. On the road in search of the bodies, the native woman before mentioned described the situation in which the bodies lay; she told me that two of the natives came down to the boat; that the two men that were killed went into the bush with the two natives; that when they got into the bush – that one white man had a gun that would shoot twice (meaning a double barrelled gun) – that one of the native men (Wowee) seized the gun by the lock, and twisted him round at the same time, and another man hit him with a waddie on the head, and he fell down – that the other the smallest white man run away, when some of the native pursued and speared him, while others killed the one who was knocked down – that the woman attempted to stop them from killing him, but could not, and in consequence 3 women left the tribe, and went to the cart with 4 of the men, natives, who had assisted in the murder by throwing spears, etc. – and that the man who first struck the first white man had run away, making an appointment

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with the other natives where to meet, should they have the opportunity of escaping, but they were secured and sent to George Town in a boat. The names of the men who accompanied Capt. Thomas and Mr Parker from the boat were Wowee and Mackamee; he (M'Kay) had seen them this morning. The same woman also informed me that the gun had since been thrown into the water.

Thos. (properly Alexander.) M'Kay was then sworn for interpretation of the evidence of the native woman" Mongarcepitta," from whom he had obtained the information contained in his evidence, and who discovered to him the situation of the bodies; but she had passed the preceding night in company with the three men who were brought up from George Town, and it appeared evident that a plan was laid to get them off by contradicting her former evidence; upon a repetition of the questions, she either confirmed her first statement to M'Kay or gave a third, but more frequently the former. She was present (she said) when 2 white men were killed – 1 of the white men had a gun under his arm. Here she identified the two men who accompanied the white men into the bush. Her tribe consisted of 7 men and 6 women; Wowee and Mackamee were present when the first white man was killed, and the other ran away; the waddies and spears were produced, but she would not allow that any of the men present had anything to do with the murder, but that they were sitting down.

This concluded the evidence, and after a short consultation the Jury returned the following

Verdict – "We find that Bartholomew Boyle Thomas and James Parker have been treacherously murdered by the three Native men now in custody, called "Wowee", "Mackamee", and "Catamarowenye", aided and assisted by the residue of the tribe of Aborigines to which they belong, known by the name of the "Big River Tribe," during the most friendly intercourse, and whilst endeavouring to carry into effect the conciliatory measures recommended by the Government."

We recommend the Verdict to the perusal of His Excellency and the Colonists in general.

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[The following pages are a repetition of previous ones, beginning on Page 83.]

Inquest on the bodies of Capt Bartholomew Thomas & James Parker (Taken from the Independent (published in Launceston) September 17th of 1831 & a Supplement of ditto)]

[Page 87]

[See Page 82]

[Page 88]

[See Page 83]

[Page 89]

[See Pages 83-84]

[See Pages 83-84]

* The Verdict is printed in italics. The word "Verdict" that stands at the time is in small Italian Capitals.

A few extracts from the leading articles of the (Ltn) Independent Oct 1st 1831 on the subject of the above murders; after speaking of the cruelties adopted towards the Aborigines by the whites and that the former & many cases "have been infinitely more sinned against than sinning" it proceeds, "Now however there is a wide difference in the white case" (that is after these two murders) "It cannot be pretended or even surmised, that we have been the aggressors, but the foul murder that has been committed has been evidently

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under circumstances which call aloud for [indecipherable], not merely upon
the immediate perpetrators of the deeds, should they come within our power, but upon the whole race that are so disgraceful to any thing human as to have abused this generous confidence of whose bread they have been just eating. The whole colony cries out upon the oceans. It is useless, say they, and we adopt and reach the opinion, no longer attempt to hold terms with these more than untamed beasts of prey".

