attributed to John Lhotsky

“ If the Catholic power which occupied South America made itself, in some respects, guilty of exterminating its aborigines by fire and sword, so a similar reproach might, perhaps, with equal justice, be cast hereafter upon other powers, inasmuch as they passively allowed to die away, and to become extinct, a poor and helpless race of people. Certainly the condition of the aborigines has ever been one of extreme misery ”

“ The African, inhabiting a luxuriant and happy country, enjoying, for many ages, almost the extremes of history and civilization—the Papua broken down by the pressure of an extreme destitution, and scarcely ever touched by any civilizing power—this may be the only difference between those two human tribes. ”

“ Some coercive means had been then very useful for the colony,and even beneficial for them; but it is the fate of man to transgress from one extreme to another, from the tyrannical and cruel manner of the Spaniards, to a misunderstood and apathetical, but at the same time very commodious philanthropy. Some time ago, in a very respectable society, the question was raised whether the Courts have the power to punish black people in case of crime. ”

“ Balmain, who was among the first to examine a Papua skeleton, found that the skull differed very slightly from that of the African : and who, at this time of day, supposes the African to be wanting in mental capacity? All South America asserts the abilities of this people, who there exercise all sorts of human acquirements. ”

“ This is also the period in which any experiment for civilization of our aborigines must be tried; and, when once we have only a small stock of such reclaimed and English-fashioned people, the further improvement of others would be comparatively easy, because the people thus improved understand as well, or better, than those from whom they have received this improvement, how to communicate their ideas to their brethren. ”

“ Indeed it must be sufficiently shocking to a man who has any knowledge of the extentsive trade carrisd on between colonists and the aborigines of other countries, to see how the Papuas, after a fraternization of forty years, visit only the streets of Sydney to obtain there the offals of our slaughter-houses. ”

“ And then, when the now famous Police of London find some neglected and foundling child, or other sort of vagabond upon the roads of England, will they not be entitled to collect such individuals for the purpose of placing them in some Orphan School or Hospital? ”

“ It is said that this people like not to work; and it is true, that aged and inveterate idlers, of black extraction too, are not very easily to he brought to any labour and order; and it is the same case with the inhabitants of the Clyde and the Thames, as every assiduous and honest settler may have experienced very often. From the abovementioned boarding-school, our corrected servants, and ticket-of-leave men, and our little farmers, can be supplied with women ”

“ But, without doubt, the situation of the people who inhabited the sea-shores was considerably deteriorated by the arrival of civilized colonists. Removed from the waters which supplied them with food, the same population is now concentrated in a narrower compass, and where the wild animals have become more scarce. ”

“ And it is very seldom that such a lady will condescend to cohabit with some embryo farmer, or honest and converted convict servant, who, in a series of years, has bestowed upon his master assiduous and useful services. ”

“ The eternal celibacy to which even such converted and honest convicts are doomed, may be, perhaps, the most heavy part of their punishment; as it is at the same lime a great damage to the colony in respect of the population, and the many and many crimes and scandals which are therefrom deduced. ”