Robert Menli Lyon

“ When dragged before the tribunal of Heaven, unable to lift your guilty eyes to behold the great original parents of your race, abhorred too by every tribe and every nation of the human family, the just decision of Him who will render to every man according to his works, will not allow you to mingle with the common damned, but will assign to the murderers of their species a place of torment far apart by itself in the shades of darkness. ”

“ Greece, in her infancy, before the arrival of Cecrops and Cadmus, had neither literature, commerce, nor politics. Greece—a country that, on receiving letters from a foreign nation, burst the chain of ignorance, soared to a height of perfection in the sciences that excited the admiration of the world, and left a name, the glory of which became the envy of almost all nations—was once as rude, wild, and savage as the sable, wandering children of the forests around us. Let the dormant intellect of Australia be only awakened—let her energies be combined in the prosecution of industrious pursuits ”

“ So terrific to the Derbalese was the appearance of the whites, when, with arms such as they had never seen, and apparently descending from the clouds, they came flying over the ocean, and, in forests which had never echoed to the sound of a gun, poured among them, pregnant with havoc and death, bullets enveloped in smoke and winged with fire. None but spirits the most daring and heroic would stand their ground and heave the spear amidst scene so unearthly and appaling. ”

“ Shall the defenceless Australians, who never wronged either you or yours, find in you no compassion, no trait of a kindred humanity, nothing but tigers, bears, wolves, and beasts of prey? By laying the foundation of the colony in blood, ye will not only treasure up wrath to yourselves against the day of wrath, but invoke a storm of vengeance on the heads of your children, which a just and retributive Providence may one day cause to burst in full measure for the iniquity of their fathers in rendering Australia childless. ”

“ If ye determine upon a war of extermination, civilized nations will be mute with astonishment at the madness of a policy so uncalled for, so demoniacal. Spain, throughout the wide desolations of her American empire, will groan forth a warning note; even the merciless Turk will point the finger of scorn at you; and Greece and Rome will rise from the tomb to sit in judgment upon you. When your doom is passed, your own children, for whose sakes ye have invaded the country, will join with the disinherited offspring of those ye have slain to pour a flood of curses on your memory. ”

“ Tell me not of the absence of local attachment in the hearts of roving savages. Where is the record from which ye learn that nature was ever unfaithful to the law of her creation, and forgot to impress her offspring with regard for the spot where they first inhaled the breath of life? The monster that disregarded the land of his nativity never yet beheld the light. The very bird loves the nest in which it was hatched. In man, whether civilized or savage, the inborn passion is still stronger. ”

“ But if ye have steeled your hearts against remonstrance—if, in contempt of the most touching reflections and reckless of consequences, ye have determined to put on the savage, and to act the part of barbarians, by imbruing your hands in the blood of a people whom ye have spoiled of their country—the patrimonial inheritance of their fathers—repudiate the faith into which ye were baptized, and renounce the Christian name—the name from which your native land borrows all her glory—that Christianity may not blush at your deeds, while she weeps over the miseries ye inflict upon a hapless race. ”

“ Shall the avenger of his country's wrongs, the high minded patriot, whose character forms a theme of admiration among all nations whether friends or foes, in every age and in every country, find none at your hands? Ye sustain in society the various connexions of sons, brothers, husbands, or fathers—a name to which ye are indebted for the privilege of beholding the light, and all the sweet enjoyments of domestic and social intercourse. Ye have sisters, daughters, wives, or mothers who watched over you during the years of helpless infancy and wept over your departure to a foreign land. ”

“ It would therefore be interesting to know whether the Muse found in Australia, among a people so primitive in their manners and so entirely unconnected with the rest of mankind from the earliest ages, be free from the puerilities, falsehoods, and obscenities with which, both in their lyric and epic effusions, her prostituted sisters of Greece and Rome abound—the pride of our universities and the models of taste, even in a refined and an enlightened age! ”

“ The fact is, that the barbarizing influence of the desert is not so injurious to moral character as the demonizing influence of large towns, which, in spite of, art, science and social organization, converts men into fiends and emboldens them to trample on Revelation itself. Civilization changes the manners and provides for bodily comfort, but leaves the depravity of the heart untouched. Nothing can cleanse the soul from inbred pollution and transform the moral character but the atonement of the cross, embraced by a living faith as described and enjoined in the divine oracles. ”

“ Yet we expect to find in the inhabitants of the desert, without social intercourse, letters, or Revelation, all the intelligence of minds possessed of these advantages, and, if we do not, immediately pronounce them an inferior race of beings. Let the most enlightened people be scattered like the wanderers of Australia, over a wide continent, and the barbarizing influence of dispersion will soon be apparent. The expiration of a single generation will unhinge the intellectual powers and bury the arts and the sciences in oblivion. ”

“ Man, in a state of nature, may be ignorant of the manners of civil life, but he has as keen a sense of right and wrong as the most polished of his kind. Talk to the savages of Australia about the jurisprudence of civilized nations, and legal means for the redress of wrongs and injuries!—about laying their complaints before a magistrate of whose language they are ignorant, whose authority they do not acknowledge, and whose residence they dare not approach! ”

“ What, though the grass be their couch and the tree of the forest their only shelter, their blue mountains, and the country where they first beheld the sun, the moon, and the starry heavens, are as dear to them as your native land with all its natural and artificial beauties, its gilded spires and magnificent palaces, is to you. ”

