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114 within sight of his hut, when some Blacks came down the hill behind, got in at a window, and murdered the wife and child before the settler knew they were there.

A treacherous act is recorded. An armed man travelling with his wife was met by some Natives. One of the latter sang out, "White man lay down gun, Black man lay down spear." The simple fellow agreed. But while one came up smiling to shake hands, another got behind and felled the Englishman with his waddy. Spears finished him, and the wife was left for dead. Mr. Hobbs' two stockmen were attacked by a large mob on York Plains, on the northern side of the island. For five hours, by shots and a bold front, they kept the foes at bay. But when the long grass was fired by the miscreants, and the wind drove smoke and flame over them, the Bushmen ran for their lives, and did not obtain assistance till half an hour had passed. These, and other convict servants, felt it to be a hard case that they should be thus exposed to continual terror, while protecting the property of the masters to whom they were assigned as little better than slaves, and subject to be severely flogged for any supposed neglect of duty. As one very properly observed, that on being sentenced to transportation, it was not a part of the punishment that they were to be exposed to the chance of being speared by savages.

Within six years, 121 outrages by the Blacks were recorded in Oatlands (central) district alone. Mr. Anstey, P.M. of Oatlands, held twenty-one inquests upon murdered persons between 1827 and 1830. I was informed that there were in the Public Office one thousand pages of MSS. upon these inquests and outrages.

In the meantime parties were nominated for the capture of the Blacks; for the account of which the reader is referred to the next chapter, a continuance of the Black War. Then we read in the annals of 1829 such stories as these: "Nine men taken and three killed, near St. Paul's River;" "Ten men shot and two taken near the Eastern Marshes." A letter from Swanport, in September 1829, says: "Boomer, the black native, having struck the sergeant of the detachment to which he was acting as guide in pursuit of the Aborigines, endeavoured to escape, and received the reward of his treachery and presumption by being shot dead." But from another letter some explanation is given. The man Boomer, or Bruni Island Jack,