Instructions were issued by Governor Macquarie to the three officers in command of these detachments on the 9 April 1816. Captain W. G. B. Schaw was ordered to proceed into the interior for the purpose of punishing the natives, who had manifested a strong feeling of hostility against the settlers on the banks of the Nepean, Grose and Hawkesbury rivers, and had committed many cruel murders. Directions were given that all aborigines, men, women and children, who were met with from Sydney onwards, were to be made prisoners of war; any who ‘showed fight’ or endeavoured to run away were to be shot, and their bodies hung from trees in the most conspicuous places near where they fell, so as to strike terror into the hearts of the surviving natives.

Lieutenant Charles Dawe was ordered to the Cowpastures district, and to cooperate with Captain Schaw. Captain James Wallis was ordered to the districts of Appin and Airds, and was ultimately to meet captain Schaw at George Woodhouse’s farm in Airds district.

The detachments set out on 10 April 1816 and twenty days later Governor Macquarie sent orders to Captain Schaw for their return to headquarters. The most important episode of these punitive expeditions occurred to the party under Captain Wallis. This detachment had a moonlight skirmish with the natives near William Broughton’s farm in the Appin district. Fourteen of the natives were killed, and a considerable number were taken prisoners. The killed included several women and children who met their death by rushing over precipices. Amongst the men killed there were several who had committed recent murders.

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