"He" (Capt. Thomas) came to this colony as is well known, rather more than five years ago at the head of an expensive establishment for agricultural purposes, but more especially for breeding and rearing improved stock of all description. No great length of time, however elapsed, ere he became the victim of ignorance, mismanagement, and prejudice, on the part of those with whom he was connected, and he returned from the establishment, rich & nothing but reputation, which after having been assailed in every possible way through those who, with himself, had originally formed the establishment, was declared high and honorable in the extreme by the parties to whom the whole question between himself and his late partners had him refused. These comprised gentlemen of the first rank and respectability in the colony, and [indecipherable] they rewarded him as compensation for withdrawing from the concern of itself spoke volumes in his favour. He now returned to that remote part of the colony where he has been so prematurely cut off in full and active employment of considerable means, and that more considerable energy for adapting with the purpose of the settler the fine tract of land of which he had there made choice. He has clearly fallen a sacrifice to that romantic feeling which leads some persons, who are actuated only towards others by the most benevolent principles, to suppose that all the world must of necessity entertain the same feeling towards themselves"

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Abstract of events

Wednesday 30th August 1831. Capt B.B. Thomas & James Parker murdered
Monday 1st September 1831 – News reached Launceston

Friday 9th September – McKay arrived at Port Sorrell
Saturday 10th September – McKay left Port Sorell
Sunday 11th September – McKay reached George Town
Sunday 11th September – McKay left George Town with Constable George Warren Black Sal and a woman called Nung-in-a-bit-ter to search for bodies
Monday 12th September – McKay reached Port Sorrell
Monday 12th September – McKay found the bodies
Tuesday 13th September – Bodies conveyed by order of Dr Smith to George Town
Wednesday 14th September – Bodies reached Launceston for George Town
Thursday 15th September – Bodies removed from boat to Commercial Tavern for inquest
Thursday 15th September – Coroner Mr Lyttleton begin inquest
Friday 16th September – Bodies buried
Monday 19th September – Inquest concluded

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Deaths of Captain Thomas and Parker, 31st August 1831.

(Information from Mr Alexander McKay, Friday 23rd July 1875)

At the time the above named gentlemen were murdered McKay, who was then after the natives, was at the Western Marshes near Deloraine and it was here that he first heard of their deaths. Captain Thomas was the first settler who located himself on the North Coast between the Western head of Port Dalrymple and Emu Bay. He settled at the estate he called Northdown which is at Port Sorell and Mr Parker was his overseer. North Down is between Port Sorell & the Mersey. The first person from whom I heard of the murders of these fellows was Dr. Westbrook who then resided in this district, and I believe afterwards in Hobart Town. Directly I heard of the murders, I started off to the nearest Magistrate who was Capt Moriarty R.N. who resided on his farm of Dunorlar near Whiteford Hills. The farm being about six miles N.W. of Deloraine and about a mile or mile & a half S.E. of Elizabeth Town. He had heard of the murders. Young Mr J Thomas was present. Capt Moriarty directed some soldiers to accompany me through the bush to Port Sorell while he & Johnny Thomas went by the usual track. I went by the track hoping for a chance of discovering the bodies that had not yet been found. The whole of the North districts were in a perfect foment at the deaths of Capt Thomas who was a greatly respected man and he having lately had an unfortunate disagreement with his partners at Cressy. The sympathies of the people were all with him. The then usually lifeless wilderness of Port Sorell was all astir with armed men scouring the bush for the bodies. Many soldiers acting under the orders of Ensign Dunbar and the Constable and Civilians generally, under Capt Moriarty & Dr Smith. There was a large encampt. formed here of Constable Soldier & civilian who had arrived from all parts to take part in the search & who perambulated the bush every day through nearly all the hours of daylight but with no success. When I reached Port Sorell Thomas & Parker had been missing for 10 days. At the time I arrived the search was very active, and many parties of men were hourly arriving to assist from Launceston, Westbay Deloraine etc. etc. so that the bush was all alive.
  
It is now necessary to go back to the day of the murder & to give the particulars of the same as they were related by the natives themselves several days afterward. Their deaths took place as follows:– Capt Thomas who had not long before settled at Northdown with a number of assigned servants as convict servants

