CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Agitation and Armament

1830, Spring

Hobart, and Command HQ

Deflecting and Recruiting

The decision to mobilise the colony changed the way that the Lieutenant Governor dealt with applications from would-be roving party leaders. On 14 September 1830, a few days after issuing the first government notice of the General Movement, the Colonial Secretary replied to Simpson at Campbell Town about one such application that had been forwarded to Hobart:

I am directed to request that you will communicate to the Messrs Darke, that The Lieutenant Governor is very much obliged by their offers to take charge of parties in pursuit of the Aborigines, and that His Excellency would have taken their propositions into consideration, but that the Government has come into the determination to make a vigorous and general effort, in which the Settlers will be called upon to join in the month of October next (as they will learn from the Gazette); His Excellency however trusts that they will unite their exertions, with the Police of their District, in the combined movement which will be directed against the Natives.¹

It was the second such application from the Campbell Town district rejected that day. ‘Mr J W Massey’ was also informed that ‘the general measure about to be adopted … prevents The Lieutenant Governor accepting his services in an especial manner but His Excellency will most gladly avail himself of them in furtherance of the above more extended operations’.²

Throughout the Vandemonian War the Colonial Secretary received a significant volume of correspondence from settlers offering their services against Aboriginal people. Some reached Hobart directly from settlers, others via police magistrates or various patrons either writing on an applicant’s behalf or forwarding their proposal.

The September 1830 application from the Darkes was at least the second from this family. A year earlier, in August 1829, Assistant Surveyor John Helder Wedge wrote to the government on behalf of ‘Willm Darke, a relative of mine’, who was offering to lead a roving party for 12 months.³ ‘In the Absence of Sydney Natives’, Wedge noted, likely referring to Batman’s party, Darke could field a team drawn from ‘the Sealers in Bass’ Straits’. Wedge was sure that these men ‘would gladly lend their aid’ if they were ‘remunerated’. ‘The fact of their having a number of native women with them, whom they take by surprise and force,’ he added, ‘is a proof they would be efficient if they were employed’, noting also that Darke was ‘ready to cooperate with these men’. While this application was politely rejected, it did not stop the Darkes trying again in 1830.

The prospects of land and salaries seem to have inspired many applicants and a range of schemes. Andrew Barry, in his August 1829 application, drew attention to his prior experiences:

having had much experience in his native Country, in assisting to capture the Indians, would gladly render every possible aid in capturing the Aborigines in this Colony for which he feels himself fully competent.⁴

He hoped for ‘a moderate Salary with Rations, and a location of Fifty Acres of Land’. Arthur’s response at the time was blunt: ‘Refused. It will be better, I think, to take prisoners’. Among surviving papers is a wealth of documentation regarding the selection and appointment of convicts and servants to the various field police and roving parties, including assessments of their characters and the terms of their promised indulgences.

These applications have become the only means of documenting many of these schemes. While plenty were rejected by Arthur, others were approved, or went through a series of discussions, which reveal something about their implementation. One example is the case of Edward Wilson Hodgson, a convict who responded to Arthur’s February 1830 government notice that promised a reward for any person willing to undertake a reconciliation.⁵ Hodgson proposed taking two men with him:

to look out for their fires by night, and when so done lay by till day break then make towards them, and give my fire arms to the men who I should wish to remain in the rear, and then if possible go amongst them and leave my fate to him above who is always ready to assist in a good and just cause. I should then by motions, signs, and little trifling presents endeavour to gain their friendship.

Forwarding Hodgson’s letter, Anstey noted that ‘Hodgson is one of the best behaved Convicts that I have met with in this Colony’, adding that ‘I shall be very sorry if the poor man’s life should be forfeited by his temerity’, clearly unimpressed with the idea of such a pacific approach.

Arthur’s response, however, was to instruct Anstey to see this man, ‘hear what he says, make any suggestion that occurs to him, & then forward him on to Hobart’. Arthur also promised Hodgson ‘a Pardon’ if he was successful, and thought that ‘Capt Clarke’s at the Clyde’ was ‘The best situation for making the attempt’, where the woman had been spared during a raid. Anstey ordered Hodgson to head to Hobart in early March 1830 ‘to get furnished with the Beads, Trinkets, &c’.

