7 The Evening of the Murders – the Evidence

All defendants denied being present when the two Aboriginal boys were killed. The clearest credible account of what happened that evening is from the court testimony of Isabella Ramsay. Her deposition adds important details that she did not give in court. By splicing together her testimony and her deposition we can follow the sequence of events leading up to the time the boys lost their lives on the evening of 18 September. It was in her house on Forrester’s Farm that the Aboriginal boys were detained and interrogated before being taken outside and killed.

When Isabella Ramsay, or Bella as she was known, took the witness stand she was a young woman of 25, albeit with a world of life experience behind her. Convicted of stealing some clothes, she was just seventeen when, in 1791, she arrived in New South Wales. Shortly after her arrival she married an ex-marine who was farming on the north shore of Sydney. After twelve months of marriage her husband enlisted in the New South Wales Corps and Isabella teamed up in a de facto relationship with Robert Forrester. He was older than her by fifteen years, an ex-convict from the First Fleet. By September 1799 Isabella had served out her seven-year sentence and she and Robert had five young children, one born for each year they had been together. Five children under six years of age, the youngest a six-month-old baby when the murders took place.1

When she took the stand Isabella Ramsay told her story briefly and concisely. The following account interprets her story and incorporates her deposition with the answers she gave in court to questions asked by the defendants.

On the evening of the murders Isabella Ramsay was at home with her children. It was a Wednesday, about six o’clock and getting dark when James Metcalfe, one of her farm labourers, brought two local Aborigines inside the house. A third soon followed. They had a musket with them, and each carried a spear and woomera (used to throw the spear), and also a waddy (or club). The biggest of the three was wearing Metcalfe’s coat. Metcalfe asked her to give them some bread. He told her these natives were returning Hodgkinson’s musket and that from them they might find out the identity of Hodgkinson’s killers. Metcalfe was keen to take the musket to Sarah Hodgkinson and he quickly left the house to do so. This left Isabella and the children alone with the three Aborigines and she felt distinctly uncomfortable because of it. Having been asked by Metcalfe to wait, the Aborigines probably squatted down against a wall.

The next thing that happened was that Simon Freebody (a neighbour from three farms further up the reach), and another person, came into the house. Freebody and that person began to question the Aborigines as to how Hodgkinson was killed.

Isabella Ramsay did not identify this ‘other person’ to the court or in her deposition. She used the words ‘person’ and ‘companion’ in preference to ‘man’ or ‘woman’. If she knew the person’s identity she deliberately refrained from giving the name. It is likely she did know the identity of this person—someone so interested in how Hodgkinson lost his life. The probability is that the ‘other person’ was Thomas Hodgkinson’s widow, Sarah Hodgkinson, especially since Metcalfe had gone to give her the musket.

The natives, according to Isabella, replied to questions in broken English. She understood they said that Hodgkinson was killed for the sake of the food he had with him. They said ‘three of them’ were involved in killing Hodgkinson. The night before Hodgkinson was killed three Aborigines—in Isabella’s words ‘three other natives’—slept in the same camp as Hodgkinson. The next day they were still with Hodgkinson and Wimbo, and towards the evening the whole party stopped to make a fire and eat some food. Afterwards the two white men lay down under blankets to sleep. While they slept the three natives took the muskets and then used their waddies to club the men to death. Isabella Ramsay’s version of how Hodgkinson and Wimbo died was virtually the same as Jonas Archer’s, except that she heard the lethal weapons were waddies, not dowels.

After the interrogation Simon Freebody and ‘his companion’ departed, again leaving Isabella Ramsay and her children alone with the three Aborigines. A short time later Freebody returned with Edward Powell, one of the Hawkesbury constables. He was Isabella’s neighbour on the adjoining farm. We find out later from Powell’s defence statement that he had escorted a prisoner to Parramatta and, on walking back that afternoon, called at Lieutenant Hobby’s house. He sat in the kitchen recovering from the journey, only making it home after dark. He probably was not yet home when Metcalfe passed his house on his way to deliver the musket to Sarah Hodgkinson.