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were called, and with Mr Parker as superintendent of the whole. On the day of the murders a great quantity of provision and [indecipherable] stores had arrived for the new establishment at Port Sorrell on a large boat which I suppose was Thomas's [indecipherable] the workers now I believe were his own servants. Very soon after the arrival Capt Thomas then came down on horseback to the landing place accompanied by two bullock carts with the driver, to convey them to Northdown which as much as I now remember was forty miles off. At the time of Thomas' and Parker's arrival there were many natives at the boat begging lead, tobacco, and whatever the boatmen chose to give them, [indecipherable] boatmen who had or object in doing it, hence very liberal with this object or to coax them into their boat to make prisoners of them for the Govt reward of £5 each and the chance of further indulgence but most of the men were [indecipherable] when they [indecipherable]. These natives belonged to the Big River tribe who like most of the tribes were not to be always found at the place from which they derived their names by any means. When Thomas & Parker came down to the landing place where the natives were, he found them all quiet and friendly as was most generally the case with them where their entertainers were all armed as these boatmen were. Thomas who was a guiless simple hearted fellow as ever lived, who having very little evil in his own nature, was too apt to believe that all others were like himself, was now quite confirmed in the belief that he had always entertained of our natives, that they were a poor oppressed and naturally much disposed set of men who if unmolested would molest no one and so forth, and he at once took the resolution in aiding the Govt with its so called philantrophic efforts in which some were simplistic enough to believe to try to overcome the peaceful ventures & conciliatory means – and the conduct that like so many sheep into the fold (or rather snare) that the Govt had ready for them. On coming up with [indecipherable] of the natives who like a good many of them quite understood our language.

On reaching the tent of the boatmen he enquired of one of the natives if there were many there about ? in which holding up all his fingers replied in good passable English "good many more" Thomas unhappily then asked this man if he would take him to the camping place? The savage was only too happy and Thomas dismounting from his horse rashly prepared to accompany him. But here Mr Parker who had none of the fine feelings as they are called of his employer and not one particle of that very questionable quality in his nature that is called Philanthropy strove hard to dissuade him from his rash enterprise saying "Surely Capt Thomas you are never going to trust yourself amongst these fellows who'll kill you directly you are out of our hearing" To which the unfortunate settler reflected "Oh they

[Page 95]

are quite harmless and I am not at all afraid, But you need not accompany me I'll go by myself." But the noble minded overseer however mistrustful of natives sincerity himself would not permit Thomas to go amongst them alone and offered to them his fortunes whatever that might be for which however he is not to be quite commended as he had others depending on him for support being a married man, but this it may be supposed was forgotten with the excitement of the man Parker therefore dismounted and followed but unlike Thomas took his double barrelled gun with him in case of need Parker is described as a very robust person and in a high degree resolute and however little he entered into the feelings of Thomas or relished the quixotic errand on which they had now fairly set out he was not so appealed on to believe that with a good double and a strong will he would be easily overcome by naked savages and after telling the carters to remain with their bullocks till they returned – which he hoped would be shortly – off he set to overtake Thomas who seeing him following called out encouragingly "Come on" The carters waited and waited for their return until it was fairly late and they reluctantly faced homewards, but the bloody murders were accomplished long ere this (of which I shall give the particulars directly) by the men of the tribe only for as it was afterwards proved the women loudly protested against it and entreated the others to let them go but they would not on which several of the women ran away

When the carters had got about half way to Northdown the women of the tribe who disapproved of killing Thomas & Parker came out of the bush to join the carters but were speedily [indecipherable] by three of the Black men who by their gestures seemed to insist on their returning to the camp. But they were too excited & sorrowful to obey and continued to follow the bullock carts the men keeping by the same time entreating but generally threatening them with the waddies if they did not, but they were as obstinate as mules and kept on the road to Northdown.

When they reached the homestead – Thomas men began making enquires of where they had left the master & overseer but thought it was evident there was some misunderstanding between the men & women not a word could be got out of either that they knew anything of it But this was not believed by some of Thomas men who as day after day passed away and the missing men did not return began to suspect foul play, and they made the whole six prisoners, locked them up until the boat returned to George Town when they packed them off to gaol on suspicion of some foul play having happened to the two missing men whilst it was believed they were implicated, and as at this time it did not take much to make any one believe that the blacks would be guilty of anything, they were admitted into Gaol at once, and as there happened to be no other inmates they had the building all to themselves

