Battle of Pinjarra
Encyclopedia
The Battle of Pinjarra or Pinjarra Massacre was a conflict that occurred in Pinjarra, Western Australia
between a group of 60 to 80 Australian Aborigines
and a detachment of 25 soldiers and policemen led by Governor James Stirling
in 1834. The name 'battle' is disputed by some who argue that the event was part of an invasion of Aboriginal lands and that the name 'battle' disguises the true nature of the conflict, which was more of a "massacre
" in which wounded Aboriginal combatants were killed together with women and children.
. Captain Frederick Irwin
, the lieutenant governor in Stirling's absence, had inflamed the situation, adopting a soldier's attitude to crush a warlike group of Aborigines and reduce them to a state of subjection.
Governor Stirling had been visiting the 400-km-distant seaport of Albany
and bad weather caused his return to be delayed until September. In response to calls from Pinjarra settlers for protection against the increased hostility of local Binjareb Aborigines led by Calyute
, Stirling organised a mounted force of police, bushmen and ex-soldiers. Their brief was to protect settlers, safeguard Aboriginal mail-carriers and confront the Binjareb on the Murray River. A small garrison at Dandalup had been withdrawn from fear of Aboriginal reprisals after they had shot some Aboriginal people.
The Binjareb tribe had a reputation with other local Aboriginal tribes for their aggression and attacks on other Aborigines and settlers. It is possible that their motives for attacking the local settlers were part of an attempt to assert their power amongst other local tribes and to take advantage of the political upheaval caused by the arrival of the British settlers, and the death of many Perth Wadjuk Aborigines. Stirling and others, drawing on the experience of Scottish clans and native American Indians of North America, were afraid of a possible alliance between the Binjareb and Weeip's Wadjuk people in the Upper Swan, and sought to prevent such an alliance by an attack on the Aboriginal people to the south. Stirling's attack at Pinjarra was specifically to collectively punish the Binjareb for their earlier individual attacks, to re-establish a barracks on the road to the south, and enable Thomas Peel to attract settlers into his lands at Mandurah. This followed an earlier failure by Surveyor General Septimus Roe and pastoralist Thomas Peel
who had led an expedition to the area with the goal of improving security and negotiating peaceful co-existence. Stirling wanted a "decisive action" that would end the attacks "once and for all".
On the morning of Saturday 25 October, Stirling and Roe left Perth and travelled southwards to the Preston Ferry, there waiting for surveyor George Smyth and Corporal Delmidge, who had brought supplies south by boat from Perth. Spare horses from the ferry were loaded with supplies as the party set off to Hamilton Hill
, skirting Fremantle
to the East. There they were joined by Captain Ellis and the five mounted police, superintendent Richard Meares and his son, Seymour. They then rode south to Thomas Peel's where they were joined by Mr Peel and two others. On the morning of 27 October, ten soldiers of the 21st regiment, two corporals and eight privates arrived at Peel's homestead to join the party. Ammunition was issued to a party on 27 October 1834, and they were issued with several weeks' supplies, as the soldiers were to remain at Pinjarra and establish the planned garrison there. Leaving Peel's farm they crossed the Serpentine River and went forward to the Murray delta where tracks of a sizable group of Aboriginal men women and children were discovered heading towards Pinjarra. In the late afternoon, they camped at Jinjanuk, 10 miles from the mouth of the Murray River, so that they could begin the attack early next morning when they judged the Aboriginal group would be least prepa
beehive shaped mia mia
s in the bend of the river. The weather broke and it started to rain heavily as Captain Ellis, Mr Norcott and three of the police attacked from the south.
The Aboriginal men gathered up their spear
s and woomeras
, as the women and children fled towards the river, where Captain Stirling, Captain Meares, Thomas Peel and 12 others were waiting in hiding. Ellis was soon in a melee with the Aborigines, and Norcott, recognising a troublemaker called Noonaar, shot him with his double-barrelled shotgun
, causing the first casualty. Five or more Aboriginal people were killed in the first charge, and the remainder of the Aboriginal group then turned and ran towards the river, intending to cross and scatter into the hills. One of the eldest women in the tribe, Teelak, was shot dead with her 4-year-old daughter screaming violently. At least 13 other children and women were then shot.
