Between the first of July, 1840, and the first of November, 1841, 26,556 bounty immigrants had been received in Sydney.  The bounty orders were suspended in the autumn of the latter year, but in 1842 Lord Stanley was of opinion that the colony could beneficially receive ten thousand more immigrants during the current year.

Many married labourers could find no work in Sydney, and in November, 1843, the Government requested persons sending wool-drays to the city to take families to inland districts gratis.

A regular stream of half-pay officers also poured into the colony, and made Sir George’s life a burden.  They all wanted billets, and if he made the mistake of appointing a civilian to some office, Captain Smith, with war in his eye and fury in his heart, demanded an interview at once.  He said: 

“I see by this morning’s ‘Gazette’ that some fellow of the name of Jones has been made a police superintendent, and here am I, an imperial officer, used to command and discipline, left out in the cold, while that counter-jumper steps over my head.  I can’t understand your policy, Sir George.  What will my friends of the club in London say, when they hear of it, but that the service is going to the dogs?”

So Captain Smith obtained his appointment as superintendent of police, and with a free sergeant and six convict constables, taken, as it were, out of bond, was turned loose in the bush.  He had been for twenty years in the preventive service, but had never captured a prize more valuable than a bottle of whisky.  He knew nothing whatever about horses, and rode like a beer barrel, but he nevertheless lectured his troopers about their horses and accoutrements.  The sergeant was an old stockrider, and he one day so far forgot the rules of discipline as to indulge in a mutinous smile, and say: 

“Well, captain, you may know something about a ship, but I’ll be blowed if you know anything about a horse.”

That observation was not entered in any report, but the sergeant was fined 2 pounds for “insolence and insubordination.”  The sum of 60,899 pounds was voted for police services in 1844, and Captain Smith was paid out of it.  All the revenue went to Sydney, and very little of it found its way to Melbourne, so that Mr. Latrobe’s Government was sometimes deprived of the necessaries of life.

Alberton was gazetted as a place for holding Courts of Petty Sessions, and Messrs. John Reeve and John King were appointed Justices of the Peace for the new district.

Then Michael Shannon met James Reading on the Port Albert Road, robbed him of two orders for money and a certificate of freedom, and made his way to Melbourne.  There he was arrested, and remanded by the bench to the new court at Alberton.  But there was no court there, no lock-up, and no police; and Mr. Latrobe, with tears in his eyes, said he had no cash whatever to spend on Michael Shannon.

The public journals denounced Gippsland, and said it was full of irregularities.  Therefore, on September 13th, 1843, Charles J. Tyers was appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands for the district.  He endeavoured to make his way overland to the scene of his future labours, but the mountains were discharging the accumulated waters of the winter and spring rainfall, every watercourse was full, and the marshes were impassable.