Personnel Overlap and Tactical Continuities

This body of correspondence connected with applicants and their parties also reveals some of the networks among the convicts and settlers as well as insight into the workings of the roving parties and how they continued into the general mobilisation. Successful applicants generally had some personal connections to people in positions of power, and then could draw on their own networks to form teams, thereby providing a pool of experienced men upon whom Arthur could call in the spring of 1830. Back in April, for instance, both Danvers and Scott made formal representations about their parties, each highlighting Arthur’s ultimate oversight. Danvers wrote to Anstey on 2 April:

With reference to His Excellency’s orders that I should be permitted to select some prisoners of the crown to proceed with me on a particular Service I beg to recommend the four undermentioned prisoners of the Crown. James Hewitt is keeper of a very few bullocks belonging to the Government at Oatlands. Henry Thomson and John Oliver belong to the Public Works at Oatlands. Francis Cains is assigned Servant to Mr McLeod at Campbell Town, but has his master’s permission to join my party.⁶

All were approved for the mission, excepting John Oliver ‘on account of the number of Offences he has committed’.

In forwarding Danvers’ letter to Hobart, Anstey mentioned to the Colonial Secretary that Arthur and Danvers had conversed about the roving parties and rewards for service, referring to ‘The conditions of Peter Scott’s and Danvers’ appointments, which His Excellency ment[ione]d to Danvers verbally on Tuesday last’. Anstey also mentioned that ‘His Excellency said he had ordered, previous to his leaving Town, a Ticket of Leave for J[ohn] Danvers.’ It meant that Arthur’s tour of the interior involved discussion with some of the convict roving party leaders, as well as the police magistrates and gentlemen rovers like Batman. It points to that wider phenomenon of verbal communications and orders, now largely invisible.

While Danvers called his mission a ‘particular Service’, Peter Scott’s April letter claimed he had ‘been given to understand that His Excellency has been pleased to signify that I should proceed on a special Service’.⁷ Scott listed five convicts, including one ‘sometimes employed as a Shoemaker to the roving parties at Oatlands’. As with Danvers’ letter, an annotation by Anstey reveals the Lieutenant Governor personally directed the operations just at that moment when he seemed to decentralise them away from Anstey. Scott’s nominated men were ‘ordered to place themselves under his orders, at Miles’s Opening and places in that vicinity, agreeably to His Excellency’s suggestion on Tuesday last’.

Anstey also noted on Scott’s letter that ‘Most of the men now employed under Jorgenson have nearly completed their period of Service’. The abandonment of the roving parties may have appeared intentional, but it all fitted within a larger frame of personnel shifts – much of which related to convict service and punishment.

So while individual rovers came and went, the roving parties continued. Even the determination on the General Movement in the spring of 1830 did not see the end of individual roving missions. One case particularly illustrates the continuities with perfect timing. On 16 September 1830, two days after rejecting proposals from the Darkes and Massey on the grounds of an imminent ‘general measure’, the Colonial Secretary finalised arrangements for a ‘proposed expedition against the hostile Aborigines’ led by Nicolas Fortosa.⁸

Fortosa’s Special Force

When Arthur visited the interior in March and April 1830 he met with the police magistrate of Campbell Town. In late April, Simpson noted that ‘The Lieutenant Governor … authorised me to raise a Band for the purpose of capturing the native Tribes.’⁹ Simpson’s correspondent was not the Colonial Secretary, who normally dealt with such matters, but Arthur’s private secretary William Parramore. Explaining that he had told Arthur he ‘could procure an intelligent active person to head a party’, Simpson nominated Nicolas Fortosa, who would soon be in Hobart. Simpson suggested ‘that [Fortosa] should be furnished with all the necessary supplies of Slops, Bedding, Arms &c for himself and party’. But lacking ‘His Excellency’s authority to enter into particulars’ with Fortosa, because the terms of service involved the promise of ‘Land’, Simpson hoped Fortosa could ‘wait upon His Excellency’ to work out the full details of his contract in person.

Fortosa, or Turtosa as he was also sometimes called, had been in the colony for about two decades. Born in Rome, Fortosa was an Italian ex-convict who had been transported for life from Malta on the Indefatigable in 1812.¹⁰ He was 37 years old when he arrived in Van Diemen’s Land, had dark hair and eyes, and a very slim convict conduct record. In 1816 he was acquitted on a charge of ‘Cutting & maiming’. Evidence from New South Wales reveals Fortosa was shipped to Sydney to act as a witness in a criminal trial in late 1819.¹¹ The following year he was conditionally pardoned. After that, his record is silent. In early 1830 Fortosa was presumably known to Simpson, but on paper he was the closest thing to a ghost of any of the expedition applicants. As well as being an ex-convict, Fortosa was also an ex-soldier. He served in the Royal Sicilian Regiment, and was in Malta towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars.¹²

By the end of June Arthur was supportive of Fortosa’s appointment. ‘This proposal is from a man who I think is more likely to be useful in the bush than any I have yet seen,’ he wrote on the back of another note from Simpson.¹³ Fortosa wanted ‘a party of Crown Prisoners (nine) under his orders’, with a scale of rewards for them after 12 months of service. The government should supply ‘Arms, Ammunition and Blankets’, but Fortosa wanted 2 shillings per day instead of government rations and clothing. He probably hoped this would avoid some of the problems previous roving parties had with getting provisions and the administration of receipts, but it would also facilitate their operations throughout the island, including beyond the prescribed limits of martial law. In addition to these conditions, Fortosa wanted ‘Five pounds reward for each native captured’, to be shared by the party, and further rewards for Fortosa including a large land grant.

