urge them to action. The "Black War" was then pursued with increased energy.
But while the woods echoed with discharges of musketry against the Natives, many a cry arose from terror-tricken hut-keepers. On the 13th of March, 1829, a Mr. Miller was returning to his homestead on the east bank of the North Esk, when he saw Natives on the farm. He ran to his neighbours for help, and then beheld a scene of horror. One man lay dead twenty yards from the house, while another was found with dislocated neck and with eleven spears in his body. Entering, with unspeakable anxiety, the farmer saw his wife a dreadful object upon the bed, her brains having been dashed out by a waddy blow. Sugar, flour, powder, and clothes had been taken away.
Mr. Lloyd has an anecdote of his uncle, one of the settlers, who had missed a quantity of potatoes from a field. A pursuit was ordered. They took cudgels, whips, or swords, recovered one bag of the roots, and captured a black thief. Putting a rope around his neck, and tugging him well under a tree, as though intending to hang, the gentleman let him go in considerable fright, with a wholesome caution.
The Dog Act, requiring a licence for animals, as they had often proved mischievous to flocks, was at the same time held to be a sore hardship with men in the Bush. One writing to the paper, under the signature of "Hedgestake," asks the editor for counsel under his troubles. To protect his home he got two dogs, for one of which he had paid one pound, and which had twice saved his place from attack and flames. But two constables call, and demand his licence for the faithful brutes. In his isolated position, and very fear of leaving home in such times of danger, he had neglected to procure the desired document. At once, the men of the law shot the dogs, and threatened him with a fine. Then said the poor fellow, "I am a simple man, Mr. Editor, but when I am working five or six hundred yards from my cottage (I dare not be more remote), with my musket beside me, listening with intense anxiety and dread to every sound, no longer relying on the baying of my faithful Barkwell, should the Blacks in consequence succeed in secretly entering my cottage, and murder my wife and children, will these constables be in any measure accessory?" Such a catastrophe did occur in one place. A man, without a dog, had been working on his ground