Stirling, hearing the shots reacted quickly. Roe was sent with four others to prevent the group escaping south and guard the pack horses at the ford. The governor and 14 others in a line abreast then ambushed the surprised Aborigines who had crossed the river. Ellis had been dislodged from his horse but Norcott continued pushing the group into the river where they were caught in a withering crossfire. The flood-scoured slopes gave the men, women and children little cover as they tried to hide behind what logs or bushes there were. Many ducked into the water, holding their breath as long as they could. Some tried to float downstream out of range, but the water was too shallow to permit their escape. They, too, were shot. Roe's journal records "Very few wounded were suffered to escape". Soldiers fired indiscriminately at those caught in the ambush and, when all had been slain, the posse remounted to chase the others who had fled north into the bush. By 10.05am it was all over and, because of the serious condition of two of the European wounded, Stirling decided to return immediately to Mandurah.
area. Captain Ellis was suffering concussion, either from a glancing blow from a spear or from the fall off his horse, and later died on the 11th of November after having been in a coma for two weeks. A folk ballad, The Jackets of Green, honouring Ellis, was later composed and sung around Guildford and Perth taverns.
On the Aboriginal side there are conflicting reports. 60-70 Aboriginal men, women and children in the camp had been subjected to intensive fire of 24 guns for an hour, and for another half hour the survivors were hunted through the bush. No male prisoners were taken alive and all wounded were immediately shot. At the end of hostilities 8 women and a few children were taken as captives. In his report, Stirling claimed 15 Aboriginal men had been killed. Roe estimated the dead at 15-20. But these numbers don't seem to have included women and children. Captain Daniel, whom Stirling sent to survey the "battleground" later, implied that many more were killed than officially acknowledged, as he found several mass graves, but the rain and his fear of an attack made exhuming the bodies for an official count impossible.
Francis Armstrong and Thomas Peel later attempted an official count by interviewing the Aborigines Ninda and Colling, who had been present. Some 11 names were given but, in view of the prohibition in Noongar culture against speaking of the dead, their task was almost impossible. Amongst the dead were Unia, Calyute's youngest son, and Gummol who had been flogged for his part in the earlier attack on Shenton's Mill. Two of Calyute's wives were amongst the wounded; Yornup's lower leg had been shot away, and Mindip had been shot in the left arm and right thigh.
At the end of the hostilities, Stirling gave the natives a terrifying warning. If there were any retaliatory payback killings from the Binjareb, he declared, "not one would be allowed to remain alive on this side of the Mountains (i.e., the Darling Scarp
)".
seem to have increased and intensified the settlers' fears rather than allayed them. The belief that Aboriginal people would unite to drive the colonists out persisted into the 1850s when there was another massacre of Aborigines gathering for a corroboree
at Whiteman Park
near Guildford
. Mounted police continued regular patrols in the area, and the police force at Mandurah continued, though there was no further trouble. Thomas Peel continued to call for action to wipe out and exterminate the rest of the Binjareb, whom he called "a nest of hornets", although there were no further payback reprisals.
The killing of so many Binjareb caused a major population imbalance between rival Aboriginal groups, with Swan and Canning Wadjuk and York Balardong attempting to profit from the decimation of the Murray Binjareb. Stirling also personally profited, as he was able to take ownership of Binjareb lands in the Harvey district, untroubled.
Five months after the battle, the Murray group sent a deputation to the governor seeking an end to hostilities and the later killings that had followed. Maigo, of the Wadjuk went as a messenger, and the Binjareb promised support for actions of the governor. With the Wadjuk camped at the fresh water Doodinup spring at what is now Spring Street, and the Binjareb camped at the Deedyallup water-hole near the present ABC Building, a joint corroboree and distribution of 50 loaves of bread sealed the peace. Calyute survived the massacre, but his continued existence annoyed Thomas Peel. Calyute equally hated Peel, biting his beard whenever he saw his old enemy.
