The Sun.
London, England, 1840-06-24 00:00:00

ABORIGINES PROTECTION
SOCIETY.

The annual meeting of this excellent Society, took
place yesterday at Exeter Hall. The meeting, though
not very full, was moat respectably attended, and among
those on the platform we noticed Mr. F. Buxton, Mr.
O'Connell, M. P., Mr. Hindley, M. P., Mr. Baines,
M.P., Mr. James Fuller, from America, Dr. Bowing,
Mr. G. Thompson, and several othci highly respectable
individuals who advocated the cause.
Mr. F. BUXTON, on taking the chair, wished briefly to
explain the circumstances under which he attended there
that day. It was not his intention in the first instance to
have done so, being engaged on other important duties;
indeed, he was so engaged up to the present moment,
and had been obliged to leave a Committee to attend the
meeting. He had always observed that there were
two ways in which a person who felt a great
interest on an important subject, might do it benefit.
The first was, to detail the facts that were impor-
tant, and to make communications deserving to be
listened to. Ou the other hand, if a party was not in pos.
session of those facts, then he ought to preserve silence.
Now he was in the latter condition, for his mind, and
time, and every thing was so embarked in one great
subject, that he had not been able to give that attention to
this important subject it deserved. It was dreadful to
think that as ministers of religion and as Christian men,
when they visited uncivilized shores, the only effect of that
intercourse with the natives was to introduce among them
their vices, their crimes, and their diseases. That was
not the right mode of dealing with the natives of a coun-
try, which we had visited for the purposes of civiliza-
tion.—(Cheers,) It was the duty of statesmen to at-
tend to this subject; there were hundreds of thou-
sands whose happiness depended upon the mode
in which they dealt with them ; and therefore they were
the last persons whe should exercise any degree of indif-
ference upon the subject. He felt fully its importance ;
and he hoped the British Government, and all the govern.
merits upon the earth, would be led to look into this sub-
ject, and to form a plan which would not destroy, but pre-
serve, not communicate vices, but teach them the arts of
civilization and religion, which Providence had been
pleased to bestow upon this country. He would now call
upon the Secretary to read the Report, and he had only to
apologise for himself to the meeting for being obliged to
leave it at an early hour, in order to resume the duties
which he had left to attend that meeting.
The Secretary then read the Report.
Mr. HINDLEY, M.P., then rose to propose the first re-
solution—" That the Report just now read be received
and adopted by the meeting, and that a Committee be
formed to carry on the proceedings of the Society for the
next year. Before he commenced the one or two observa-
tions he proposed to address to the meeting, he trusted he
should be allowed to remark that it afforded him the
highest satisfaction to observe the manner in which they
had appreciated the long-continued and faithful services
of the Hon. and Learned Gentleman who had just entered
the room. (Mr. Hirelley here alluded to the entrance of
Mr. O'Connell, who was most enthusiastically cheered.)
He trusted that that Society would, without distinction of
party, recognize every one who bad stood forth
as the advocate for freedom, and for the amelioration
of the human race.—( Hear, and cheers.) He thought
that they had no right to arrogate to themselves the ap-
pellation of a eivil:zed nation ; if it was to be considered
civilized to do such things as to take away from others
what they had not the strength to restrain, then, indeed,
they were civilized ; and if the posseeiion of gar powder
and the use of arms showed civilization, England might
be i ruud indeed—(Cheers)—hut of the rights due to the
defenceless he was afraid they were for bel:ind.
He thought they would not prove that they were them-
selves civilized till they had shown that they had leaned
the great precept of ‘‘ doing to others as they would have
they should do unto them."—( Cheers.) He thought that
the present Society had an especial claim upon
the Government, and he trusted that one of
its first acts would be to extend its protec-
tion to the most defenceless part of its subjects, for
he contended that the moment this country possessed
itself of New Zealand, or any other part of the world,
it became, to all intents an purposes, part of the British
dominions, subject to the British laws, and its inhabitants
were entitled to their protecticn.—( Cheers.) He agreed
with the worthy Chairman, that they could benefit the
Society in two ways, either by relating facts with which
they were well acquainted, and which were unknown to
the meeting, or else show their good sense by holding
their peace.—(Cheers.) He had come there merely to
show himself, and to tell all present that he had as lively
an interest as ever in the cause--the righteous and holy
cause in which they were engaged. The Hon. Gentle-
man concluded by moving the resolution.
EDWARD BAINES, ESII., M.P., seconded the resolution. He was
unfortunately necessitated to attemd public business elsewhere, but
he was anxious before he left the room to express his strong feeling

