Sixteen years after Phillip smacked that old man, in December 1804, another governor, Philip Gidley King, tried to deal with the violence on the Hawkesbury:

One of the settlers recently fix’d below Portland Head, who was much annoyed by the natives in June last, delivered me a memorial, said to be signed by all the settlers in that district, requesting they might be allowed to shoot the natives frequenting their grounds, who had threatened to fire their wheat when ripe. On further enquiry I found that none of the settlers had authorised this man to put their signatures to the paper, and that his fears of what might be had operated with him more forcibly than any present or future probability of the natives again being inimical to him or his neighbours…

Wishing to be convinced myself what cause there was for these alarms, three of the natives from that part of the river readily came on being sent for. On questioning the cause of their disagreement with the new settlers they very ingenuously answered that they did not like to be driven from the few places that were left on the banks of the river, where alone they could procure food; that they had gone down the river as the white men took possession of the banks; if they went across white men’s grounds the settlers fired upon them and were angry; that if they could retain some places on the lower part of the river they should be satisfied and would not trouble the white men. The observation and request appear to be so just and so equitable that I assured them no more settlements should be made lower down the river.

This was two years before Wiseman arrived in Australia. I was getting warm: Portland Head is only a short distance upstream from Wiseman’s Ferry.

In spite of King’s promise, settlement on the lower river continued. As far as I could see, no one ever mentioned the governor’s promise to the Aboriginal men again. In April 1805, King noted:

I am much concerned to state that, within these Three Weeks past, the Natives have been very troublesome among the distant Settlements at the South Creek and the lower part of the Hawkesbury River…The house belonging to a Settler was set on Fire by…natives. After a search the mangled and burnt Limbs of the Settler and his Man were found, some in the Ashes and others scattered…I directed a party of Military to take post at the Branch and to drive the Natives from thence, first assuring them that if the Murderers were given up all further Resentment should cease.