From the diary of John Septimus Roe
'8.35 proceeded SE... ...heard the call of natives to the northward, being close at hand we made for them... ...advancing for the purpose of bringing on an interview... ...the natives although making much noise amongst themselves, would not answer the calls to them. Capt. Ellis & Mr. Norcott, with three of the mounted police were despatched across the ford to ascertain if the party belonged to the tribe of Kal-yute (which had recently committed some great outrages & for the purpose jointly with that of protection for the present exploring party the mounted force had accompanied us.) In a few minutes the loud shouting and yelling of the natives told us the whites were discovered & firing immediately commenced on the left bank... ...The firing continued upwards and followed the retreating voices of the natives for upwards of an hour.
On approach of the Police toward the natives, they started up from their fires, about 70 or 80 in number, & began retreating so soon however as it was ascertained that they were the obnoxious tribe, the firing commenced at full charge, in which the chief, Capt. Ellis was wounded in the temple & knocked off his horse by a spear... ...the same native wounded one of the police, P. Heffron, in the right arm so as to completely disable him... ...after the first charge which killed 4 or 5, the natives retreated to the river intending apparently to cross over by another ford 1/2 a mile lower down - in this they were completely frustrated by meeting the remainder of the armed force headed by the Governor... ...In this dilemma they took to hiding themselves amongst the bushes and dead logs of the river banks, & were picked off by the party on either shore. This was not however done without much resistance on the part of the natives... ...between 15 and 20 were shot dead, very few wounded being suffered to escape, until at length it being considered that punishment of the tribe for the numerous murders it had committed, was sufficiently exemplary... ...as the idea of prosecuting the object of our exped was now at an end, on account of the severe example made of the natives, at 10.5 am - remounted & proceeded tow mouth of Murray.'
Pinjarra, Western Australia
Pinjarra is a town in the Peel region of Western Australia along the South Western Highway, from the state capital, Perth and south-east of the coastal city of Mandurah. Its local government area is the Shire of Murray. At the 2006 census, Pinjarra had a population of 3,279.Pinjarra is an area...
between a group of 60 to 80 Australian Aborigines
Australian Aborigines
Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...
and a detachment of 25 soldiers and policemen led by Governor James Stirling
James Stirling (Australian governor)
Admiral Sir James Stirling RN was a British naval officer and colonial administrator. His enthusiasm and persistence persuaded the British Government to establish the Swan River Colony and he became the first Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Western Australia...
in 1834. The name 'battle' is disputed by some who argue that the event was part of an invasion of Aboriginal lands and that the name 'battle' disguises the true nature of the conflict, which was more of a "massacre
Massacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
" in which wounded Aboriginal combatants were killed together with women and children.
The background
Robert Menli Lyon had commented on the fact that some of the soldiers from Tasmania would as soon shoot an Aboriginal as shoot a kangaroo and there had been Aboriginal payback attacks on settlers, including the killing of Nesbitt, a servant of Thomas PeelThomas Peel
Mr. Peel, he moans, took him from England to Swan River, West Australia, means of subsistence and of production to the amount of £50,000. Mr. Peel had the foresight to bring with him, besides, 300 persons of the working-class, men, women, and children. Once arrived at his destination, "Mr. Peel was...
. Captain Frederick Irwin
Frederick Irwin
Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Chidley Irwin was acting Governor of Western Australia from 1847 to 1848.Born in 1788 in Enniskillen, Ireland, Frederick Chidley Irwin was the son of Reverend James Irwin. In 1808, he was commissioned into the 83rd Regiment of Foot...
, the lieutenant governor in Stirling's absence, had inflamed the situation, adopting a soldier's attitude to crush a warlike group of Aborigines and reduce them to a state of subjection.
It was this unyielding, overbearing attitude that had alienated [Irwin] from the body of Swan River settlers and caused them to burn him in effigy on the eve of his departure. It was a narrow, regimented view of frontier problems and, perhaps, part of the blame for the Pinjarra massacre can be attributed to Irwin and his unsympathetic administration of Aboriginal affairs during James Stirling's absence.
