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He is, however, even with me, for I do not understand a word he says, so how we shall get on time must tell.
May 4th.—I continue my journal from yesterday, and even in that space of time something important has occurred. News came this evening that a native had been shot last night at Mr. Brockman's, while in the act of dragging off a sack of flour out of the mill store, which he had broken open. I had been just setting out for Perth, but went to the spot immediately. The natives in the meantime had collected to bury the body, and I found them just commencing their operations. It was an excellent opportunity for impressing a lesson upon them when their minds were in that state, so I harangued them over the body. Anthony's oration over Caesar was nothing to it. I told them that they had stolen repeatedly, that at last the Governor became angry and told me to go and enquire why the natives stole so much; that, as soon as the Governor spoke, I had come up to enquire, and that already one man was taken prisoner and one man was shot; that if they would steal no more and spear no more the Governor would perhaps say "it was enough," but if they persisted he would tell the soldiers and the white men to shoot them as they did at Pinjarrah and at York. I apostrophised those who had been in the habit of stealing, told them I saw many of their faces around me, and that I knew their names, but, as one lay dead before me, I would not speak more of it. I addressed the brother of the deceased, and told him that he and his brother assisted many others in killing two white men over the hills, that many of those who did so were long since dead, that his brother now lay dead, and that, if he either stole from or injured white men any more, he would soon be dead also. The whole scene appeared to have some effect upon them, and at last they assured me that with respect to white men they were now quiet and would not seek to retaliate, but they would kill a black man for it, but not near our houses. Having left matters in that state at the graves, I went down