“ Are ye aware that the whole country is divided into districts; and that no tribe can occupy that of another? Consider for a moment, the sad condition in which, your invasion has placed the tribes of Derbal. Before them is the British banner, frowning destruction, and behind them the spear of the neighboring tribes, threatening them with a contest the most sanguinary. Which are they to choose? A glorious death by rushing on the sword of the invading foe? or a cruel and unnatural war with their own countrymen? ”

“ All white men are brethren: they are all one people. If black men spear one white man, all white men will be angry—all white men will make war and shoot.' 'If white men shoot,' said he, in a friendly tone' black men will spear.' Appealing to them all, I said, 'If black men will neither spear white men, nor their cattle, nor steal, white men will regard them as brethren. Black men, then, may often hold corroberies, and many white men will shake hands with them in token of friendship.' All immediately ran to seize my hands, save the moody chief himself. ”

“ Their love of the desert and their unwillingness to adopt the habits of civil society, surprise many, and are sometimes urged as proofs of inferiority of species. Those who thus reason forget that the upper classes in civilized life are involved in the stigma. Whence that universal and ardent pursuit after riches which characterizes all nations? Does it not originate in a desire of freedom, independence, and idleness? The charms of travelling, sporting, fox hunting, and gambling, are so irresistible as to become objects of the highest ambition to men, even under the blaze of Revelation ”

“ Having neither barn house nor store, and living as the fowls of heaven do, to help themselves to food, wherever they find it, is to them as natural as to drink at the brook and to breathe the air; and to take their lives for so doing, without any attempt to instruct them in the moral impropriety of the act, is just about as rational as it would be to put children to death for fancying any thing they may chance to see in the house of a friend. ”

“ If they cannot avail themselves of the privileges thus conferred on them, because they know not the language of their dictators, the fault is yours. Can they acquire the language of a strange people intuitively? And if they cannot, are they to be shot, merely because they cannot speak English? If ye usurp the dominion over them and deprive them of their independence, it is but a small part of your duty to inform them of the reverse of fortune which has befallen them, and the laws by which they are henceforth to be governed. ”

“ No nation can boast the creation of its own intelligence, which in every instance springs from circumstances and discoveries beyond the reach of human control. This gift of Heaven is he communication of Him whose ways are past finding out, by whom it is issued without measure to one generation after another, according to the dictates of that unerring wisdom by which he governs the world. ”

“ But Christianity triumphs over the system of the sceptic, not only in the heavenly influence which renders that which she finds good, better, but in the omnipotent power which, melting the heart of stone into tenderness, transforms a character the most depraved into one of angelic purity and loveliness. This—far beyond the limits of her art—the goddess of reason cannot accomplish. She may conceal the deformity of vice, but she can neither elevate the soul nor change the heart. ”

“ Among them, as in the patriarchal state, every man is the judge and the avenger of his own wrongs. Nor do they deem it presumptuous to carry the principle still higher, and consider themselves in their collective capacity, as competent as you to judge and avenge their national wrongs.
How hard is the fate of this people! They may stand to be slaughtered; but they must not throw a spear in their own defence, or attempt to bring their enemies to a sense of justice by the only means in their power,—that of returning like for like. ”

“ Theft can be practised only among a people who are possessed of private property. The commission of it in a country where every thing is held in common, is morally impossible. The spear of the warrior is perhaps the only exception. Other private property they certainly have none. And the possession of this, is an object only when actually engaged in battle. On all other occasions it is carried about as the common property of the tribe.
The word quipple means properly to pillage, or to spoil an enemy—a practise as common to the nations of Europe as to the savages of Australia. ”

“ There can be no doubt, barbarian though they be, that they possess all the tender feelings which belong to human nature. I have seen them weep at the sight of each other's woe, whilst the tears poured unaffectedly down their sable cheeks, indicating at once their relationship to the human family and their forlorn condition; for they sorrow as them that have no hope. ”

“ The penalty of death, we have been led to understand, is attached to crime—for the effect of example as well as punishment. What a fearful lesson of instruction have we given to the savage! We have taught him by this act to exercise towards us deceit and treachery, which, in him, we have daily reproved, and led him to draw no very favourable conclusions of our moral and physical superiority. We do not remember to have heard one instance, in which the Aborigines of this country have abused our confidence when we have encountered them in the bush. ”

“ Consequently jealousy, the invariable attendant on such manners, frequently burns like fire in the breasts of the men; and, as they have no seraglio to guard the chastity of their wives, the life of the frail and unfortunate fair one, I fear, too often falls a sacrifice to her imprudence. The practice of spearing their females whenever they offend them, is cruel. How much is woman, in every part of the world where it prevails, indebted to the benign influence of Christianity. ”

“ Every cessation of arms has been only a tacit truce—a calm that preceded a storm. And while ye act upon a wavering uncertain policy, the war will assume a more sanguinary character on every recurrence of hostilities, till it become interminable; and, staining your title deeds with blood, involve the destruction of one of the most interesting races of Aboriginal inhabitants now to be found on the face of the globe. ”

“ The very preservation of a language so ancient and primitive, would be worth any expense. But to communicate to her innumerable tribes a knowledge of Revelation—to raise them in the scale of being, to rescue them from endless woe, to impart to them immortal hopes and prospects, and to make them partakers of the high-born destinies, assured to the sons of God—would be attended with results gratifying to angels. ”

“ Think not, then, that the Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia, offspring of the same great parent with yourselves, and partakers of all the kindred feelings of a common humanity, can resign the mountains and seas, the rivers and lakes, the plains and the wilds of their uncradled infancy, and the habitation of their fathers for generations immemorial, to a foreign foe, without the bitterness of grief. ”