Saturday, 15 May, 1841

[The Police Magistrate at Portland, Mr. Blair] he said he believed the blacks had been badly used; that he [had] been told of a man named Robinson, a sawyer…that the murder committed by this man upon the blacks was incredible and that Mr. Winter had told him he could prove a number which to his knowledge this man had committed. The most of these murders was for mere cruelty. He has been known to go up to a child and beat its brains out…

…it is dreadful to reflect on the exposed and unexpected state of the original occupants of the soil. The past and present state of the Aborigines is one of annihilation or destruction…it may be guessed what the fate of the poor Aborigines will be that fall into their hands…

…Mr Edward Henty and Mr Blair called and spent the afternoon. We had tea and coffee, wines and desert after dinner, et cetera…Mr Henty said the Blacks at Mt Clay are a bad lot and he did not think I should get a communication with them…he related one story of their badness. He said that some time ago, I suppose two or three years, a whale broke from her moorings and went on shore. And the boat went in to get them off, when they were attacked by natives who drove them off. He said the men were so enraged that they went to the head station for their firearms and then returned to the whale, when the natives again attacked them. And the whalers then let fly, to use his expression, right and left upon the natives…