By the time Powell and Freebody arrived Isabella Ramsay was afraid of what the Aborigines might do. She was very glad to see the two men and said as much. Powell started to question them as to how Hodgkinson and Wimbo had died. The biggest of the three, who was wearing Metcalfe’s coat, got up to have a drink of water. But Powell stopped him, saying (according to Isabella Ramsay), ‘You shall have no water here. You have killed a good fellow and you shall not live long.’ As Powell grabbed the fellow’s arm to restrain him, a tomahawk fell from the coat sleeve. Alarmed by Powell’s aggression, one of the Aborigines moved towards a window. But Powell did not want to let them escape and he asked Isabella Ramsay to close the windows.

Next through the door was John Pearson. Isabella described him as a neighbour. He was in the Archer’s employ but usually slept in Isabella Ramsay’s house. Pearson wanted to know why the three natives were present. He soon comprehended what was going on and he remained in the room. Isabella was, by this time, getting supper for the children while observing all that was happening. The same Aborigine again got up to get a drink and this time Simon Freebody gave him the water. By then Powell was saying the three should be killed. Isabella reported him saying words to the effect that—they had killed a worthy good fellow and it would be a pity to see them leave alive. He clearly believed these were Hodgkinson’s killers.

Powell’s intentions received support when William Butler came into the house. He must have known about the interrogation because he came in brandishing a cutlass and asking if the natives were there. ‘What sentence shall we pass on these black fellows—I shall pass sentence myself—they shall be hanged.’ Isabella Ramsay recalled Butler, word for word. Powell was of a like mind—a hanging from an overhead beam. This was too much for Isabella Ramsay. She told Powell in no uncertain terms that a hanging was not taking place in her house. If he wanted to do that he had a house of his own. He asked for some rope but she said she had none.

Then, some difference of opinion emerged as to what should be done. James Metcalfe, having returned to the house in company with several other people, was sitting down eating his supper when he repeated what he had first suggested to Isabella. Again Isabella related it to the court word for word: ‘We will not kill them, we will carry them out as the means of finding the natives who killed Hodgkinson.’ Whether he uttered those exact words does not really matter as the sentiment is entirely consistent with what she said in her deposition—that Metcalfe had said it would be a pity to kill them, better to take them out and get them to point out the murderers. Metcalfe, it appears, was not satisfied that these particular three Aborigines were the ones directly responsible for killing Hodgkinson and Wimbo.

But Constable Powell had made up his mind and he told the whole room— as by this time it must have held quite a number—that it was his understanding that it was the Governor’s and the commanding officer’s orders that the natives should be killed wherever they could be met. Isabella expressed it slightly differently in her deposition: that it was the Governor’s and commanding officer’s orders that any natives who came in were to be shot. The difference, however, may be significant given the content of the commanding officer’s orders became a subject for later questioning by both the court and the prisoners.

Powell then dispatched Butler to his (Powell’s) house to fetch rope. Butler returned with just one piece saying he could find no more. Powell then went himself and returned with two more pieces. The hands of each Aborigine were then tied behind their backs and rope also tied around their necks.

By then (around 10 pm), a crowd had filled Isabella Ramsay’s house. She told the court ‘all the people who had by this time assembled at her house in great numbers’ escorted the three boys outside and Isabella Ramsay closed the door behind them. She thought it was then about fifteen minutes before she heard the sound of two musket shots.

She had tried to intervene, Isabella said in her deposition, to stop the boys being killed, but Powell was determined—‘Damn them they should suffer, for it was the Governor’s and Commanding Officer’s orders,’ he said.

It is not difficult to conclude that if Powell had his way a triple hanging was in the offing. But not one witness tells exactly what happened next. Did the mob take the boys to the nearest tree, a couple of oil lamps lighting the way? Or did they start out to find the other Aborigines at the back of the farms and press them to point out the real killers? Powell’s intentions seem clear. Whether everyone else agreed is not so clear. It was a dark night, as Powell claimed in his own defence statement. And that was true—a new moon on 16 September. So, on the night of the 18th, if the moon was up, there would have been no more than a sliver, not enough to provide any light outside.2 A black night would surely have been discouraging—if the mob was considering questioning a whole group of Aborigines at the back of the farms—to cross open ground, at some distance from the safety of their own houses, and face an armed body of their captives’ kinfolk.

