The second, unofficial, letter which Baudin wrote to the governor repeated his positive assurances that the suspicions concerning his objects were without foundation, but on account of the personal regard which he entertained for King, he determined to tell him frankly his opinion regarding the forming of European settlements and the dispossessing of native peoples. The view expressed by him bears the impress of the "ideas of '89," ideas which laid stress on the rights of man and human equality, and professed for the backward races a special fraternal tenderness. "To my way of thinking," said the commodore, "I have never been able to conceive that there was any justice or equity on the part of Europeans, in seizing, in the name of their governments, a land for the first time, when it is inhabited by men who have not always deserved the title of savages, or cannibals, which has been given to them, while they were but children of nature, and just as little savages as are actually your Scotch Highlanders* (* Had Baudin been reading about the Sage of Lichfield? "Well, sir, God made Scotland." "Certainly," replied Dr. Johnson, "but we must always remember that he made it for Scotchmen; and comparisons are odious, Mr. Strahan, but God made Hell." Caledonian Societies, of which there are many in various parts of the world, will observe with gratitude Baudin's concession that Highlanders did not eat their fellowmen.) or our peasants of Brittany, who, if they do not eat their fellowmen, are nevertheless just as objectionable. From this it appears to me that it would be infinitely more glorious for your nation, as for mine, to mould for society the inhabitants of the respective countries over whom they have rights, instead of wishing to dispossess those who are so far removed by immediately seizing the soil which they own and which has given them birth. These remarks are no doubt impolitic, but at least reasonable from the facts; and had this principle been generally adopted you would not have been obliged to form a colony by means of men branded by the law, and who have become criminals through the fault of the Government which has neglected and abandoned them to themselves. It follows, therefore, that not only have you to reproach yourselves with an injustice in seizing their lands, but also in transporting on a soil where the crimes and the diseases of Europeans were unknown, all that could retard the progress of civilisation, but which has served as a pretext to your Government. I have no knowledge of the claims which the French Government may have upon Van Diemen's Land, nor of its designs; but I think that its title will not be any better grounded than yours."