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The search in which scores of people were engaged, had to be going on for many days but no Thomas or Parker turned up. Then it was that McKay arrived at Pt Sorrel (9th Sept) with his soldiers & one native woman who belonged to his party. This woman whose proper name Smith forgets was known as Black Sal and [indecipherable] enough like all the women who were engaged by Robinson to assist with the subjugation of their own people [indecipherable] the business he had at hand. Directly McKay arrived he said that the ill managed search conducted as it was by unpractised bushmen generally who instead of finding anything were perpetually getting lost themselves would end in failure unless some of them were adequate – suggested a plan to Moriarty to whom he was known which was that he should proceed directly to George Town with his black companion Sal to confer with the six natives in Gaol. Luckily for Capt that she spoke the language and quite understood their habits & style of thought so different from that he felt quite use to could do what Thomas men had failed & namely to extract a confession from them if murder had been done. This was immediately agreed to and McKay started for George Town next day armed with a letter for Moriarty with authority of George Town, urging them to do all they could assist McKay & thus forward the business which attracted so much interest. On Monday the 11th he reached George Town and having presented his credentials was furnished with an order to visit the Gaol as often as he thought fit and directing the Gaoler to send him any assistance he required, and to facilitate his mission.

McKay entered the abode of misery & he describes the condition of the prisoners as most wretched. They were huddled together in cold comfortless [indecipherable] and though the weather was bitter cold. The apathetic or unfeeling officials had forwarded the no fire or element which no one disposed with so reluctantly as a black. He found the poor naked shudding creatures in such a state of sulleness & misery as made him quite angry with the gaoler and being now himself as Shakespear has it dressed in authority, his first impulse was to order them a fire, hot tea, bread tobacco without restriction and everything that he felt sure would be most acceptable to them. The poor wretches were all so hungry nearly famished that to use McKays expression they all ate & drank like mad" but of course gave over at last but such is the effect of good cheer in hungry men & women, that after their repletion

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they seemed much changed. Their feelings toward the Whites – and above all to the benefactor McKay – greatly assuaged & mollified and the sullen frame of mind which he found upon them was exchanged for a more contended mood.

The good offices of McKay were volunteered from natural kind feeling which few possess in a higher degree than he. But old Sal who had her own ends to serve and who had been most assiduous in her attentions though she cared not one straw about them or what became of them now took place close beside one of her sex (or to follow the classical language of McKay "nudged up to her") an extremely handsome young woman – as here and there one of them was – named Nung-in-a-bit-ter and after a good deal of pleasant chit-chat about matters quite foreign to the real business that was upon the cunning old faggot by sensible degrees brought on the subject of the two missing men and by dint of coaxing and cajoling – (after the ways of woman) – wormed the whole truth out of the poor simpleton which was they called Captain Thomas, Kan-dow-ney, meaning says McKay a superior person. such as the chief of an establishment as they at once divined him to be, in contradistinction to Ra-ge-o being part of the term by which they designated the devil (Ra-ge-o-rop-per). "When we had got to be good friends "says McKay "she confessed that they died by the spears of her tribe and that two of the three blacks in gaol were the most active in the murders. These two men were named Wow-ee and Mae-a-mea and she then volunteered to show where the bodies of the murdered men were." An offer which McKay accepted at once and started next morning for Port Sorrell accompanied by the two women and a constable of the police force of George Town named George Warren.

A boat being provided they were all ferried over Port Dalrymple & landed somewhere near what is called Kells Bay and all being excellent walkers they were not many hours in reaching the Port but on the side opposite to Northdown where the encampment of the searchers was. It was now the 12th of Sept. or 13 days after the deaths of the missing men but no discovery had yet been made. Directly McKay

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reached the shore of Port Sorell he announced his arrival by discharging the piece he carried at which a Dr Smith, a magistrate, not a doctor – sent over a boat and crossed the party. McKay then told the strongest Black woman knew where the bodies were & would take him to them but that both women refused to go if any of the search party followed but consented to McKay & Constable Warren accompanying them. They then started off Nung-in-a bit-ter leading and says McKay "she went straight to where the two bodies lay" But when she reached the neighbourhood of the spot to about two miles she would go no further but pointing with her hand to the fatal spot she sat down and cried most McKay describes the scene to me as a truly horrible one, the spot where the tragedy was enacted a barren one & nearly open, a few trees only here and there and as they approached a number of crows flew up from the bodies on which they had been feasting themselves into the trees.