Governor Stirling had been visiting the 400-km-distant seaport of Albany
Albany, Western Australia
Albany is a port city in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, some 418 km SE of Perth, the state capital. As of 2009, Albany's population was estimated at 33,600, making it the 6th-largest city in the state....
and bad weather caused his return to be delayed until September. In response to calls from Pinjarra settlers for protection against the increased hostility of local Binjareb Aborigines led by Calyute
Calyute
Calyute also known as Kalyute, Galyute or Wongir, was an Indigenous Australian resistance leader who was involved in a number of battles with white settlers and members of other tribes in the early days of the Swan River Colony, in Western Australia. He was a member of the Pindjarup people from...
, Stirling organised a mounted force of police, bushmen and ex-soldiers. Their brief was to protect settlers, safeguard Aboriginal mail-carriers and confront the Binjareb on the Murray River. A small garrison at Dandalup had been withdrawn from fear of Aboriginal reprisals after they had shot some Aboriginal people.
The Binjareb tribe had a reputation with other local Aboriginal tribes for their aggression and attacks on other Aborigines and settlers. It is possible that their motives for attacking the local settlers were part of an attempt to assert their power amongst other local tribes and to take advantage of the political upheaval caused by the arrival of the British settlers, and the death of many Perth Wadjuk Aborigines. Stirling and others, drawing on the experience of Scottish clans and native American Indians of North America, were afraid of a possible alliance between the Binjareb and Weeip's Wadjuk people in the Upper Swan, and sought to prevent such an alliance by an attack on the Aboriginal people to the south. Stirling's attack at Pinjarra was specifically to collectively punish the Binjareb for their earlier individual attacks, to re-establish a barracks on the road to the south, and enable Thomas Peel to attract settlers into his lands at Mandurah. This followed an earlier failure by Surveyor General Septimus Roe and pastoralist Thomas Peel
Thomas Peel
Mr. Peel, he moans, took him from England to Swan River, West Australia, means of subsistence and of production to the amount of £50,000. Mr. Peel had the foresight to bring with him, besides, 300 persons of the working-class, men, women, and children. Once arrived at his destination, "Mr. Peel was...
who had led an expedition to the area with the goal of improving security and negotiating peaceful co-existence. Stirling wanted a "decisive action" that would end the attacks "once and for all".
Preparations
Stirling had wanted to begin on the 17th October, but a Murray man seen in Perth was suspected of being a spy for Calyute and so the expedition was delayed one week.On the morning of Saturday 25 October, Stirling and Roe left Perth and travelled southwards to the Preston Ferry, there waiting for surveyor George Smyth and Corporal Delmidge, who had brought supplies south by boat from Perth. Spare horses from the ferry were loaded with supplies as the party set off to Hamilton Hill
Hamilton Hill, Western Australia
Hamilton Hill is a suburb of Perth, the capital city of Western Australia, and is located southwest of Perth's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Cockburn.-History:...
, skirting Fremantle
Fremantle, Western Australia
Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...
to the East. There they were joined by Captain Ellis and the five mounted police, superintendent Richard Meares and his son, Seymour. They then rode south to Thomas Peel's where they were joined by Mr Peel and two others. On the morning of 27 October, ten soldiers of the 21st regiment, two corporals and eight privates arrived at Peel's homestead to join the party. Ammunition was issued to a party on 27 October 1834, and they were issued with several weeks' supplies, as the soldiers were to remain at Pinjarra and establish the planned garrison there. Leaving Peel's farm they crossed the Serpentine River and went forward to the Murray delta where tracks of a sizable group of Aboriginal men women and children were discovered heading towards Pinjarra. In the late afternoon, they camped at Jinjanuk, 10 miles from the mouth of the Murray River, so that they could begin the attack early next morning when they judged the Aboriginal group would be least prepa
The battle
The group was awoken two hours before dawn on 28 October, and ate breakfast in the dark. By 8 am, the party had rejoined the Murray where the river was 30 metres wide, between steep red loam banks, continuing northwards to cross the Oakley brook at about 8.35am. Peel approached along the western bank of the river and returned to tell of a settlement of about 20 barkBark
Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...
beehive shaped mia mia
Mia Mia (shelter)
A Mia Mia is a temporary shelter made of bark, branches, leaves and grass used by some Indigenous Australians. It is also used in Australian English to mean a temporary shelter. It comes from the language Wada Wurrung.-External links:...
s in the bend of the river. The weather broke and it started to rain heavily as Captain Ellis, Mr Norcott and three of the police attacked from the south.