In the original transcript of the record of Isabella Ramsay’s testimony, the word ‘other’ has been inserted above the line in two separate places. So her evidence reads as ‘three other natives’ instead of ‘three natives’. Perhaps the Judge-Advocate or one of the officers asked her if she understood the three natives in her house were saying it was themselves who killed Hodgkinson and Wimbo. Or, had they told her it was others, not them? Just how and when the amendment came into the record is unclear. However, when she had finished her testimony she faced a barrage of questions. They came from the prisoners, not the Judge-Advocate or the officers on the panel. It was Metcalfe who sought to clarify the ‘three other natives’ issue. He asked her if she remembered his telling her, when he came into the house with the natives and Hodgkinson’s musket, that these three natives ‘had acknowledged sleeping with Hodgkinson in the woods the night before he was killed’. She said she could recall his saying something about it—either they had slept with him the night before or the night they were killed—but she was ‘so much frightened’ that she could not recollect which it was. Metcalfe also asked her whether Jonas Archer had told her the elder of the dead natives (Jemmy) had been ‘concerned in the murder of the man on the race ground’. ‘Yes’, she confirmed that Archer and others had said that.

Isabella Ramsay’s account shows us a dramatic scene: a crowd of people wanting to punish the three young Aborigines; constable Powell intent on hanging them; Metcalfe, and perhaps others, more interested in being sure these were the murderers of their neighbour Hodgkinson; the young mother Isabella Ramsay forbidding the violence to be played out in her house and in front of her children; the three captive Aborigines being bundled outside and probably dragged or pushed to a place where they were to be hanged.

One might have expected that the two prosecution witnesses, John Pearson and Thomas Sambourne, would have told the court what happened outside Isabella Ramsay’s house. In their depositions they admitted to being amongst the people who took the Aborigines outside. But when they were called to give their evidence to the court their stories were different.

These two were centre stage to the Crown’s case. They were the two men who had made a clear decision to turn king’s evidence. What they had to say should have sealed the case against the five accused. That had been Magistrate Atkins’ understanding when he took down their statements.

It was still the first day of the trial. Sambourne and Pearson were the last witnesses for the day. Sambourne was nervous; he went first. He knew he had to keep himself in the clear while implicating the others. But that meant testifying against his master, Edward Powell, the man who had given him employment, his meals and a roof over his head. And not just Powell; he must point the finger against men who, like himself, had served time and were more than averse to doing it again. He and Metcalfe together endured the long voyage to New South Wales in the overcrowded Royal Admiral.3 They both knew that another conviction was to be avoided at all costs.

Once in the witness box he started on safe ground, going over his story as it agreed with evidence already given. The Judge-Advocate wrote Sambourne’s testimony down in summary: he was at work on Powell’s farm when Metcalfe came up with a musket in his hand and told him it belonged to Hodgkinson and that he was on his way to give it to Sarah Hodgkinson. Metcalfe had filled him in about the three natives waiting in Forrester’s house, so Sambourne went over there. At this point Sambourne’s story departs from the one he gave in his deposition three weeks earlier. He told the court he then asked the natives if there were any more of their clan in the area. ‘There was,’ they told him—one called Major Worgan was ‘out upon the ground’ as Sambourne put it. He went to find Major Worgan and spent about an hour with him, only returning about nine or ten o’clock when the crowd emerged from the house with the three natives. Sambourne said he heard someone give the caution ‘take care or you’ll be shot’. So he stood behind a tree for protection. It was then he heard two muskets being fired. He went over to have a look and found two of the three natives lying dead. People talked about burying them but he left the scene—‘departed and went about his business’.