The corpse of Parker which was first discovered presented such a ghastly sight as McKay – (who is not one of your over refined fellows – not a bit of it) never speaks of even now without horror. I shall not perpetuate the description he gave of it, & proceeding to where Thomas lay almost 60 yards off as indicated by the women the tail of his frock coat by which the natives had caught him as he ran away, was found, it had given way as the struggle for escape they came on the body which was not nearly so disfigured as that of the other nor the head so bruised with the waddies (or cudgels) carried by the blacks. Thomas was speared in 12 places five or six of them Dr Smith in his evidence at the inquest so near the heart that "every wound would have caused death." Parker had 10 spears through him beside the dreadful beating they gave him about the head. Seeing as they had the dead, decomposition had not yet commenced owing to the cold weather and Thomas as he lay on the long grass looked more one asleep than dead. McKay then returned to the beach and conducted Dr Smith and such of the people present as chose to follow to the "field of death". To prevent further destruction of the bodies a stoop was erected and they were placed on it for the night. The natives had removed some papers from one of Thomas pockets & scattered them about he ground one of which was picked up by Warren & produced at the inquest. The corpses were

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removed to George Town on the 13th and reached here next day and were taken to an Inn called the Commercial Tavern where a Inquest was held directly but which after several witnesses was exd. adjourned until Monday 19th through the absence of McKay. It ended in a verdict of wilful murder against three individuals of the Big River tribe named Wowee, Mac-a-me and Colamarowen-ne. See (Launceston) Independent Sept 17th 1831.

The bodies were buried in presence of a very large attendance of people such individuals as might be expected to collect on an occasion of high excitement caused by the death of a man so estimable and well known in the Colony as Capt Thomas was and through the natural feelings of pity & sorrow that were strongly evoked by the fate of his faithful and too-attached companion Mr Parker.

The natives gave McKay the following particulars. They killed Parker first who was following close after Thomas with two natives beside being Macamee on his right hand & Wowee on his left. The assault commenced by Macamee seizing on his right arm with such force as turned the stout limbed Parker half round and snatching the gun from his hand made off with it at the same time Wowee struck him such a fearful blow on the temple with his waddy as sent him to the ground. The other men rushing up speared and otherwise beat him to death.

Capt Thomas seeing the fate of his humble friend to whom in his wounded state he could give no assistance ran off, screaming "murder" as loudly as he could, which word was afterwards repeated by the natives, who were generally great mimics though they did not know what it meant. Thomas was an uncommonly active man and I have been assured by a lady who had often seen him perform the feat that he could leap his own height. But swift footed as he was he was no match for the unclothed savage of the bush several of whom now started after him and catching him by the coat tail as seen before so checked his flight that he had advanced only a few yards further when the excited blacks brought him to a stand and put him to death.

AB
How it was that the jurors [indecipherable] the man Calamarowenne with [indecipherable] I cannot say, as his name [indecipherable] in the proceedings except in the verdict itself

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The three men thus found guilty were committed for trial & McKay was bound over to prosecute them but the attorney Montagu though eccentric enough was a highly gifted man and who eventually sacrificed his office of Prime Judge. When independence and not caring one rap for public opinion refused to find a bit against them & they were eventually discharged that is they were not tried but I suppose just to the Straits.

Macamee was one of the 46 who survived to reach [indecipherable] cove which was within a very few miles of Peppermint Bay where Mr McKay has resided for over 20 years and he frequently walked over to see his old friend. This man unlike many of his race had a great dislike of being called by anything but his proper name and would never answer to the pseudonym "Washington" by which he was known amongst the whites. McKay, who all his life was as fond of jokes as the traditional Joe Miller himself, feigned to forget the dislikings of the black and was want at every turn of meeting him to accost "Washington how are you" which never failed to kindle the blacks indignation into a blaze, and throwing himself into a theatrical posture which Kemble herself might have studied with advantage shouted rather than said "Not Washington – I, Mac.a.mee –" nor would he hold any conversation ever with his old acquaintance until properly spoken to.