‘Nicholas Fortosa is ready to start,’ Arthur informed the Colonial Secretary, authorising most of the convicts who volunteered for this service to join the party. A list of the proposed roving party reveals that among the volunteers was at least one other ex-soldier, a deserter by the name of Samuel Duffield.¹⁴ Yet despite the apparent readiness of the leader, a month later the formalities were still being worked out. On 30 July Arthur minuted that he had seen Fortosa ‘and approve of his services’.¹⁵ Fortosa was engaged for 12 months largely as he had proposed. The scaled rewards were agreed, as was the size of the roving party. The daily pay of 2 shillings in lieu of rations was raised by sixpence. Arthur stuck to the bounty scale by clarifying that while adult captives would earn the party £5, children were at the rate of £2 each. The Lieutenant Governor also modified the terms of the reward of land, noting that Fortosa ‘for his personal services, will be allowed One Thousand Acres of Land, unrestricted provided the Party captures 20 adult Natives’.

Arthur delegated the selection of convicts to Simpson, who could organise their appointment with their respective masters. By 16 September the arrangements for Fortosa’s party were almost complete. The convicts attached to the mission had been formally approved and the Colonial Secretary advised Simpson that the ‘Arms, Ammunition and Blankets for the party will be, immediately forwarded.’¹⁶ Moreover, Arthur gave a further piece of advice to Simpson about how Fortosa’s rewards were to be calculated:

The Lieut Governor has approved of the Reward of One thousand acres of Land, to Fortosa, being increased in quantity or diminished, according as the number of Natives captured shall exceed or fall short of Twenty, as, also should the party be unavoidably compelled to use violence, and loss of life ensure, that the Capture thus made, shall be admitted a claim for reward.¹⁷

With that, Arthur approved paying bounties for Aboriginal people killed by Fortosa’s party. The Colonial Secretary concluded his letter by advising that ‘The Lieutenant Governor expects Nicholas Fortosa will speedily take the field.’ Arthur clearly wanted this mission underway before the General Movement began.

Veterans and Preliminaries

Fortosa was not the only man being picked for service in advance of the forthcoming operations. Jorgenson’s retirement from government service was relatively short-lived. The Hobart Town Courier ran a short piece in early September about Jorgenson having ‘a narrow escape … from the furious attack of a bull, who is said to have gone mad near Bothwell’.¹⁸ The story was among others about Aboriginal hostilities. They had ‘pillaged’ a supply cart on its return journey after it ‘conveyed the baggage of a detachment of the 17th regt’, and the ‘same horde attacked’ another hut ‘and were beaten off by Constable Lawrence and others’. They had also ‘crossed from the westward into the district about Ben Lomond, from which’, the newspaper stated, ‘we had hoped the late exertions of Mr. Batman had effectually removed them.’ Finally, ‘a party of the blacks robbed Lieutenant Hill’s shepherd’s hut on the Elizabeth river’. The message was simple: they were all over the place, and they were still dangerous.

While the story about Jorgenson was more about the bull than the former roving party leader, it highlighted his continued association with the Bothwell district. A few weeks after resigning from the field police, Jorgenson was charged at Bothwell ‘with being drunk and disorderly’ and fined 5 shillings.¹⁹ Curiously, the same day, Norah Corbett – the woman with whom Jorgenson had previously been accused of associating – was also fined 5 shillings in Bothwell for the same offence.

By mid-September Jorgenson was back in the midlands. On the morning of 16 September he and Anstey had a conversation, most likely at Anstey Barton. Jorgenson followed this with a letter explaining his decision to quit the field police, and offering his services for the ‘levy en masse’ as the mobilisation of the soldiers and settlers-militant was sometimes being called.²⁰ Jorgenson went on to offer some advice for the operations:

It strikes me that amongst the multitudes that will be called into the bush there will be some well qualified to perform the duties required of them, and others less so. I would therefore undertake to place those less qualified in the very spots where they might do good service, whilst the more active and experienced men should take another range.

