James Wallis (British Army officer)

A year later, Wallis was given command of a detachment which chased down and captured a French general and eighty enemy soldiers who had attempted to steal a British vessel.

In March 1816, a punitive expedition of British colonists was surprised and ambushed at Silverdale by a group of Aboriginal people armed with muskets and spears.

Four colonists were killed; in response, Governor Lachlan Macquarie ordered an armed reprisal "to inflict exemplary and severe punishment on the mountain tribes...to strike them with terror...clearing the country of them entirely."

In the early morning of 17 April, Wallis led a surprise attack on this camp with "smart firing" resulting in the deaths of at least fourteen Aboriginal people from both gunshot wounds or from falling off the rocky cliffs around the river while fleeing.

Wallis took two surviving women and three children prisoner and, following the orders of Governor Macquarie, hung the corpses of Cannabaygal and Dunnell from trees on a hill near Appin to "strike the survivors with greater terror."

[2] Wallis arrived at Newcastle in June 1816[4] and proceeded to implement civic improvements to change what was a basic coal mining convict camp into a functioning town.

[5] With cedar logging operations by colonists extending inland from Newcastle along the Hunter River, areas of land upriver were opened to further colonisation.

In addition to Wallis utilising these artists to design the new buildings being constructed in Newcastle, he also encouraged them to paint representations of the land and the Aboriginal people of the region.

Like Lycett, Wallis completed several significant works depicting the landscape, flora and fauna of the Newcastle area as well as unique portraits of local Aboriginal Australians such as Burigon.

[8] In late 1818, the remaining soldiers of the 46th Regiment were ordered to redeploy to India and Wallis was replaced as commandant and magistrate of Newcastle by Major James Morisset.

[9] Wallis left New South Wales in charge of a mixed group of British forces on board the Tottenham in February 1819 bound for India.