The Judge-Advocate wasn’t happy but he allowed Metcalfe a question before cross-examining Sambourne himself. ‘Did Jonas Archer tell you that the eldest native killed was concerned in the murder of the man upon the race ground?’ Metcalfe asked. It was the same question he had asked Isabella Ramsay at the end of her testimony, and it elicited the same answer.

‘Yes he did,’ Sambourne replied. Interestingly this question and answer were recorded in the original transcript but not in the final one—the one sent to London. In fact Dore decided all the questions asked of Sambourne did not need to appear in the transcript he gave to Governor Hunter.

‘What number of persons do you think were assembled on the above occasion when you saw the two natives dead?’ Dore asked.

‘There were more than the prisoners there might be ten I cannot speak certain,’ Sambourne answered.

‘Name any of those present,’ Dore persisted.

‘I cannot,’ Sambourne replied.

Dore’s frustration must have come to a head. His prime prosecution witness was defaulting and he would not, could not, stand for it.

‘Were you not present at the time the two natives were buried?’ asked Dore. ‘No I was not’ Sambourne replied. This was a total departure from his deposition statement in which he had said he had helped to bury the bodies.

And then, to trap Sambourne yet again, Dore asked him if he went home after seeing the three natives in Isabella Ramsay’s house. Instead of saying he went out to find Major Worgan, Sambourne foolishly agreed that he had gone home.

Sambourne was rattled. In recanting from naming those present when the Aboriginal boys were killed he had got himself into a tangle. Perhaps he had forgotten what he had said in his deposition—a challenge to his memory, especially if he had fabricated even part of the story. Three weeks earlier he had given the names of eight men, including his own, as being present when the natives were interrogated and taken outside. It was the same list of eight Rickerby had given in his testimony. He had sworn that their intention was ‘to go in search of some of the natives’ when ‘one of the three ran off and escaped’. He said he’d seen Metcalfe and Powell with the muskets and Butler with the cutlass. When the shots were over and Sambourne went to see the result, it was Powell, Timms, Freebody, Metcalfe and Butler who were close by to the bodies. He had added that he thought Thompson also had a musket. Sambourne’s deposition may indeed have been close to representing the truth, certainly much closer than was his testimony in court. But it was now all worthless—a complete loss to the Crown’s case.

Richard Dore had every right to be very annoyed. One of his two prime witnesses had done an about-face and wasted the court’s time. He should have been in the dock with the others. Dore was not going to let Sambourne go scot free.

This witness having grossly prevaricated in his Evidence and having departed from the substance of his Testimony on Examination before the Committing Magistrate [i.e., departed from his deposition] whereby he connived at being admitting Evidence for the Crown with a view to shelter himself from the imputed guilt of this transaction, and having therefore failed in verifying or establishing the former part of Examination, The Court do order the said Thomas Sambourne to be taken into custody and stand committed for the next Criminal Court to answer such Charges as shall be preferred against him.a

If John Pearson had been in the room when Sambourne was in the witness box he might have taken fright. To survive the courtroom ordeal he would have to be consistent in his story. The Crown’s case now depended on him and he could not let them, or himself, down. At the same time, if he placed himself at the murder scene he was admitting to being amongst the perpetrators. Jonas Archer had been with him when he gave his deposition before Magistrate Atkins. In fact the record shows that Archer was about to give a statement himself. Archer’s name was entered, then crossed out, and Pearson’s written instead. Archer must have wanted to make a statement but Atkins must have said no. Archer was not there the night of the murders so perhaps Atkins thought he had nothing worth contributing. Archer’s presence when the depositions were taken, however, also could have been to give support to Pearson when he gave a statement for the prosecution.

John Pearson told the courtroom that he too had been in Isabella Ramsay’s house when the natives were being interrogated. However, regarding who killed Hodgkinson and Wimbo, he had heard what the natives had said. Isabella Ramsay had been confused over which natives had accompanied the two white men and camped with them the night they were killed. Were they the same three natives interrogated in her house, or were there three others? Pearson was able to be definite. The natives had said it was ‘Terribandy, Major White and others’. Pearson told the court he could only remember those two names, not the others. And further, he could make a connection between the three natives in Isabella Ramsay’s house and the real killers of Hodgkinson and Wimbo. The eldest native killed by the settlers was Terribandy’s brother. From Archer’s evidence we know that the eldest killed was Jemmy. So, on Pearson’s evidence, there was the family connection between Jemmy and one of Hodgkinson’s killers, Terribandy.

