260 ABOKIGINES OF NEWFOUNDLAND . those around him, and said, among other matters, " Is there no honest pride in him who protects man from the shafts of injustice ? Nay, is there not an inward monitor, approving of all our acts which shall have the tendency to lessen crime and prevent mur¬ der ? We now stand on the nearest part of the World to , of Newfoundland to Britain ; and, at this day, and on this sacred spot, do we form the first assembly that has ever yet collected together to consider the condition of the invaded and ill-treated first occupiers of this country. Britons have tres¬ passed here, to be a blight and a scourge to a portion of the human race ; under their, in other respects, protecting power, a defenceless, and once independent tribe of men, have been nearly extirpated from the face of the earth, scarcely causing an enquiry how or why. Near this spot, man is known to remain in all his primitive rudeness, clothed in skins, and armed only with a bow and arrow, by which to gain his subsistence, and to repel the attacks of his reckless and lawless foes. " It would appear from what we can glean from tradition, that about a century and a half ago, this tribe was numerous and powerful, like its neighbours, theMicmacs. Both tribes were then on friendly terms. A misunderstanding with the French, who then held the sway in those parts, led, in the result, to hosti¬ lities between them ; and the sequel of the tradition runs as follows :— " The European authorities, who, we may suppose, were not over scrupulous in dealing out equity here