The Aboriginal men gathered up their spear
Spear
A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head.The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with bamboo spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastened to the shaft, such as flint, obsidian, iron, steel or...
s and woomeras
Woomera (spear-thrower)
A woomera is an Australian Aboriginal spear-throwing device used for when there is a greater distance to be overcome. It is highly efficient and made of wood. Similar to an atlatl, it enables a spear to travel much further than by arm strength alone...
, as the women and children fled towards the river, where Captain Stirling, Captain Meares, Thomas Peel and 12 others were waiting in hiding. Ellis was soon in a melee with the Aborigines, and Norcott, recognising a troublemaker called Noonaar, shot him with his double-barrelled shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
, causing the first casualty. Five or more Aboriginal people were killed in the first charge, and the remainder of the Aboriginal group then turned and ran towards the river, intending to cross and scatter into the hills. One of the eldest women in the tribe, Teelak, was shot dead with her 4-year-old daughter screaming violently. At least 13 other children and women were then shot.
Stirling, hearing the shots reacted quickly. Roe was sent with four others to prevent the group escaping south and guard the pack horses at the ford. The governor and 14 others in a line abreast then ambushed the surprised Aborigines who had crossed the river. Ellis had been dislodged from his horse but Norcott continued pushing the group into the river where they were caught in a withering crossfire. The flood-scoured slopes gave the men, women and children little cover as they tried to hide behind what logs or bushes there were. Many ducked into the water, holding their breath as long as they could. Some tried to float downstream out of range, but the water was too shallow to permit their escape. They, too, were shot. Roe's journal records "Very few wounded were suffered to escape". Soldiers fired indiscriminately at those caught in the ambush and, when all had been slain, the posse remounted to chase the others who had fled north into the bush. By 10.05am it was all over and, because of the serious condition of two of the European wounded, Stirling decided to return immediately to Mandurah.
Casualties
On the settlers' side, Corporal Heffron was wounded in the arm, but recovered to later take part in Balardong Aboriginal massacres in the YorkYork, Western Australia
York is the oldest inland town in Western Australia, situated 97 km east of Perth in the Avon Valley near Northam, and is the seat of the Shire of York...
area. Captain Ellis was suffering concussion, either from a glancing blow from a spear or from the fall off his horse, and later died on the 11th of November after having been in a coma for two weeks. A folk ballad, The Jackets of Green, honouring Ellis, was later composed and sung around Guildford and Perth taverns.
On the Aboriginal side there are conflicting reports. 60-70 Aboriginal men, women and children in the camp had been subjected to intensive fire of 24 guns for an hour, and for another half hour the survivors were hunted through the bush. No male prisoners were taken alive and all wounded were immediately shot. At the end of hostilities 8 women and a few children were taken as captives. In his report, Stirling claimed 15 Aboriginal men had been killed. Roe estimated the dead at 15-20. But these numbers don't seem to have included women and children. Captain Daniel, whom Stirling sent to survey the "battleground" later, implied that many more were killed than officially acknowledged, as he found several mass graves, but the rain and his fear of an attack made exhuming the bodies for an official count impossible.
Francis Armstrong and Thomas Peel later attempted an official count by interviewing the Aborigines Ninda and Colling, who had been present. Some 11 names were given but, in view of the prohibition in Noongar culture against speaking of the dead, their task was almost impossible. Amongst the dead were Unia, Calyute's youngest son, and Gummol who had been flogged for his part in the earlier attack on Shenton's Mill. Two of Calyute's wives were amongst the wounded; Yornup's lower leg had been shot away, and Mindip had been shot in the left arm and right thigh.
At the end of the hostilities, Stirling gave the natives a terrifying warning. If there were any retaliatory payback killings from the Binjareb, he declared, "not one would be allowed to remain alive on this side of the Mountains (i.e., the Darling Scarp
Darling Scarp
The Darling Scarp, also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north-south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, Western Australia...
)".