Pointing out that good rations and accessible provision depots were crucial to the smooth running of operations, Jorgenson also highlighted that many knapsacks would be needed and suggested someone issue ‘authority to purchase Kangaroo Skins’ so the parties could make their own. Jorgenson also suggested that if he could have ‘a horse’ then he could rapidly lead parties to ‘their cruising grounds’. He asked to ‘be gazetted as a special constable’.

Anstey forwarded the letter for Arthur’s attention, recommending Jorgenson ‘to His Excellency’s favourable notice’, adding that ‘Jorgenson is eminently well qualified to take the lead’ in either a field or administrative role during the operations, and agreeing with Jorgenson’s ideas about ‘Depots being established’. Then Anstey added one final message: ‘Thinking that the Lieut Governor may wish to see Jorgenson before the meeting at noon today, I now send him to Oatlands for that purpose.’

This highlights that Arthur, Anstey and Douglas were already coordinating in advance, meeting in the geographical heart of the operations weeks before they were due to commence. With them were members of the survey department, drawing lines on maps in readiness for Arthur’s campaign.

The Plan of General Movement

The final plan of operation was gazetted five days after this meeting in Government Order 11, dated 22 September 1830.²¹ The main targets were ‘the Oyster Bay and Big River tribes, as the most sanguinary’. The general plan was to form lines of soldiers and militia at the fringes of the settled districts and manoeuvre them in advancing sweeps before coming together into greater concentrations as the lines joined together. By this Arthur hoped to drive Aboriginal people south and east into the Tasman Peninsula. While the operation came to be called ‘the Black Line’, it was really a series of units operating in conjunction. Their positions in relation to each other formed sweeping or stationary lines at different points in the campaign.

While the plan was essentially simple, its execution was as complex as the campaign was massive. Government Order 11 had 29 numbered clauses, which detailed only the most general movements that the wider public needed to know about. There were two main divisions of troops, one under Major Douglas that extended east to west across the north, and another under Captain Wentworth which curved north to south along the west, basically shadowing the old line of martial law. These two major fronts were supported by supplementary divisions. On 7 October all forces were to move into their starting positions, effectively sealing the settled districts. They were then to commence advancing towards another predetermined position, which formed a secondary line, by the afternoon of 12 October.

Individual elements within these divisions were given geographical targets deserving of minute examination. In the north, part of Major Douglas’s left flank was directed to ‘thoroughly examine the country between their first stations and the head of the Macquarie’. This encompassed Tooms Lake and the nearby upper waterways that had previously been sites of contact and conflict. The military units were ‘strengthened’ by the addition of ‘roving parties under Mr. Batman’. On Douglas’s right flank, to assist in the movement across the midlands, the soldiers were supplemented by over 40 parties of settlers which were supposed to be formed ‘into parties of ten’. At ‘Major Douglas’s extreme right’, the division was ‘supported’ by a mixture of ‘roving parties’, ‘police’, and 10-man ‘volunteer parties’ from the Oatlands district. Douglas’s combined force was ordered to move south into its secondary line, which the soldiers could identify in relation to key landmarks. Where there were multiple peaks which could cause confusion, large fires were supposed to be lit as guidance beacons.

Meanwhile, a supplementary operation in the east coast district aimed to trap Aboriginal people on the Schoutens. The constables and settlers normally situated on the neck of land connecting the peninsula to the mainland were to ‘withdraw before the 7th October, in order that nothing may tend to deter the native tribes from passing the Isthmus’. Then, with a large force of military, settlers-militant, police and ‘whatever force can be collected’, Lieutenant Aubin was directed to move in, sweep the coast and seal the peninsula:

Between the 7th and 12th of October, Lieutenant Aubin will thoroughly examine the tier extending from the head of the Swan River, north, down to Spring Bay, the southern extremity of his district, … On the 12th, Lieutenant Aubin will occupy the passes in the tier which the Natives are known most to frequent, and will communicate with the extreme left of Major Douglas’s line; taking up the best points of observation, and causing at the same time a most minute reconnaissance to be kept upon the Schoutens, in case the Natives should pass into that Peninsula, as they are in the habit of doing either for shell-fish or eggs, in which case he will promptly carry into effect the instructions with which he has already been furnished.

Those instructions, presumably, were to seal the neck.

On the western front, the situation was more complex. Captain Wentworth’s western line was really an arrangement of forces which pushed up the rivers and high country plains. He was instructed to:

push a strong detachment, under the orders of Lieutenant Croly, from Bothwell towards the Great Lake, for the purpose of thoroughly examining St. Patrick’s Plains and the banks of the Shannon, extending its left on retiring to the Clyde, towards the Lagoon of Islands, and its right towards Lake Echo.

