Bonwick and Clark In the interest of full disclosure and before someone pounces on me for a false citation earlier in archive 3 I wrote the following Henry Reynolds in Fate of a Free People reports that James Bonwick in The Last of the Tasmanians 1870 p85 records another similar conversation A strong oral tradition indicates that a catastrophic epidemic occurred even before British settlement Robert Clark a teacher at Wybalenna Aboriginal Establishment reported that Aborigines told him they were originally more numerous than the white people were aware of but their numbers were very much thinned by a sudden attack of disease which was general among the entire population previous to the arrival of the English entire tribes of natives having been swept off Before 1803 disease may have come from sailors or early sealers Flood Josephine The Original Australians Story of the Aboriginal People published by Allen Unwin 2006 pp 66 67 citing Bonwick James The Last of the Tasmanians 1870 p85 Re reading Bonwick s The Last of the Tasmanians recently I noticed that the above passage isn t in it at page 85 or elsewhere Referring back to Fabrication I found that Windschuttle had in fact commented that it wasn t in Bonwick s The Last of the Tasmanians but he didn t take the issue any further than that I checked a few of Bonwick s other books and found the passage is actually in Bonwick s Daily Life and Origins of the Tasmanians at page 85 So Reynolds Flood no doubt relying on Reynolds earlier citation cited the text of the passage accurately the right author and the right page but got the book wrong It s easily done when making notes and then expanding upon those notes in a book or paper but it s not a significant mistake since the passage was quoted accurately