Mr. Walpole himself furnished an account of his performance, in a communication dated October 29th, 1830:—
"I heard the Natives hunting, and, on going closer, saw their dogs. I watched them for four hours, and, on convincing myself that they were settled for the night, I returned for the rest of my party, and in the evening placed them within three hundred yards of the Natives, where we waited until dawn of day (26th), and crept to one of the Natives, without being perceived by the inmates, until I caught one by the leg. There were five men in the hut, and the other four rushed out through the back, while some of the party were stooping to catch them. One, however, was caught while jumping into the creek, and two others shot There were five other huts across the creek, in the centre of a very thick scrub."
Mr. Surveyor Wedge, in one of his letters, agrees with others that the precipitation of Mr. Walpole lost the Line an important capture. Instead of a man and a boy, the whole tribe might have been secured by giving proper notice to his superior officer. The subsequent fate of that tribe of forty individuals is thus mentioned by my valuable correspondent:—
"I am inclined to think that it warned them of their danger, and put them on the alert to escape from it; and this they accomplished, a day or two afterwards, at or near Cherry-tree Hill, unknown to any at the time, except to the party upon whose encampment they sneaked unobserved, rushed past in a body, and speared, it was said, one of our men slightly in the leg. Why their escape was kept secret I am at a loss to imagine, unless, as was suggested to me by my informant, the party in question thought that discredit would attach to them if the fact was officially made known. The Lieutenant-Governor, being in ignorance that the Natives had escaped, the force was kept in its position a fortnight or more longer. At length an advance was ordered to East Bay Neck."
The author of "Thirty-three Years in Tasmania and Victoria" has a story about the hero of this adventure:—"Singular to say, the only man who received a wound during the whole campaign was my clever friend Walpole, and that, too, at my hands. While seated in the Commissary's tent, he invited me to a spearing-match with one of the weapons he had recently taken from the Blacks, both for our own amusement and the edification
