 The report was never shown to Stanley, so he had been unable to defend himself.In a letter to the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society in the 1870s, Conservative M.P.and treasurer of the Aborigines' Protection Society, Sir Robert Fowler, who believed Kirk's report and refused to "whitewash Stanley", insisted that his "heartless butchery of unfortunate natives has brought dishonour on the British flag and must have rendered the course of future travellers more perilous and difficult."