Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/544

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police, established to repress the natives, became one of the most valuable, as it was one of the most efficient, bodies ever known. The officers were officers of the line, and were made magistrates of the territory. The men were volunteers admitted into the corps from infantry serving in the colony. None but the active and hardy cared to embrace the new mode of life. None but those who bore good characters in their regiments were accepted. They were in fact picked men from the British army. Their discipline aided their courage, and they were a terror to ill-doers. Their deeds of daring in the capture of bushrangers would form a narrative as stirring as any romance. Like the knights of old, they scorned the odds arrayed against them; but working as they did amongst a community prone to harbour criminals, their intelligence and cautiousness were sharpened, and they joined to military discipline the activity and wariness of guerilla warfare. They knew every by-path and mountain track. Some were excellent riders, and all were sufficiently expert on horseback in the days when the convict bushranger was himself inexpert. Everywhere they were welcome amongst the free settlers, and amongst that class of emancipists which retained no sympathy with crime. A military traveller recorded his admiration of them. They were subject to military discipline and law. While serving in the corps they were retained as supernumeraries on the regimental roll. On the removal of their regiments they were transferred to the relieving detachment. Their dress was a light dragoon uniform. They carried sabre, carbine, and pistols. Commencing their career in 1825 with two officers and thirteen troopers, they consisted, in 1889, of nine officers, one serjeant-major, and 156 non-commissioned officers and men. Governor Darling added considerably to their numbers in 1830, to repress bushranging. In an evil hour, after they had done the state good service for a quarter of a century, a political manoeuvrer, in order to incommode the government, persuaded the Legislative Assembly to take steps which led to their disbandment, and within a few years the colony suffered from the almost unchecked outrages committed by a new generation of bushrangers.