Pearson corroborated one part of Isabella Ramsay’s story—that she had been glad to see Powell and Freebody when they came in. Pearson said the woman and her children were at supper when the group of men entered. They were Timms, Butler, Metcalfe, Thompson and, he thought, Sambourne. Butler wielded a sword and shouted out a threat. Pearson recalled Butler’s exact words—‘Where are these Natives—leave them to me—I’ll soon settle them.’ When Butler asked for rope Powell sent him off to get the two ropes used to tie up his own dogs. When Butler was back with the ropes Pearson then left the house to cut some firewood, or so he told the court. When he got back the natives already had their hands tied behind them and rope around their necks. Timms, Butler, Metcalfe, Freebody, Powell and Thompson took the three natives out of the house, Pearson said. But he stayed in the house with the woman and children. About quarter of an hour later he heard the sound of two gunshots. It was Timms, he thought, who returned to the house a short while later looking for a spade. After Timms had gone Pearson retired to bed, as did the Isabella Ramsay. Pearson told the court that was all he heard that night. Additionally, he did recall the tomahawk dropping from the sleeve when one of the natives took off the coat.

Having seen Sambourne’s testimony discredited, Pearson had tried to ensure his own was watertight. But there was one major difference between his courtroom testimony and his deposition. He told the court he stayed inside the house when the other men took the natives outside. But his deposition said he went outside with all the rest, and after a short distance returned to the house at Isabella Ramsay’s request. Neither version agrees with the woman’s own account. She had said she was alone (presumably meaning only in company with her children) when the crowd left the house with the natives and she closed the door. There was no other adult with her when she heard the two musket shots.

However, the Judge-Advocate did not pick Pearson up on the discrepancy. When Pearson finished his testimony there were no questions, either from the prisoners or from the court. Both the original and the final trial transcripts show the next item as the adjournment until the next day. It was three o’clock on Tuesday afternoon. However, the defendants were not happy with Pearson’s testimony. Later, when it came to laying their own statements before the court, they disputed parts of what Pearson had said.

Perhaps the Judge-Advocate deliberately dispensed with any questions so as to draw a line under Pearson’s evidence. There are certainly some differences between Pearson’s court testimony and his earlier deposition, and also between his and Isabella Ramsay’s account of that evening. Acknowledging the differences would have brought into question the value of Pearson’s evidence and thus damaged the prosecution case. Pearson was, after all, the Judge-Advocate’s most valuable prosecution witness next to Isabella Ramsay. Dore had lost Sambourne—he could not afford to lose Pearson.

Table 3 Prosecution Witnesses Giving Evidence in the Trial of Powell, Freebody, Metcalfe, Timms and Butler for the Killing of Two Natives (in order according to the transcript)

Thomas Rickerby (chief constable at the Hawkesbury)	Isabella Ramsay (Forrester’s wife)	David Brown (constable at the Hawkesbury)
Thomas Sambourne4 (farm labourer employed on Edward Powell’s farm) on	John Pearson5 (farm labourer employed on Archer’s Farm)	Lieutenant Thomas Hobby (commanding officer Hawkesbury)
Robert Braithwaite (ex-navy, gentleman farmer)	David White (farmer)	Jonas Archer (farmer)

The trial opened the next day with the Hawkesbury’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Thomas Hobby, taking the stand. After Hobby there were three prosecution witnesses to testify: Robert Braithwaite, David White and Jonas Archer, in that order. Only White’s testimony relates to what happened on the night of the murders and so we will deal with that before the others.

