Troubles, heavy troubles, soon arose among the young colonists. The heaviest, probably, of these early troubles came from the not unnatural hostility of the natives. All the first years of the colony’s existence were saddened by contests with the blacks--by so-called murders on the part of the black men, and so-called executions on the part of their invaders. Looking at these internecine combats from a distance, and by the light of reason, we can hardly regard as murder,--as that horrid crime which we at home call murder,--the armed attempts which these poor people made to retain their property; and though we can justify the retaliations of the white conquerors,--those deeds done in retaliation which they called executions,--we cannot bring ourselves to look upon the sentences of death which they carried out as calm administrations of the law. The poor black wretches understood no pleas that were made against them,--were not alive even to the Christian’s privilege of lying in their own defence, and of pleading not guilty. They speared a soldier here and a settler there, ran away with booty, fired houses, and made ravages on women and children, doubtless feeling that they were waging a most righteous war against a most unrighteous and cruel enemy. When caught, they knew that they must suffer. In the old records of the colony, one reads of these things as though all the injuries were inflicted by the blacks and suffered by the whites. Here, at home, all of us believe that we were doing a good deed in opening up these lands to the industry and civilisation of white men. I at any rate so believe. But, if so, we can surely afford to tell the truth about the matter. These black savages were savage warriors, and not murderers; and we too, after a fashion, were warriors, very high-handed, and with great odds in our favour, and not calm administrators of impartial laws.