This detachment was ‘assisted by the roving parties under Sherwin and Doran’. Another detachment of soldiers from Hamilton, led by Captain Vicary, were to take up positions ‘across the Clyde, to occupy the western bank of the Ouse’. It was similarly supported by parties of settlers and field police. A third detachment under Lieutenant Murray was ‘to scour the country on the west bank of the Ouse’ from the north

bank of the Derwent River. They were to be supported by ‘volunteers and ticket-of-leave men from Hobart Town and its neighbourhood’. Between 7 and 12 October these three detachments were supposed ‘to drive towards the Clyde whatever tribes or Natives may be in those quarters’, joining up with ‘Major Douglas’s extreme right’. Supplementary elements of the volunteers and ticket-of-leavers were to be kept in reserve and posted on key passes to help further seal this complex riverine and mountainous front.

A major reserve line was to be occupied by Captain Donaldson, who was directed to advance from Norfolk Plains in the northwestern midlands into the central lakes area, ‘driving in a southerly direction any of the tribes in that quarter’. By 12 October he was supposed to occupy a line from Sorell Lake to Lake Echo. ‘In this important position he will remain, with the view of arresting flight of any tribes towards the west, which might possibly pass through the first line.’ Donaldson was to be supported by settlers and whatever forces could be deployed by the police magistrates of Launceston and Norfolk Plains.

By 12 October all the mobile detachments were supposed to have reached their secondary positions, collectively forming a single line. From Waterloo Point on the east coast to Sorell Lake to Bothwell and Hamilton, the southern midlands were supposed to be sealed. Two days later, on 14 October, another advance was to commence with the northern front pushing southeast and the western front pushing east, both reaching their next positions to form another line by 16 October. Once again hilltop fires would help guide the advances. They were to rest on Sunday 17 October.

On Monday 18 October the northern front again pushed towards the southeast, while only the northern flank of the western front pushed forward to maintain a cordon. They were all to halt on 20 October at another predetermined line, and await ‘further orders’.

The remainder of the government order dealt with rations and ration stations, the equipment that volunteers and servants should bring, the number of guns required for each party and the responsible allocation of weaponry to prisoners. Settlers were advised ‘not to make any movements against the Natives within the circuit occupied by the troops, until the general line reaches them’. The settlers were also advised ‘that the object in view is not to injure or destroy the unhappy savages … but to capture and raise them in the scale of civilization’.

War Fever and Extermination Debated

Arthur’s attempt to represent the General Movement as a humanitarian endeavour stands in striking contrast to the public’s sentiment and to Arthur’s own private instructions. There was much enthusiasm for this combined military offensive. A public meeting was quickly advertised in Hobart after the General Movement was first announced.²² Nominally it was about planning for ‘the Inhabitants of Hobart Town, to undertake a portion of the Military Duty in the Town’ such ‘that as many Soldiers as possible shall be at the disposal of the Government, for duty in the Interior’.

The government may have had a hand in organising or at least encouraging the meeting. On the same day the public meeting was advertised, the Colonial Secretary wrote to the police magistrate at Launceston:

any arrangement which you can make for the performance of the duties in the Town of Launceston, by which all the Military may be enabled to take the field, will be extremely desirable and meeting with the entire approbation of The Lieutenant Governor.²³

Within a week of this letter, a public meeting was advertised in the Launceston Advertiser seeking volunteers ‘to perform the duty of a TOWN GUARD’.²⁴ Like the Hobart meeting, it was scheduled to take place in the town court house.

The Hobart meeting was held on 22 September – the same day the government order detailing the General Movement was gazetted.²⁵ Described by the Hobart Town Courier as ‘one of the most numerous meetings which has yet been held in the colony’, the proceedings commenced with the election of Mr Hone – the settler who kept servants in discreet ambush on his rural property – as chair.

The first speaker, a former soldier, spoke of the necessity of the military action, and moved the first resolution of the day, which insisted on ‘the duty of every man cheerfully to contribute to the common cause, every assistance in his power’.

The second speaker, called upon to second this motion, was Joseph Gellibrand, a former Attorney General of the colony who Arthur had removed from office some years previously. Gellibrand seconded the motion, but also took the opportunity to question the legitimacy of the operations if violence was to be deployed. He stated that ‘a great legal question arises upon the subject’, and suggested ‘that before the proposed operations are commenced, some change in the existing law should be effected’. Gellibrand acknowledged that if an Aboriginal person was known to have ‘committed the dreadful atrocities’ but could not be caught, then ‘it might be justifiable to shoot them’. But he was concerned that such killing could constitute murder in other circumstances.

Solicitor General Alfred Stephen stood up to reply to Gellibrand’s commentary. He pointed out that the substance of Gellibrand’s comments had no clear relation to the purpose of the meeting, and turned the discussion back to the question of a town guard. The resolution ‘was passed unanimously’. But the distraction pointed to tensions within the crowd, as the dovish and hawkish elements of society tussled during what was intended to be a highly scripted event.

