The accompanying rough sketches, copied from Collins’s work, will give some idea of the natives in person, and their numerous ceremonies, &c., &c., &c.
It is only fair to show what dangerous and treacherous neighbours the aborigines are, and how the squatters and inhabitants were often placed at their mercy.
A numerously signed petition was presented to the Governor from the settlers on the road to Port Phillip praying for protection, as they had suffered much from the incursions and assaults of these people, and stating that, if they could not obtain protection, they must take the law into their own hands.
The Governor immediately despatched a police force to be stationed along the road for protection.
As for their raids on stations, they actually drove away the sheep and cattle from two or three stations, and in some instances violated women and committed robberies.
We must however consider that their laws strictly limited the tribes to certain districts, and to intrude upon these was criminal; and this was so strictly carried out that, on my approaching the Shoalhaven River, my guide would on no account cross over with me. But whites, as foreigners, would be regarded with even more hostility.
The following account, from the Rockhampton Bulletin, 26 October, 1861, will show one of these murderous assaults, and at the same time the brutal character of the aboriginal police force, who thought it pleasant work to shoot down their countrymen:—
“A man arrived in Rockhampton last evening (Tuesday) with intelligence of the murder of a number of persons on Mr. Wills’s station, Nogoa, including Mr. Wills himself. The messenger brings a written deposition of the facts, so far as they are known, which was made on Friday last, to Mr. Gregson, Bainworth station, by a shepherd belonging to the late Mr. Wills. The shepherd’s name is Edward Kenny. We are informed that Mr. Wills had only arrived on the station about a fortnight previous to the time when the murders were committed, and Kenny states that during that time the blacks came upon the station in considerable numbers, but they were quiet and appeared friendly, and no notice was taken of them. Mr. Wills used to carry a revolver himself, but although he had plenty of firearms on the station, the men were not supplied with them.
“On the evening of Thursday, the 17th October, Kenny was returning to the station with his sheep, when he met Paddy, who had been shepherding the rams. Paddy said to him, ‘There has been slaughter here to-day.’ Kenny then went up to the station, and saw the corpse of his late master (Mr. Wills), the overseer’s wife (Mrs. Baker), with grown-up daughter and two children, Mrs. Manyon, and three children, and a man named Jemmy Scotty—in all ten bodies—having evidently been killed by the blacks. He then took a horse and rode over to Bainworth (Mr. Gregson’s station), where he arrived about 1 p.m., on Friday last. He does not know what became of Paddy after he left him. There were at the time twenty-two Europeans on the station, and it is feared that others have shared a similar fate to that of the ten above-mentioned. The remaining eleven on the station were, the overseer (Mr. Baker), Patrick Manyon, George Ling, Paddy, George Elliott, Harry, Tom, Davey Baker, Charlie, Ned, and John Moon. Mr. Thomas Wills (son of the deceased) and two men had left the station the previous Sunday morning, with drays, on their way to Albinia Downs, for loading.
“We are informed that the remnant of the Native Police Force, at the camp Rockhampton, consisting of Cadet Johnson, two sergeants, and one trooper only, will start to-morrow for Peak Downs, an officer named Genatas with ten men being stationed there, and from thence they will proceed to Nogoa. There is also a small company of troopers under Lieutenant Patrick stationed at the Comet River.