At different periods, Mr. Threlkeld erected huts, but in these they could not be induced to live, alleging the accumulation of vermin and the fear of other natives coming in the night and spearing them without a possibility of escape. On urging them to plant corn on a piece of ground he had prepared for them, they replied it would be useless, as the tribes from the neighbouring Sugar Loaf Mountain, although on friendly terms, would come down and take it away when ripe. Mr. Threlkeld attributed the failure of his mission partly to the want of funds, but still more to the influx of European settlers. He deeply deplored the want of legal protectors, both to prevent the ferocious attacks of the blacks upon each other, and to protect them from the white man's atrocities. "I am firmly of opinion," adds Mr. Threlkeld, in the annual report of his mission for the year 1836, "that a Protector of Aborigines will be fully employed in investigating cases of the cruelty of European settlers, which are both numerous and shocking to humanity, and in maintaining their civil rights."
He had but too much reason to express himself thus. The cases of oppression which he himself describes, are most revolting. In one instance, a stockman, or herdsman, boasted to his master of having killed six or seven black men with his own hands, when in pursuit of them with his companions; for they were hunted down in mere wantonness and sport. He was merely dismissed from his employer's service. In another, a party of stockmen went out, some depredation having been committed by the blacks in spearing their cattle, took a black prisoner, tied his arms, and then fastened him to the stirrup of a stockman on horseback to drag him along. When the party arrived near their respective stations they separated, leaving the stockman to conduct the prisoner to his own hut. The black, when he found they were alone, was reluctant to proceed, and struggled to get free, when the stockman took his knife from his pocket, coolly stuck the black in the throat, and left him for dead. The poor fellow crawled to the house of a gentleman dwelling on the plains, told his tale, and died.
These are but specimens of cruelties, too numerous and too horrible to relate. The blacks, of course, retaliated, and military parties were sent out against them. On the 31st October, 1828, the executive council of the colony declared in their minutes, "that the outrages of the aboriginal natives amount to a complete declaration of hostilities against the settlers generally," but they forgot to add that these hostilities had been provoked in every instance by the wanton aggression of the Europeans. Martial law was again proclaimed in October, 1830, against the natives, and the governor at length determined to call upon the inhabitants to take up arms, and join the troops in forming a military cordon, by means of which he proposed to drive the aborigines into Tasman's Peninsula. The inhabitants responded to the call, and an armed force of between two and three thousand men were in the field from the 4th October till the 26th November; but the attempt entirely failed.