* he was put out of office ostensibly for not paying a debt but really for opposing a government measure

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Information for McKay Friday 23rd July 1875

Augt 31 1831

[Indecipherable]

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[Indecipherable]

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[Indecipherable]

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Natives respect for Rank
Mac.a.mer's english name Washington

This man to the end of his life greatly disliked being called by anything but his native name he was one of the 46 who survived when removed from Flinders Island to Oyster Cove and often walked over to Peppermint bay to see McKay – The latter who was fond of a joke always feigned that he had forgotten Mac.a.mees dislike of being called Washington used on these occasions to accost him with "Well Washington how are you" at which the blacks indignation never failed blazing up and throwing himself in to a theatrical posture that Kemble might have studied with advantage he shouted rather than said "No Washington – I Mac.a.mee" nor would he enter into conversation with his old bush friend until called by his proper name

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my husband, his name was Paraweena. Well, two of the sawyers said they would take us in a boat to Brune Island which we agreed to. When we got about half way across the Channel they murdered the two natives and threw them overboard. I tried to jump overboard but one of them held me. Their names was Watkin Lowe and Paddy Newel. This was the account she gave me many times. Her sister was in the straits living with a man called Abyssinia Jack. She was accidentally shot by a sealer named Robert Gamble."

McKay, who does not write very often, is (like most persons to whom writing is a trouble and labor), less communicative with his pen than tongue, and has omitted some of the particulars of the horrible deaths of these youths from the letter I have copied, and that I now supply from his conversations with me; – when these butchers had conveyed the two youths and the girl Trucannini about half way across the channel, which may be a mile and a half wide hereabouts, the horrible tragedy commenced, by the two boatmen throwing both striplings into the water. Directly they were overboard, the others took to their oars, and used all their strength to pull away from them, leaving them to drown, or regain the land if they could. But the young blacks were both fast swimmers, and overhauled the boat before she had much way on her, and getting hold of the gunwales, were about jumping in, which one of the others effectually prevented by seizing a hatchet and chopping of both of their hands near the wrists, in which disabled state they soon sunk, and the brutal boatmen got off with their prize the poor girl.

But as legal punishment never yet overtook a white man for the murder of an aborigine so these two homicides escaped. Neglect or a combination of lucky circumstances, always interposed to prevent it; thus as Trucannini could not then speak a word of English, and as the murderers kept silence, nothing was ever known of these dark transactions, until she revealed them to McKay, when it was too late (both having escaped) to bring them to trial, if that would have availed anything in a land, where the law never overtook the murderer of a native.

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determined to get hold of him if possible, and bring him to justice that the punishment of so arch an offender, may act as a warning to the rest.

There was at this time (July 1824) living in Hobart Town and in the service of Mr Andrew Bent a young man of the aboriginal race, whose European name, if I may so express myself, was Tegg. He is described as a sharp & very intelligent fellow, but who despite his connexion with the whites still retained all the artifices of the people he belonged to but what it is more to the purpose of the moment, he was a most adroit tracker [indecipherable]

The principal witness, Mr John Radford, who gave evidence at the trial of the savages Musquito and Black Jack is still living at Little Swanport not very far from the scene of the murders described above; and I think I am not much mistaken in saying that he has resided there ever since – a period of fifty two years

Of the death of McCarthy for which the companion of Musquito suffered, no particulars are preserved in the old Gazettes; nor of the murder of the stock keeper Thomas Colley at Oyster Bay for which the two aboriginals Jack and Dick were executed. The Colonial Times of the 15th of September 1826, publishes a detailed account of their executions, but which as it contains little that is interesting, and a good deal that is rather disgusting I shall not repeat it. The elder one, Dick, resisted the Sheriffs officers most pluckily refusing to mount the scaffold for any of them and when forced up at last, he gave them such a specimen of his vocal endowments, as might have been heard half way to Kangaroo Point.

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with the other six culprits (five of them whites) who were ranked up to die along with him* but insisted on having a seat and he was accommodated with a stool, on which he sate to receive the final attentions of the Sheriffs assistant Mr D which says the Colonial Times quite gravely, dropped with him when the awful moment arrived which plunged him into" Etc, Etc,. The other black, a mere youth, treated the whole legal ceremonies that intervened between his capture and execution with great unconcern.

Mr Andrew Bent – one of the fathers of the Australian Gen was at this time the proprietor & conductor of the "Hobart Town Gazette & General Advertiser" combining in his one person the whole newspaper staff of the Gazette office. He was Editor. He was reader he was compositor, and deuce knows what as [indecipherable] he was a little lame ugly fellow, but a man of brain & industry [indecipherable] pressman. He was lame little, and ugly.

