This at the very time your memorial was
in the act of signature, and in the immediate vicinity of the station
of two of the parties who have signed it. Will not the commission of
such crimes call down the wrath of God, and do more to check the
prosperity of your district, and to ruin your prospects, than all
the difficulties and losses under which you labour?" Mr. Sievewright's
letter gives an account of this infamous transaction.
"WESTERN ABORIGINAL ESTABLISHMENT,
THOLOR, 26TH FEBRUARY, 1842.
"Sir, - I have the honour to report that on the afternoon
of the 24th instant, two aboriginal natives, named Pwe-bin-gan-nai,
Calangamite, returned to this encampment, which they had left with their
families on the 22nd, and reported 'that late on the previous evening,
while they with their wives, two other females, and two children, were
asleep at a tea-tree scrub, called One-one-derang, a party of eight white
people on horseback surrounded them, dismounted, and fired upon them with
pistols; that three women and a child had been thus killed, and the other
female so severely wounded as to be unable to stand or be removed by
them;' they had saved themselves and the child, named 'Uni bicqui-ang,'
by flight, who was brought to this place upon their shoulders.
"At daybreak yesterday I proceeded to the spot indicated, and there found
the dead bodies of three women, and a male child about three years of age;
and also found a fourth woman dangerously wounded by gunshot wounds, and
severely scorched on the limbs by the discharge of fire-arms.
"Having proceeded to the station of the Messrs. Osbrey and Smith, distant
about 700 yards from where the bodies were found, and requested the
presence of those gentlemen as witnesses, I proceeded to view the bodies,
upon which were found the wounds as set forth in the accompanying report.
"All knowledge of this barbarous transaction is denied by the proprietors,
overseer, and servants at the home station, so near to which the bodies
were found, nor have I as yet obtained any information which may lead to
the discovery of the perpetrators of these murders.
"I have, etc.
(Signed) "C. W. SIEVEWRIGHT."
James Croke, Esq.,
Crown Prosecutor,"
etc. etc. etc.
Description of Gun-shot Wounds upon the bodies of three Aboriginal Women
and One Male Child found dead, and an Aboriginal Woman found wounded in a
tea-tree scrub, near the Station of Messrs. Osbrey and Smith, Portland
District, upon the 25th of February, 1842, by Assistant-Protector
Sievewright.
"No. 1. Recognised by the assistant-protector as
'Wooi-goning,' wife of an Aboriginal native 'Pui-bui-gannei;' one gun-shot
wound through the chest (a ball), and right thigh broken by a gun-shot
wound (a ball).
"No.
