Gippsland squatter Henry Meyrick wrote a letter home to his relatives in England in 30th April, 1846.
"... The blacks are very quiet here now, poor wretches. No wild beast of the forest was ever hunted down with such unsparing perseverance as they are. Men, women and children are shot whenever they can be met with ...
I have protested against it at every station I have been in Gippsland, in the strongest language, but these things are kept very secret as the penalty would certainly be hanging.
... For myself, if I caught a black actually killing my sheep, I would shoot him with as little remorse as I would a wild dog, but no consideration on earth would induce me to ride into a camp and fire on them indiscriminately, as is the custom whenever the smoke is seen. They [the Aborigines] will very shortly be extinct. It is impossible to say how many have been shot, but I am convinced that not less than 450 have been murdered altogether..."
From the publication:
'Gippsland Settlers and the Kurnai Dead' by Patrick Morgan
More: http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/letters-henry-howard-meyrick
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Genocide
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