The second motion concerned ‘personal service’. Those able to leave Hobart were requested to head into the interior, while those unable to leave Hobart were asked to fill in for the military for a few weeks. The town was, after all, full of convicts, and there was a genuine concern for order and safety. Thomas Horne, local lawyer and proposer of this motion, also took the opportunity to react to Gellibrand’s commentary:

surely he forgets, when he speaks of the indiscriminate slaughter of the blacks, how indiscriminate have been the slaughter of the whites. Surely, he cannot have forgotten that the grass has hardly yet grown over the graves of the two children who were recently so barbarously murdered!

Horne went on to talk about the significance of wool to the colonial economy and the dangers for shepherds in the interior, before addressing the substantive question hovering over the meeting: ‘If therefore extermination is necessary, horrible as is the alternative, I do not see what other means of protection exist.’

Clearly Gellibrand’s comments had caused some agitation. After this motion was seconded and recorded, another speaker got up and proposed a third motion, in which the townspeople effectively agreed to undertake town military duties for five weeks. This too was seconded and recorded. But the proposer, a medical doctor from Hobart, also took issue with ‘what fell from Gellibrand’, as he put the lawyer’s qualms.

Dr Adam Turnbull had served as assistant surgeon in Richmond before taking to private practice in Hobart. He was therefore well placed to comment on the effect of the violence in the interior, more than the lawyers and jurists of Hobart. He argued that the proposed general operations were necessary, and that it was not the place of the public to query their execution. He advocated putting trust in the executive, and like others framed this as a lesser evil to allowing the war to continue as it had been:

The present plan will strike them with dismay – they will be either taken or destroyed, or driven into some of the recesses of the interior. The present warfare of the stock-keepers is infinitely more one of extermination than the proposed one will be. The simultaneous movement will excite terror, not rage.

The next speaker advocated modifying their resolution, such that the town guard was in place earlier than first proposed, so that the soldiers had more time to get to their starting positions.

A fourth resolution followed, addressing the technicalities of the formation of guard units. Because it dealt with ‘mere detail’, the proposer – Alfred Stephen – gave it only brief attention. The guard needed to be about 200 men, cycling every four days, and volunteers had options to choose their preferred place of service. With this formality addressed, Stephen turned to broader issues, taking care for the second time during this meeting to make it clear he was speaking ‘individual sentiments’ rather than as Solicitor General. But as most of the listeners and later readers likely knew, the commentary of such a leading figure of colonial society and government carried great cultural weight. As he went on:

I agree with Mr Horne that the slaughter of the whites has been as indiscriminate as any which can be the result of the proposed operation, and I say, that as they have waged such a war upon the settlers, you are bound to put them down.

He then presented a legal argument, basically suggesting that the colony held a duty of care towards convict servants who were ‘involuntarily sent here’ and exposed to danger. Speaking ‘with much animation’, Stephen spoke directly to Gellibrand’s qualms, picking up on one word in particular that had echoed in the court house over several speeches. ‘I say, sir,’ he declaimed:

that you are bound upon every principle of justice and humanity, to protect this particular class of individuals, and if you cannot do so without extermination, then I say boldly and broadly exterminate!

Stephen then turned to particularities. He stated that he would try to capture Aboriginal people, but admitted that if he could not then ‘I would fire upon them’. He closed by reiterating this point: ‘I am of opinion – capture them if you can, but if you cannot, destroy them.’

Gellibrand tried to push his point, but Stephen waived the concern off as ‘totally inapplicable to the subject before us’. Like many meetings, it drifted into tangential particularities, debated minor points of fact and changed topics. The discussion reflected a community divided about the cause, conduct and proposed termination of the war – divisions that were also reflected in the divergent ways that different newspapers presented the meeting, emphasising or glossing various elements of the proceedings.

But claims for loyalty and necessity carried the day. Eventually the meeting ended after two further resolutions – one forming ‘a standing Committee of fifteen gentlemen’ to oversee the town guard arrangements, the other about reporting the meeting’s resolutions to the Lieutenant Governor. The following day a deputation from the meeting ‘waited upon His Excellency’, and read him their resolutions after a very brief preamble. Arthur replied that their efforts gave him ‘great gratification’. He accepted their assistance, which he characterised as arranged in ‘patriotic a manner’, and looked forward to their ‘vigilance’ in securing the town. He then informed them of the ‘proposed arrangements’ contained in the government order issued on the day of their meeting.

