ARTHUR RECKONS CONCILIATION
Humbug, Your Excellency! I am certainly no firebrand! My boyhood chums were black but there’s too many a black round Ben Lomond. Those river flats they’d tamed by fire. ‘Tis my property now. I have the deed. And your gift, post of special constable and poundkeeper in the settled districts. Aye, I chase down the blacks but draw the line at popping ‘em. I bring ‘em in, not to line my own pockets – I urge Your Excellency not to brand John Batman – but open up landgrants sans stir. I settled those troubles with bush bandits like Brady, clamped black bracelets, did Justice Child. I know my post. Yet these tribes are become devilish slippy, fire the bush, melt in smoke, our roving parties under fire. Us farmers are bent to drag these buggers into line. Shepherds fear to leave their stock, their gun, their outpost. So if my coves return fire, ‘tis not murder, like Gellibrand says. Agree like clocks, me and that landjobber in a black dog! When my trackers fell in with tribal signs, unsettled their camps, they broke oaths like sticks. So we settled our debts. Damnation take it! Stockyards they’d set afire, assailed us with guns, waddies, knives. ‘Twas a black outlook. My men must hunt away but how advance the line with wounded blacks? Native malingerers I shot. Brand me murderer and I won’t mustermaster. Will quit my post. Listen, ‘twas right you commended a chain of military post, Your Excellency, for the surety of the settled districts. But this design has not broke the blacks’ brand of surprise attacks. They sneak muskets to fire upon redcoats, spear settlers’ men, drive off a line o’ sheep. Excellency, this kickup is war agin black