*At this horrible gaol delivery, no less than twenty-eight men died in four instalments of seven, eight, nine and four persons.

was at this time proprietor of the Australian G and whilst they were proposing all sorts of impracticable schemes for the object above stated, it occurred to offer to the Govt the services of a domesticated aborigine – a boy – who was in the service of his family as a general servant in its widest sense his duties being about as multiform as his masters were [indecipherable]. He is reported to have been a very shrewd lad and possessed of all the artifices common to his race and above all the acuteness of vision which united to practice made a perfect hunting dog of him able to follow even very small game by its tracks. This boy had been employed a little before in pursuit of bushrangers and at one assisted greatly with dispersion of the gang led by M Brady.

Colonel Arthur accepted Bents offer and later [indecipherable]. That the Colonel promised the boy a boat in case of success which he had always greatly coveted. A true [indecipherable] of savage & colonist which [indecipherable] & general resentment for a savage wrong.

In the reports, such as they are, that is given in the official Gazette of the truth of this man be correct it is not easy to understand of what it was he was convicted for when he was may have been the guilt there was no legal proof of any beyond presence in the hut with 60 or 70 more and other slightly suspicious circumstance but which it does not seem to me were sufficient to incriminate them. But as it may have been thought necessary to make a few examples to intimidate the surviving brethren into submission to the superior race they may have been sacrificed to expediency [indecipherable] of both the Govt of the time the judge who tried them and military juries in general. I dont believe justice or anything like justice was always done here half a century ago.

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vision, which united to practice, made a perfect hunting-dog of him able to follow even the smallest game by its tracks. This boy had been employed to follow bushrangers, and on one occasion assisted greatly in dispersing the gang led by Matthew Brady.

Colonel Arthur accepted Bent's offer and according to a pretty broad statement in the Gazette of the 8th of April 1825, promised the boy a present of a boat, which it seems he greatly coveted, in case of success. The lad had acquired a notion of trade, whilst being amongst the whites and Bent says he designed running her between Hobart Town and Bruny island, to traffic in kangaroo skins with his countrymen who dwelt there, Musquito being taken. But the promise was not kept and the keen feelings of the boy were wounded at this cruel breach of faith, that in sheer resentment of it he quitted Bent's employ, and says the Gazette quoted from just above, he was heard to say as he left the house "they promised me a boat, but they no give it, me therefore go with wild mob, and kill all white men come near me"

is very close to one of the points of South Bruny*, "when I was a little girl, when a Vessel came to anchor without our knowing of it, a boat came on shore, and some of the men attacked our Camp, we all ran away, but of them caught my mother and stabbed her with knife and killed her, My Father grieved much about her death, and used to make a fire at night by himself, when my mother would come to him. I had a sister named Moorina, she was taken away by a sealing boat. I used to go to Birch's Bay. There was a party of men cutting timber for the Government there, the overseer was Mr Munro**. While I was there, two young men of my tribe came for me, one of them was to have been

** There was formerly a large Government establishment here, consisting of a number of sawyers and splitters. The overseer, as Trucannini calls Mr Peter Munro, was officially the superintendent of the same. I knew him well, and a most excellent and gentlemanly man he was; and very unlike the majority of his class he avoided as much as he could, having his men punished, that is brutally flogged, after the fashion of the times.

* Private note – please retain my spelling of the island, it is the correct manner of writing it.

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for indeed it was not likely to be known except to one who like him dwelt so much amongst them I suppose by reason of its But it is so creditable to the great mass of them that justice would not be done that if it were to go unrecorded McKay describes the former as being a miserable little brute and he believes his sway over them was acquired by his impudence & persistent bullying of the rest qualities which we see even in civilized life carry a man too often to the front of his betters.

Fate of Monlepelita & his tribe – Soon after the murder of some of the white men by Monlepelita he very nearly fell by the hands of whites who was [indecipherable] practice of artifice & treachery. His name was Thompson who I believe afterwards kept a [indecipherable].

