Reeve offered farms to the industrious at the rental of one bushel of wheat to the acre.  For some time the township of Tarraville was a favourite place of residence, because the swamps which surrounded Port Albert were impassable for drays during the winter months; the roads to Maneroo and Melbourne mentioned in Mr. Reeve’s advertisement were as yet in the clouds.  Captain Moore came from Sydney in the revenue cutter ‘Prince George’ to look for smugglers, but he did not find any.  He was afterwards appointed collector for Gippsland, and he came down again from Sydney with a boat’s crew of six prisoners, a free coxswain, and a portable house, in which he sate for the receipt of Customs.

For a time the commissioner resided at Tarraville, and then he went to the lakes and surveyed a township at Flooding Creek, now called Sale.  His black troopers were in some cases useful, in others they were troublesome; they indulged in irregularities; there was no doubt that they drank rum procured in some inexplicable manner.  They could not be confined in barracks, or remain continually under the eye of their chief, and it was not always possible to discover in what manner they spent their leisure hours.  But occasionally some evidence of their exploits came to light, and Mr. Tyers became aware that his black police considered themselves as living among hostile tribes, in respect of whom they had a double duty to perform, viz., to track cattle spearers at the order of their chief, and on their own account to shoot as many of their enemies as they could conveniently approach.

There were now ladies as well as gentlemen in Gippsland, and one day the commissioner sailed away in his boat with a select party.  After enjoying the scenery and the summer breezes for a few hours, he cast his eyes along the shore in search of some romantic spot on which to land.  Dead wood and dry sticks were extremely scarce, as the blacks used all they could find at their numerous camps.  He was at length so fortunate as to observe a brown pile of decayed branches, and he said, “I think we had better land over there; that deadwood will make a good fire”; and the boat was steered towards it.  But when it neared the land the air was filled with a stench so horrible that Mr. Tyers at once put the boat about, and went away in another direction.  Next day he visited the spot with his police, and he found that the dead wood covered a large pile of corpses of the natives shot by his own black troopers, and he directed them to make it a holocaust.

The white men brought with them three blessings for the natives—­ rum, bullets, and blankets.  The blankets were a free gift by the Government, and proved to the eyes of all men that our rule was kind and charitable.  The country was rightfully ours; that was decided by the Supreme Court; we were not obliged to pay anything for it, but out of pure benignity we gave the lubras old gowns, and the black men old coats and trousers; the Government added an annual blanket, and thus we had good reason to feel virtuous.