d himself in the attitude of menace,
and poised his spear.

On the 3rd of May, 1804, during the absence of Lieutenant Bowen, the
officer in command, the first severe collision occurred. Five hundred
blacks, supposed to belong to the Oyster Bay tribe, gathered on the
hills which overlooked the camp: their presence occasioned alarm, and
the convicts and soldiers were drawn up to oppose them. A discharge of
fire-arms threw them into momentary panic, but they soon re-united. A
second, of ball cartridge, brought down many; the rest fled in terror,
and were pursued: it is conjectured that fifty fell.

The accounts of this affair differ greatly. By one party they are said
to have assailed a man and woman living in advance of the camp, and to
have burned their hut. William White, who saw them earliest, and gave
notice of their approach, declared they then exhibited no hostility, and
were not near the hut before the collision. They came down in a
semicircle, carrying waddies but not spears; a flock of kangaroo hemmed
in between them. The women and children attended them. They came
singing, and bearing branches of trees.

This curvilinear mode of marching was noticed by Labillardiere: they
probably assembled for a corrobory. "They looked at me," said the
witness, "with all their eye;" but they did not attempt to molest him.

For the British, it may be alleged that customs, afterwards understood,
were then less known. They were ignorant of the language and temper of
the blacks, and the preservation of the settlement was the first
military duty of Lieutenant Moore, who directed the fire. The action was
sudden, and perhaps no statement is exact. The natives were provoked, by
the occupation of their common place of resort, and it is no discredit
to their character, if even they attempted to expel the intruders.

A current report, respecting a conflict on the site of the hospital at
Hobart Town, received a curious exposition from the Rev. Mr. Knopwood.
It was a tradition, that a party of blacks assembled there, were
dispersed by a volley of grape shot, and that several fell. Human bones
and grape shot were found; but the reverend gentleman stated that the
bones were the remains of persons who came from India, and who were
buried there; and that the shot were accidentally dropped when the
stores, once kept there, were removed.

The consequences of these events were lamentable. The losses of the
natives, in their ordinary warfare,