Operational Details, Enlistment and Recruitment

Over the remainder of September and into October Arthur gave directives for the General Movement, much of it recorded by the Colonial Secretary. A ‘Most important’ message to the police magistrate of Richmond was about ‘keeping up a very large fire on the Brown Mountain’, which ‘must be kept up both by day and night’.²⁶ Anstey’s attention was similarly drawn to a fire in his District, ‘on the Blue Hill Bluff’, which also had to be kept up constantly during the allotted period. The Colonial Secretary advised Anstey: ‘have the goodness to send a very careful man on whom you can confide, in charge of a sufficient number of Convicts, to collect wood.’

A horse was also available for Anstey ‘should you require it, in aid of any of Major Douglas’s operations’. A few days later Anstey was sent a letter marked ‘Immediate’, also revealing a key focus on horses:

I am directed by The Lieutenant Governor to request that you will be good enough to purchase for the service of the Government, at the Sherriff’s sale of Darby’s property at York plains, Five Horses which it is understood are for sale, should you consider them suitable for the Mounted Police and should they be sold at a reasonable price. If purchased, the Horses may be handed over to Major Douglas for the purpose of mounting some persons in his division who are not provided with Horses.²⁷

This special purchase was a little unusual, which explains the fact of the correspondence. It unfortunately turned out that there was only one horse for sale from this property, which Anstey called ‘an unsound little animal, utterly unfit for the use of Government’, so he did not buy it.²⁸

In a letter explaining this, Anstey mentioned that the horse was ‘bought by Solomon the Jew’, before going on to describe a few attacks by ‘A Horde of Natives’ who ‘robbed’ one hut, ‘sacked’ another and killed two servants. This sort of continued aggression in part explains the generally positive response to the government’s call to arms, and some members of the community were certainly willing to offer their animals for the aid of the operation. When a lieutenant in the Bothwell district applied to the town adjutant for a horse, the Colonial Secretary noted:

the Settlers have come forward in other Police Districts, and offered to assist the Government on the present occasion with Horses, Carts, &c, and The Lieutenant Governor therefore trusts a similar spirit will induce some of the Inhabitants at the Clyde, to afford the use of their horses for the service of the Government.²⁹

Another letter reveals that in New Norfolk a settler ‘kindly offered the Government four Horses … for the use of the Military and Police, during the approaching movements against the Aborigines.’³⁰ It is only recorded because the Colonial Secretary advised the police magistrate that ‘Saddles and bridles for these Horses, will be forwarded to you by the Ordinance Storekeeper’, to whom they had to be returned after the operations were complete.

There were other procurements. When ‘two of the Government Bullocks’ at Great Swan Port were found to be ‘unfit for use’, Arthur authorised the local assistant police magistrate to purchase two replacements, and ‘cause the two unserviceable ones to be slaughtered and turned into store’.³¹In the west, ‘provisions for the Clyde District’ were going to be temporarily stored at a settler’s residence while the police magistrate arranged ‘to procure carts, to convey them from thence’.³²

As well as food, Arthur also replied to requests for weaponry and ammunition. In fact, as the commencement of operations approached, there were some concerns that the transportation of armaments and ammunition from Hobart to Bothwell and Oatlands had actually taken such precedence that food provisions had been delayed.³³

Arthur was intimately involved in authorising much of this weaponry. He approved ‘four pairs of Pistols and Ammunition’ to New Norfolk although ‘desired that they shall not be issued … to any person who has the means of providing Fire Arms for himself’.³⁴ Fortunately many of the men did arrive already armed. In the Launceston district, most ticket-of-leave men reportedly came with their own guns, although many of these may have included ‘fowling pieces’, which formed the majority of guns held by some 320 men nominally from Launceston and Norfolk Plains that were eventually attached to Captain Donaldson’s force.³⁵ When the Richmond police magistrate applied for ‘a large supply of Ammunition’, Arthur approved the request but cautioned ‘that it must be very sparingly issued, and that not more than five rounds at the very utmost must be given to any individual employed in pursuit of the Aborigines’. Guns and ammunition were expensive, after all, and had to be accounted for later. But this fact also makes it abundantly clear that the General Movement was very well armed.

The post-operation accounting reveals much about the operational arrangements of the General Movement. A subsequent ‘Nominal Return of Persons to whom Arms were delivered’ from the Richmond district, for instance, details 24 men receiving 36 guns.³⁶ As remarks in the margin explained, ‘Those to whom more than one were delivered were Leaders of Parties’. Among these party leaders was John Stewart Spotswood, son of the soldier-settler, who received three guns. Other settler-leaders named Lloyd and Irwin each got two, and Currie and Long took five. Considering that Arthur encouraged settlers to have guns – as did living in a war zone – and he urged them to bring their own for the operation, even these neat accounts only reflect a small proportion of the total number of weapons used.