Consequences
The consequences of the massacreMassacre
A massacre is an event with a heavy death toll.Massacre may also refer to:-Entertainment:*Massacre , a DC Comics villain*Massacre , a 1932 drama film starring Richard Barthelmess*Massacre, a 1956 Western starring Dane Clark...
seem to have increased and intensified the settlers' fears rather than allayed them. The belief that Aboriginal people would unite to drive the colonists out persisted into the 1850s when there was another massacre of Aborigines gathering for a corroboree
Corroboree
A corroboree is a ceremonial meeting of Australian Aborigines. The word was coined by the European settlers of Australia in imitation of the Aboriginal word caribberie. At a corroboree Aborigines interact with the Dreamtime through dance, music and costume. Many ceremonies act out events from the...
at Whiteman Park
Whiteman Park
Whiteman Park is a 4000-hectare/40-square-kilometre bushland area located 22 km north of Perth, Western Australia...
near Guildford
Guildford, Western Australia
Guildford is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located 13 km northeast of the city. Its Local Government Area is the City of Swan.-History:Guildford was established in 1829 on the Swan River, being sited near a permanent fresh water supply...
. Mounted police continued regular patrols in the area, and the police force at Mandurah continued, though there was no further trouble. Thomas Peel continued to call for action to wipe out and exterminate the rest of the Binjareb, whom he called "a nest of hornets", although there were no further payback reprisals.
The killing of so many Binjareb caused a major population imbalance between rival Aboriginal groups, with Swan and Canning Wadjuk and York Balardong attempting to profit from the decimation of the Murray Binjareb. Stirling also personally profited, as he was able to take ownership of Binjareb lands in the Harvey district, untroubled.
Five months after the battle, the Murray group sent a deputation to the governor seeking an end to hostilities and the later killings that had followed. Maigo, of the Wadjuk went as a messenger, and the Binjareb promised support for actions of the governor. With the Wadjuk camped at the fresh water Doodinup spring at what is now Spring Street, and the Binjareb camped at the Deedyallup water-hole near the present ABC Building, a joint corroboree and distribution of 50 loaves of bread sealed the peace. Calyute survived the massacre, but his continued existence annoyed Thomas Peel. Calyute equally hated Peel, biting his beard whenever he saw his old enemy.
From the diary of John Septimus RoeJohn Septimus RoeJohn Septimus Roe was the first Surveyor-General of Western Australia. He was a renowned explorer, and a Member of Western Australia's Legislative and Executive Councils for nearly 40 years.-Early life:...
'8.35 proceeded SE... ...heard the call of natives to the northward, being close at hand we made for them... ...advancing for the purpose of bringing on an interview... ...the natives although making much noise amongst themselves, would not answer the calls to them. Capt. Ellis & Mr. Norcott, with three of the mounted police were despatched across the ford to ascertain if the party belonged to the tribe of Kal-yute (which had recently committed some great outrages & for the purpose jointly with that of protection for the present exploring party the mounted force had accompanied us.) In a few minutes the loud shouting and yelling of the natives told us the whites were discovered & firing immediately commenced on the left bank... ...The firing continued upwards and followed the retreating voices of the natives for upwards of an hour.On approach of the Police toward the natives, they started up from their fires, about 70 or 80 in number, & began retreating so soon however as it was ascertained that they were the obnoxious tribe, the firing commenced at full charge, in which the chief, Capt. Ellis was wounded in the temple & knocked off his horse by a spear... ...the same native wounded one of the police, P. Heffron, in the right arm so as to completely disable him... ...after the first charge which killed 4 or 5, the natives retreated to the river intending apparently to cross over by another ford 1/2 a mile lower down - in this they were completely frustrated by meeting the remainder of the armed force headed by the Governor... ...In this dilemma they took to hiding themselves amongst the bushes and dead logs of the river banks, & were picked off by the party on either shore. This was not however done without much resistance on the part of the natives... ...between 15 and 20 were shot dead, very few wounded being suffered to escape, until at length it being considered that punishment of the tribe for the numerous murders it had committed, was sufficiently exemplary... ...as the idea of prosecuting the object of our exped was now at an end, on account of the severe example made of the natives, at 10.5 am - remounted & proceeded tow mouth of Murray.'