, three pounds for each vessel
inwards and outwards.
There were eight other huts on the sandbank, but as not one of the
occupants was able to pay twenty pounds, their names are not worth
mentioning. After making a formal demand for the money, and giving
the trespassers ten minutes to take their goods away, Mr. Tyers
ordered his men to set the buildings on fire, and in a short time
they were reduced to ashes. The commissioner then rode back to his
camp with the eighty pounds, and wrote a report to the Government of
the successful inauguration of law and order within his jurisdiction,
and of the energetic manner in which he had commenced to put down the
irregularities prevalent in Gippsland.
The next duty undertaken by the commissioner was to settle disputes
about the boundaries of runs, and he commenced with those of Captain
Macalister, who complained of encroachments. To survey each run with
precision would take up much time and labour, so a new mode of
settlement was adopted. By the regulations in force no single
station was to consist of more than twenty square miles of area,
unless the commissioner certified that more was required for stock
possessed by applicant. This regulation virtually left everything to
the goodwill and pleasure of the commissioner, who first decided what
number of square miles he would allot to a settler, then mounted his
horse, to whose paces he was accustomed, and taking his compass with
him, he was able to calculate distances by the rate of speed of his
horse almost as accurately as if he had measured them with a chain.
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