No. 16

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 attacked 
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
the 
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 to 
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.