David White was another Argyle Reach ex-convict settler, his farm situated just over one kilometre from Isabella Ramsay’s house, the general vicinity of the murders. At the age of 23 he was on his way to New South Wales in the Second Fleet. His sentence of seven years transportation for the crime of theft expired in 1793.6 Along with Robert Forrester and Isabella Ramsay, White was amongst the first to settle on this stretch of the river. It was a fresh start and it was on the best soil in the colony. Within two years he had found a wife to share his hopes and toils but she had either died or left him by 1799. He was apparently living alone on his farm when the murders took place.

David White’s testimony adds extra detail about the events of the evening of 18 September. Between his deposition and his court testimony we get a clear and consistent picture. He thought it was about 9 o’clock in the evening when he ‘heard some natives crying out’, followed by the report of a musket. It told the court it was about two-thirds of a minute later he heard another shot. In his deposition he had estimated the time lapse between the two shots as half a minute. He decided to go out and find out what was happening. Walking across the farms he would have been about halfway to Isabella Ramsay’s when he called in to the widow Hodgkinson. She was not at home, he said, but he decided to wait there for her return. When she came in she was with her own farm worker, William Timms, and her neighbour, Simon Freebody. White asked them what had happened—expressed in his deposition as ‘what had they done with the Blacks?’ Timms replied that two were killed and a third, with a rope around his neck and hands tied behind his back, had escaped. Butler had been holding him, Timms said, but he managed to run away and Powell fired after him. White asked Freebody what happened to the other two as he had heard two musket shots. Freebody replied that he himself ran one through with a cutlass. Timms then said that he (Timms) had held the third native while Metcalfe fired off a body shot.

The picture is complete. In relating the men’s own candid confessions David White identified exactly who carried out the fatal blows: Simon Freebody killed one with a cutlass and James Metcalfe shot the other while William Timms held him. Powell fired after the one that ran away from Butler’s grasp. The cries White heard and the time difference between the shots suggest the sequence: once out of the house the captives were push-shoved across the field to a place where a hanging could be staged; the captives screamed out to their friends for help; there was a scuffle as they struggled to break free; the white men tried to keep control; the biggest Aboriginal captive broke loose and ran for his life, hands still firmly tied behind his back; Powell desperately fired his musket after the fleeing figure as it disappeared into the darkness; the other two young Aborigines were wrested under control, but the time for immediate action had arrived—summary execution before any of their Aboriginal kin might have arrived on the scene.

Like almost everyone else on the Argyle Reach, David White was illiterate. So the fact that his deposition and his court testimony are entirely consistent adds credibility to his evidence. He had no difficulty recalling what he had said in his deposition statement three weeks earlier—he knew what Timms and Freebody had told him on the night of 18 September. It was the same story. He just told it twice—in his deposition and again in court. Nevertheless, it was hearsay evidence, not from his own eyes, but from his ears—what he heard others say. It would not be admissible in a modern courtroom. What weight should it have been given in this courtroom? The hearsay rule was a well-developed rule of evidence in British courts by the early 1700s.7 White’s evidence should not have been admissible. But Judge-Advocate Dore—the first trained lawyer as Judge-Advocate of New South Wales—allowed it. The fact that White was not present at the murder scene seems to have mattered not to Dore. The only question White faced after giving his story to the court was from Powell. ‘Was the witness [White] at home when he heard the natives cry out?’

‘Yes I was,’ came the answer.

If the jury thought it implausible that White could hear the natives yelling and screaming while he was indoors and over a kilometre away, we can only guess. Sound certainly travels through the night across open spaces. The sounds of such a commotion could have travelled along the river frontage, even for a kilometre, especially if the night air was still. It was more or less a straight line from Forrester’s Farm to White’s Farm at the far end of the reach. The report from a musket shot would certainly have carried. Why not the cries of the Aborigines? But there were no questions from the Judge-Advocate or the other officers on the bench. What did they make of White’s evidence? It was not challenged until the prisoners themselves gave their statements the next day. According to Timms, Freebody and Butler, David White came forward to give evidence ‘through pure hatred and malice against the prisoner Edward Powell’. White, they said, had been taken into custody and his house searched many times by Constable Powell for stolen goods.