Another post-operation document, a ‘Return of Arms issued from the Ordinance Magazine for Service against the Hostile Aborigines’, tallies the armaments delivered between 27 September and 6 October.³⁷ On the day before the main fronts began moving, 52 Pistols and 490 ‘Muskets with Ramrods’ were issued. Of these, 32 were for the ‘Provisional Committee Town Guards’. The remainder were delivered to various centres in the southern midlands and western front including Oatlands, New Norfolk and Bothwell. Douglas’s northern volunteers were accounted elsewhere, so are not included in these figures. A further 89 muskets and four bayonets were issued from this magazine during the following weeks.

Giving a sense of the scale of the operations in the north, the commissariat officer complained of the difficulty in getting adequate assistants to issue rations when he reported the requisitions he had received at Launceston for the establishment of depots.³⁸ He itemised five stations each preparing to supply ‘200 [men] for 30 days’, which in total was ‘equal to about 60,000 lbs Biscuit & Meat’. There were another two coastal depots which he did not detail.

Attaching a requisition for ‘probable’ requirements for the operations, the commissariat officer listed a token amount of tobacco, ‘Two thousand pounds of Tea’, ‘Eleven thousand pounds of Sugar’ and ‘One hundred thousand pounds of Salt Beef and Pork’. Making arrangements in response to this, Arthur noted that ‘Capt Donaldson’s Division consists of about 450 Persons’.

So massive was the drain on colonial resources that some families of ticket-of-leave men conscripted to the operation were left without support, and the government stepped in to provide assistance by putting them on ration.³⁹ ‘Mary Ann the wife of John Eagle’, for example, had ‘a Boy 8 years’ and three daughters aged seven, two and nine months. ‘Elizabeth wife of Thos Hubbard’ had a five year old daughter and an infant. ‘Margaret wife of James Boxall’ was ‘An infirm aged woman’. The Colonial Secretary flagged at least 13 women and nineteen children for such aid.⁴⁰

Meanwhile, convict women who were still under sentence were co-opted to the service of the campaign. In the ‘House of Correction for females’ – the Cascades Female Factory near Hobart – arrangements were underway almost as soon as the operations were announced to have the women prepare ‘Clothing for the Soldiers going into the bush’.⁴¹ The output was considerable. ‘No less than 640 pair of trowsers [sic] were made by the women in the Female House of Correction last week,’ the Hobart Town Courier reported on 2 October, ‘for the use of the men employed in the expedition against the blacks.’⁴²

But not all preparation went completely smoothly. On the evening before the movement was supposed to commence, a provisional constable stationed at Bagdad in the southern midlands wrote a hurried and apologetic letter to the Lieutenant Governor.⁴³ Having just ‘this moment received’ a letter detailing ‘your Excellencys [sic] wish that the Parties from this quarter should be forwarded to Bothwell as quick as possible’, the constable advised that he had sent ‘a Man on Horseback’ to the fringes of the district to urge outlying settlers to ‘get their parties ready by the time appointed’, but the messenger had not yet returned. He had sent a cart in the middle of the night to a settler named Murdoch, where the arms and ammunition were supposed to be deposited, but they had not arrived, so the carter left and had to be ordered to go again. The constable blamed the weather for the ‘delay’, which ‘must have arisen from the violent Wind blowing so hard all this Day’, which stalled the carter’s second run. The constable hoped to press some other carts into service, and meet the Lieutenant Governor in Bothwell ‘early on Friday’.

While some of the settlers straggled to join the main divisions of soldiers, a few others absconded. Sailing off the northeast coast of Van Diemen’s Land in late September, the crew of the Nimrod spotted a large congregation of Aboriginal people on the coast near Swan Island.⁴⁴ The captain reported ‘immense number of Natives close to the Beach’, which he estimated to comprise ‘from Six to Seven Hundreds’.

When this news reached Launceston it ‘occasioned considerable apprehensions in the minds of some settlers at the Eastward’ that were supposed to join Captain Donaldson.⁴⁵ The Launceston Advertiser suggested the region was ‘left unprotected’ by the resource demands of the general operations, and complained that ‘we of Launceston are always behind the Hobartians’.⁴⁶

The police magistrate reported to Hobart that ‘many of them’ had ‘withdrawn their Services for the purpose of protecting their own Neighbourhood’. Arthur read this news on 11 October, by which time the General Movement had commenced. ‘With regard to the Natives to the Eastward’, he wrote, ‘observe that the same endeavour to capture them will be made as is now in progress in the County of Buckingham’. The Colonel Commanding was so confident in his trap that he was already contemplating future operations to clear Aboriginal people from other parts of the island.