Colonial Despatches

1. Since I had the honor of addressing you on the 5th of May last, there have been great excitements among the motley assemblage of Indians collected in the settlements of this Colony. They have committed outrages each on the other, yet in the midst of their own feuds and dissensions they have uniformly respected the property and persons of all white settlers.

2. The cause of those excitements, was a treacherous attack made during the night of the 28th of May, on a party of Northern Indians, who were in the employ of a white settler at Esquimalt, three of whom were dangerously wounded at the first fire; after which the assassins are supposed to have fled under cover of the darkness, and have not been since discovered.

3. The dead body of another unfortunate Northern Indian, who had been stabbed to the heart, on the same night, was found the following morning near this place; and two days afterwards another Indian was treacherously shot on the high road to Metchosen.

4. About the same date the Northern Indians attackeda a small Clallum village near Race Point, and with savage ferocity, utterly destroyed every living thing in its vicinity. A gang of the same Indians also made a successful inroad and destroyed a Clallum village in Washington Territory, and both those parties have since fled from the Colony; pleading a long array of unsatisfied wrongs in extenuation of their conduct.

5. Those outrages happening unexpectedly, in a time of profound quiet, and succeeding each other with almost the rapidity of thought, baffled all our means of prevention; but we have now I think, succeeded in restoring peace and putting a stop to the progress of crime within thelimits limits of the settlements.

6. I should have resorted to more energetic measures to punish the perpetrators of those outrages, had there been any Kind of effective force at my disposal; but as we maintain a constabulary force of only two men, I was reluctantly compelled to trust entirely to the moral influence of Government, which, on that occasion, fortunately proved an effective protection to the settlements.

7. Those savages were no doubt smarting under a sense of injury, and had really no wish to offend against the Laws of the Colony; I am therefore disposed to make every allowance for their ignorance and impulsive natures, but it is nevertheless important toimpress impress strongly on their minds, that the settlements are sacred ground, governed by wise and useful Laws, and must not be stained with innocent blood, nor made the arena of their fierce revenge.

In all other respects the Colony has enjoyed a State of undisturbed tranquility, and there is, I am glad to say, a decided revival in trade.