The Exploration of Cape York Peninsula by Robert Logan Jack

My progress report to the authorities in Brisbane having been telegraphed to the Hodgkinson, a party was formed there composed of four miners and prospectors of tried efficiency, James Crosbie, John Layland, George Hume and George Hamil. This party received assistance from Government in the shape of horses and six months' rations. My own instructions from the Minister for Mines were to lead them to the spot and point out what, in my opinion, were the most favorable localities for prospecting, while at the same time carrying on my own geological observations. My party consisted of J. J. Macdonald, who had been with me on the trip which ended at Birthday Mount, James Love (my stepson, then not out of his teens), and Charlie, a Townsville aboriginal. Of the seven white men Love and I are now the only survivors.

A suggestion of mine, that the party should be accompanied by an officer of the Native Police and a few troopers, was rejected by the Minister, in terms, as I afterwards learned, which were insulting, although the reply, as it reached me, was couched in decorous official language. That, however, is neither here nor there, and may be passed over as merely personal, but I cannot help contrasting the ministerial attitude of the time with that of succeeding ministers, who were always ready to provide police escort for telegraph parties, surveyors, missionaries and others who proffered a reasonable claim. As we were refused police escort, I hold myself free of responsibility for what happened when we were obliged to take the law into our own hands, exactly as I pointed out we might have to do.