[Editor: This untitled article was published in The Sydney Gazette, and New South Wales Advertiser (Sydney, NSW), 16 March 1816. The article refers to the murder of a settler by some Aborigines, and also seeks to clear the name of an Aboriginal man named Budbury, who was previously thought to have taken part in an attack by a group of Aborigines against some white settlers on 3 March 1816.]
[We have to regret the death of another white person]
We have to regret the death of another white person, a stock keeper at the Cow Pastures, who was a few days since speared by three natives, who are reported to have come from the mountains in very alarming force, to join the nearer hordes in plundering the maize fields.
— A body of them has stopped and robbed a cart belonging to Government on its road to Bathurst Plains with provisions for the supply of the persons stationed there, and demonstrate considerably less apprehension than formerly from the effect of fire arms.
In justice to those who do not engage in these mischievous acts, we should be at all times happy to receive corrected statements in favor of any whose names may have been erroneously reported as present on those occasions.
— The Gazette of last week stated from information that Budbury was present at the attack on Mrs. Edmond Wright and her servant; which we are now convinced must have been a mistake, as we are requested to declare, upon the most undoubted authority, that he was far from the scene, and is perfectly a friendly and well-disposed native towards us.
— The report, which originated from the mistake of his person, under the circumstances of alarm and terror, we feel it our duty to correct, as a bad name in such a case might be attended with the most unhappy result to an innocent person, and become even doubly fatal, in making an enemy of a friend, and driving him to a condition of extremity that might justify hostility in him, as palpably an act of self defence. Mistakes of so serious a nature should carefully be avoided, and individual offenders pointed out in such cases only where their identity is undoubted — for it would be even better that the guilty should escape the rigors of a resentment they bring down upon themselves, than that the faultless should participate in those evils from which justice and humanity should alike defend them.
Source:
The Sydney Gazette, and New South Wales Advertiser (Sydney, NSW), 16 March 1816, p. 2
Editor’s notes:
See also: [Unpleasant accounts] [re an attack by Aborigines, 9 March 1816]
An article about an attack by a group of Aborigines against some white settlers on 3 March 1816.
[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]
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