in favour of the Society, and he was happy to add that it had been his
duty in Parliament to move that the proceedings of the Society be
laid belare the Houce. He trusted that the title of Protectors of

the Aborigines would not be found to be a fictitious one but a real

one.—(Cheers.)
R. BELL, Esq., supported the resolution. His simple object in
rising to address them, was as a member of the Aborigines Committee,
to state clearly and distinctly the objects of the Society, and the means
by which they proposed to carry them into effect. He was afraid
that the title selected for the Society was not the most felicitous,
and the question had been frequently put to him, what was the
ineaning of the Aborigines Society ? As there were so many ladies
present he would take the liberty of stating that the term
Aborigines meant the original possessers of the soil. Having made
clear the title of this Society, he would now proceed to explain the
objects for which it had been originated. Its general objects
were simply the protection of the alsoriginal tribes, in those
countries which had been colonized by Europeans or other nations,
and the protection of those tribes necessarily involved their civi.
lisation. Therefore the objects of the Society iucluded both the
protection of the aboriginal tribes from the encroachments of the
whites, and their civilisation by the whites who settled

open their shores. The necessity for those measures
must appear clear to those who had had an oppor-
tunity of examining the history of those races, but it

might be necessary to give an illustration of it in order that

they might be able to conteinp:ate the vast extent of misery
and devastation that had been committed by foreign coun-
tries' under the name of civilization. Tn Upper Canada. for

a long period before Sir John Colborne presided there, a certain
process of civilization was going on, by which the red man was to
be drawn into the social habits of life, giving up his rov-
ing and wild habits, and settling in villages for the
cultivation of the soil. That process had been going
on for some time, when Sir Francis head discovered that the red
man was unfit for civilization, and that all the kindness and sym-
pathy of former Governors had been thrown away. On making
that discovery, Sir Francis Head submitted to the Colonial
Office a project which he (Mr. Bell) could not venture to
designate in the terms with which he regarded it. The project

was the removing them to some waste and barren islands, in

the north-western waters of that province, which were incapable
of cultivation, and the reason assigned by him for that
was, that they were incapable of civilisation, that it was

impossible to make them farmers or settlers, and that

the best and the kindest thing was to remove them altogether
from contact with civilized man. That project was trans.

mitted to the Colonial Office, and he was sorry to say
that it was acted upon by Lord Glenelg to a certain er-Jiat.
In I 536 steps were taken for the purpose of removing them to those
barren tracts in the north-western lakes of Canada, but shortly after
that the insurrection, of which they must have all heard so much,
broke out in Canada, and that insurrection checked the progress
of Sir Francis Head's scheme. Considerable doubt Was enter-
tained as to what course the Indians would take in the insurrec-
tion ; it was naturally supposed that the red man, like the white
man, urged forward by the sense of injury and the desire of
avenging his wrongs, would induce him to retaliate upon
his oppressors, and band himself with the opponents of the
British Government ? How did he act ?—(Hear, hear.) That man
who was incapable of becoming a farmer,—who was incapable of
learning the arts of cultivation or civilization,—that man, under
the sense of the wrong and injury which he had received—
that red man, who, in his own strong and beautiful and poetical
language, "Loved his great Father across the salt lake," and was
ready to resist all who opposed his authority, was found in the front
of the battle, and, by his bravery, preserved the colonies to the Bri-
tish empire.—(Cheers.) But the project was not confined to Canada.
They were all familiar with the fact that in the State of New
York, there was still remaining some portion of the six nations
cf the Indians, an. 4 there were some portions also on the Eastern
shore of the Mississippi, but in the progress of civilization it
was deemed, expedient and desirable to remove them from
the Eastern to the Western shore of the Mississippi.
These means exhibited a mixture of fraud and violence which