The master of the schooner complained that the
navigation of the river was likely to be hurt. The settlers having fallen
many trees into the water, he was apprehensive they would drift ashore on
some of the points of the river where, in process of time, sand, etc.
might lodge against them, and form dangerous obstructions in the way of
craft which might be hereafter used on the river. No doubt remained of
the ill and impolitic conduct of some of the settlers toward the natives.
In revenge for some cruelties which they had experienced, they threatened
to put to death three of the settlers, Michael Doyle, Robert Forrester,
and ---- Nixon; and had actually attacked and cruelly wounded two other
settlers, George Shadrach and John Akers, whose farms and persons they
mistook for those of Doyle and Forrester. These particulars were procured
through the means of one Wilson, a wild idle young man, who, his term of
transportation being expired, preferred living among the natives in the
vicinity of the river, to earning the wages of honest industry by working
for settlers. He had formed an intermediate language between his own and
theirs, with which he made shift to comprehend something of what they
wished him to communicate; for they did not conceal the sense they
entertained of the injuries which had been done them. The tribe with whom
Wilson associated had given him a name, Bun-bo-e, but none of them had
taken his in exchange. As the gratifying an idle wandering disposition
was the sole object with Wilson in herding with these people, no good
consequence was likely to ensue from it; and it was by no means
improbable, that at some future time, if disgusted with the white people,
he would join the blacks, and assist them in committing depredations, or
make use of their assistance to punish or revenge his own injuries.
Mr. Grimes purposed taking him with him in the schooner to Port Stephens.

There were at this time several convicts in the woods subsisting by
theft; and it being said that three had been met with arms, it became
necessary to secure them as soon as possible. Watchmen and other people
immediately went out, and in the afternoon of the 14th a wretched fellow
of the name of Suffini was killed by one of them. This circumstance drove
the rest to a greater distance from Sydney, and they were reported, some
days afterwards, to have been met on their route to the river. Suffini
would not have been shot at, had he not refused to