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In response to the Faithfull Massacre, and Indigenous resistance on the 3 major roads of the colony, Governor Gipps increased military presence by increasing posts of 'Mounted Police' recruited from the military. "Your Lordship will not fail to observe that, of the outrages enumerated in the accompanying list, some took place 200 or 300 miles to the north of Sydney, others at more than 500 miles to the south, and some (at Geelong, the western limit of Port Phillip) at a still greater distance.
"In order to keep open the communication between Sydney and Port Phillip, it is my intention, with the concurrence of the officer in command of Her Majesty's Troops, to establish military posts on the road; and I forward a sketch on which to places of these proposed posts are marked, they being, as Your Lordship will perceive, the places where the road crossed the following streams on the way, viz., the Murray, the Ovens, the Violet Creek, and the Goulburn.
"It was between the Violet Creek and the Ovens, and at a distance of 400 miles from Sydney, that the attack was made on Mr Faithfull's convoy of sheep and cattle on the 11th April last, in which seven of his men were killed, and all the rest dispersed."
Sir George Gipps to Lord Glenelg, 21 July 1838 in pp355-356 Cannon, Michael (ed.) Historical Records of Victoria Vol 2A The Aborigines of Port Phillip 1835-1839, Melbourne: Victorian Government Printing Office, 1982 |