It is interesting, that they should object to White’s truthfulness on the basis that he was motivated by revenge on Powell. The trial record does not show Timms and Freebody denying their conversation with White that evening— their own involvement in particular. After all, White’s evidence was far more damaging to them than it was to Powell.

Timms, Freebody and Butler did, however, have a further objection to the veracity of White’s testimony. It was on something else he had told the court. White had said he had never received any injury from any of the natives. ‘When,’ the three prisoners claimed, ‘it is well known and a proof can be established that he David White had been frequently robbed by them as also many of his neighbours.’ If David White had testified that he had never been injured by any of the natives, that part of his testimony is missing from the trial record. Timms, Freebody and Butler apparently heard him say it to the court. Why is it not in the transcript? Perhaps the omission was another short cut by Judge-Advocate Dore.

But something else of significance does emerge from White’s testimony. Sarah Hodgkinson, the widow of the murdered Thomas Hodgkinson, was with Freebody and Timms when they returned to her house. If she had been in their company when the murders took place—and it seems reasonable to suppose she may have been—why was she not called to court to give her version of events? Intriguing. It seems Constable Rickerby asked her only one question: whether she had asked for the three boys to be killed. She was never asked to give a deposition, and never called as a witness in the trial.

Robert Braithwaite was the ex-naval officer who accompanied Lieutenant Hobby when they went to examine the bodies of the two Aboriginal boys. His testimony corroborates Rickerby’s version of the investigation and adds to the whole story in a couple of ways. He asked Powell who had killed the boys but Powell said it was too dark to see who it might have been. When Braithwaite said it was a cruel way to kill them, even ‘had they been detected on committing an act of depredation’, Powell said had Braithwaite seen the bodies of Hodgkinson and Wimbo he would not have thought it so inhumane. Powell added that it was done at the desire of the widow Hodgkinson.

The Judge-Advocate asked Braithwaite about the number of white people killed by the natives since he began living at the Hawkesbury. Braithwaite had only been there a year but he knew of four plus a severe wounding of the ex-New South Wales Corps sergeant, William Goodall. He thought there were five Aborigines killed in that time. That number included one who had been killed by a member of Braithwaite’s own household. ‘A servant of mine,’ Braithwaite said, ‘was attacked by several natives one of whom he had shot in his own defence after having been robbed of a kangaroo he had killed.’ Although Braithwaite had said his servant shot the native in his own self-defence, the provocation was over stolen property—dead game that the Aborigines wanted for themselves. Had the incident not come to light in this trial one wonders if it would ever have been in our historical records. The incident did not warrant any investigation—it had been acceptable retaliation when Aborigines threatened property.

But up to that point in the trial (on the second day), nobody had explained why Hodgkinson and Wimbo died. When Jonas Archer came to the stand the Judge-Advocate asked him what he thought the killers’ motivation might have been. There were two possibilities, Archer thought: one was that they were killed for their provisions, the other that they were killed because Wimbo had the daughter of one of Major White’s comrades living with him. Had Wimbo forcibly detained her? ‘No,’ Archer said, ‘I know she may have left him had she chose so to do.’

The subject got more exposure under Dore’s probing: ‘Are not the Settlers or their Men in the habit of taking the women from the Natives and that the Native men are prevented taking them away through fear of Fire-arms?’

Archer replied that he knew of two instances lately where this was the case. The women were taken away ‘against the inclination of their Native men’ but he did not know if they were detained by force. However, he did think that the two women ‘were cummin [sic] to the White Men from choice’.b It was revealing evidence. The local tribesmen were very likely to be more than irritated with losing their women to white men.

Archer told the court he knew Major White personally. At the time Hodgkinson and Wimbo were killed, Major White ‘was under an Engagement’, Archer said, to accompany him on another excursion into the woods. Archer also knew the dead natives. They were in the same tribe as Major White. One had stolen corn from his barn and the one who ran away had stolen his fowls. The other one (Jemmy) had told Archer that his brother (Terribandy) had murdered a man upon the race ground.

