Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/597

and the military. More than eight hundred soldiers, between seven and eight hundred armed convicts, and settlers who raised the total force to more than four thousand, advanced as beaters. Over mountain and fell they toiled. The Governor was ubiquitous and congratulatory. In October Mr. Walpole, commanding an auxiliary roving party, captured one native. The settlers at East Bay Neck were directed "to keep free from everything that might create alarm, or interrupt the passage of the fugitive natives . . . in order that nothing may present itself to deter the aborigines from entering the Peninsula." South of the Prosser river were three hills, called the Three Thumbs, densely covered with timber large and small. Within the wood the natives were supposed to be crouching. Chosen men entered this ominous spot. Fires still smouldering were found, but no natives. The cordon was pushed on. From the "Camp, Sorell Rivulet," Arthur dated his orders for the final advance to East Bay Neck. From Spring Bay to Sorell, thirty miles in width, the tramp of men beat time to the sea, and that was all. No native was in front. Those who had once been in front had by some means found passage through the lines.

The expedition had cost £30,000 directly, and much indirectly, but had failed. Nevertheless it did not tend to make Arthur unpopular. His exertions commended him to the good wishes of the community. He exchanged congratulations with them on the unanimous effort that had been made. Hardly a dissentient appeared at a large meeting called to thank him. In reply, Arthur exhibited his sense of justice by stating that it was undeniable that cruelty and oppression by "stock-keepers and other convicts in the interior, and sealers on the coast," had goaded the blacks to revenge. "This fact must continue to disarm us of every particle of resentment."

The roving parties meanwhile were shooting many and capturing few. It was felt that a reward per head was a kind of blood-money disgraceful to the English name. The Aborigines' Protection Society was earnest in favour of giving Robinson a fair field. How could he peacefully go to the blacks when hunting parties of his countrymen took their lives at random in every direction? Arthur consented.