the society published tracts, pamphlets, annual reports and a journal entitled "the aborigines' friend", or "colonial intelligencer", from 1847. hodgkin's concerns over the indigenous peoples in the hudson's bay company territory in western canada were pursued both by correspondence with sir george simpson, and in the pages of the "intelligencer". in 1889 henry richard fox bourne became its editor, and took over as chair of the aps. he was a critic of the emin pasha relief expedition, and used the "intelligencer" to accuse it for the first time of "atrocities".