By some means or other which I cannot explain Monlepelita was now temporarily separated from his tribe and alone and some one of the Govt "roving" parties "as authorized persons of the black race called got on his tracks, and having black experts with them followed this [indecipherable] chief. The constitution of the black man must differ greatly from ours in resisting the approaches of death. The ease with which he recovers from injuries that would rapidly destroy a European [indecipherable]

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[indecipherable] at the hut of this same man Thompson. Seeing a body of natives approaching and suspecting an attack he fled for it but wishing to inflict an [indecipherable] on them he created what has been described to me as a man trap (such a one I presume as is used for the larger kinds of vermin) in an open barrel of flour which he knew would be the find they would make prize of and one of them was caught by the arm the limb being so nearly cut off by it that the other natives removed the limb entirely with the flint hatchets as for tying up the arteries without which a European would have bled to death in five minutes, they had no idea of it and yet this man kept up with his tribe & soon recovered. He eventually fell into the grasp of McKay. As the latter was curious to know how he lost his arm the other tried to explain it but failed and all he could know was the place of where it happened and "that it was bitten off by something they had never seen before" McKay afterward learned the particulars from Thompson.

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The person within opening it, and perceiving the natives, he was in great terror, and after shutting the door endeavoured to escape by a back window, but seeing it in vain, he again opened the door, when several natives came in, to whom he offered victuals, but they refused to eat.

After they had surveyed the premises, an elderly man led the person by the arm, who lived in the house, nearly half a mile into the woods and placed him in the middle of them, and at the moment the natives were about to throw their spears at the unfortunate victim, a native man whom A Campbell had brought to Hobart Town some time ago, addressed them, when they all walked away, leaving the person to return to his own residence.

Thus by the humanity shewn to these natives the life of a fellow creature has been preserved.

in fruitless search after them, when they discovered two natives who informed them that the rest were on Betsey's Island

Next morning Campbell and party went in a Boat to that Island, accompanied by a native woman of one of the neighbouring Islands, and who had lived with Campbell for some years; this woman has been of considerable service to the party, by representing the humane treatment she received from the white People. On landing they saw a number of natives sitting round a fire, and on their perceiving the children cloathed, they were greatly astonished, and felt their dresses; when the natives informed them of their reception in town, they all expressed a wish by Campbell's woman to see Hobart Town, and it was with difficulty the party

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at once; whereon the troops shouldering arms, conducted him to the humble barrack of their commanding officer, to whom McHugo with a dignified air not unmixed with military stiffness of deportment, introduced himself and announced to his brother madman the nature of this business in Launceston. After seating himself, his investigations commenced forthwith by his making a multitude of enquiries of the unfortunate Major about the deplorable state of the detachment and the causes that led to it, the replies to which were taken down by one of ship's officers who acted as the General's clerk. But as neither reply nor explanation satisfied McHugo that Gordon was inculpable, the latter was eventually ordered into close arrest, until the close of this enquiry.

He was occupied for several days, and quite as seriously as if he were in his right senses in taking the depositions, of such of the soldiers or civilians who had anything to urge against the Commandant, which was of course nearly everybody; for as usual with such persons as then constituted not at all a small minority of the free inhabitants of the country – many of whom were discharged soldiers, expiree convicts and Norfolk Island settlers (the latter according to some well informed writers being for a long time after their forced removal to Tasmania most dissatisfied with the change) scores were doubtlessly ready to impeach anyone in power and to attribute culpability to them for which the peculiar circumstances of the colony more than themselves were to blame and enough evidence, but such only as would have been immediately rejected by any properly constituted tribunal, as quite satisfied

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He stuck at nothing and difficulties that would have daunted any ordinary mortal appalled him not in the least, but were surmounted with a faculty much more pleasing to read of than to endure with.

Keep this

My dear Sir, As you always thus address me, so I shall always serve you the same. But to the business of my note. You told me this morning a curious incident that took place in the dark age of Tasmania, connected with the Bridge over the Coal River at Richmond; and as I suppose that when you get details of the tragedy it will find its way to the Printers hands, dont let us forget that the original and therefore proper name of this old Structure was "Bigges Bridge" the erection of which was begun on the 11th December 1823. As you may discover for yourself if you happen to possess the Hobt Town Gazette for that time now fifty one years ago, but as you may not possess the same I expect the following for the issues of the 13th Decb. 1823 or two days after the foundation stone was laid it is this:

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[Inside back cover]

[Transcribed by Alison O'Sullivan for the State Library of New South Wales]