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the ford, where the baggage had been left in charge of four soldiers, who were also to maintain the post. Here Captain Ellis had arrived, badly wounded in the right temple, by a spear at three or four yards distance, which knocked him off his horse, and P. Heffron, a constable of the police, had received a bad spear wound above the right elbow. No surgical aid being at hand, it was not without some little difficulty the spear was extracted, and it then proved to be barbed at the distance of five inches from the point.
Having recrossed the river in good order with the baggage on three horses, the whole party formed a junction on the left bank, fully expecting the natives would return in stronger force, but in this were disappointed. After a consultation over the prisoners, it was resolved to set them free, for the purpose of fully explaining to the remnant of the tribe the cause of the chastisement which had been inflicted, and to bear a message to the effect that, if they again offered to spear white men or their cattle, or to revenge in any way the punishment which had just been inflicted on these for their numerous murders and outrages, four times the present number of men would proceed amongst them and destroy every man, woman, and child. This was perfectly understood by the captives, and they were glad to depart even under such an assurance; nor did several of their number, who were the widows, mothers and daughters of notorious offenders shot that day, evince any stronger feeling on the occasion than what arose out of their anxiety to keep themselves warm.
[At this stage of Mr. Moore's Diary we find a copy of the third annual report of the Directors of the first Agricultural Society established in the colony, which we think may prove interesting to many of our readers, indicating as it does the condition which agriculture had attained in the colony at that early period of its history. The report is addressed to Sir James Stirling, the then Governor].
"In laying before your Excellency our third agricultural