Hodgkinson was also friendly with these natives. Archer had seen Hodgkinson ‘treat them kindly harbouring them and feeding them in his house’.

The Judge-Advocate continued asking Archer questions. What did Archer understand about Hobby’s orders to the burial party? It was that any natives they came across, both when going out or coming back, were to be killed. Moreover, Archer understood the orders were in force after the excursion. ‘Nor should I have thought myself doing wrong by killing any of the Natives afterwards,’ Archer said. It was an opinion that supported Powell’s claim about the commanding officer’s orders still being in force after they returned from burying Hodgkinson and Wimbo. Despite the fact that Archer’s employee, John Pearson, had given evidence against the others, Archer himself appears to have had empathy for the defendants’ situation.

It had been Archer who had set the circumstances in place for the return of Hodgkinson’s musket. But he was not there when Jemmy and the others arrived back with the gun. Instead, they had handed the weapon to Metcalfe who then spread the word to neighbours. As a result, many people were involved in questioning the three Aborigines at Isabella Ramsay’s house. Perhaps it was the fact that Archer was absent from his farm when Jemmy brought in the musket that made him feel some responsibility for what subsequently happened. Had he told Sarah Hodgkinson that Major White was one of her husband’s killers? We don’t know. Metcalfe had apparently tried to persuade his neighbours that the three Aborigines could be used to find the real killers. Perhaps Archer had suggested to his neighbours earlier that this might be a course of action. But he was not there to press the point when Jemmy delivered the gun, and Metcalfe was not successful in persuading others to that direction.

John Pearson’s testimony that Major White and Terribandy had been Hodgkinson’s murderers may have been at Archer’s suggestion. We know Archer was present when Pearson, his employee, gave his deposition. No other witnesses to the boys’ interrogation said they had heard any of the three natives say it was Major White. In fact Isabella Ramsay said that Metcalfe, and others, were still saying they should use these three to find the real killers, while at the same time Powell was saying he wanted them hanged.

Jonas and Mary Archer had helped Pearson extricate himself from amongst the accused, but at what cost to their own standing in the Argyle Reach community? The fact that their neighbours could possibly hang for murdering the two native boys was not a possibility the Archers could have foreseen when they decided Mary should go to Rickerby and report what happened the previous night.

Two things stand out from Archer’s testimony. Firstly that he believed the orders to kill Aborigines were still in force after the burial party had returned. He was definite about this, but his motivation in saying so could have been influenced by a realization that his neighbours were in more strife than he had ever thought possible. Things had got out of hand on the night Jemmy and the other two were interrogated. Perhaps if Archer had been present things would have happened differently. After all, he had sent Jemmy to get the gun and the boy lost his life as a result. At the time Archer had the conversation with Yellowgowie he was still ignorant about how Hodgkinson and Wimbo were mutilated by the killers. It was only when he went out with the burial party that he became aware of just what a horrific mess had been made of the corpses. The way the men were murdered was something that had shocked them all.

The second outstanding point about Archer’s testimony was that it shows that he and the Hodgkinsons had friendly relationships with the local tribesmen, regardless of the pilfering that went on. Archer knew Major White well, and he knew Jemmy well enough to ask him to bring the gun in from Major White. Friendly tolerance was Archer’s attitude, despite the fact that he also knew they had stolen corn from his barn. Jonas Archer was on good terms with them all, including Yellowgowie who was probably a member of the same clan. The pilfering that happened from time to time seems to have been accepted as a minor problem, something Archer and other settlers tolerated. However, some people were of another mind. Mr Braithwaite’s servant thought he was justified in shooting the Aborigine who took off with the dead kangaroo. Mr Braithwaite obviously thought the same.

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a Sambourne was not charged with perjury but with prevaricating in his evidence. He was admonished by a criminal court in December that same year and discharged. The 1806 muster shows him as Thomas Samber and still employed by Edward Powell.

^b The original transcript uses the word ‘cummin’ and the final transcript changed it to ‘common’..