with Aboriginal Australians, and that they were expecting further hostilities. Brown had the bodies wrapped and packed for removal to the ship. While this was being carried out, the two guides tried to escape and were shot dead by Tommy, one of the Aboriginal assistants brought with the party to act as guides. Massacre Instead of returning to the ship, the expedition continued to examine the country. Brown described this as further "exploration", but most scholars now agree that the evidence points to a punitive expedition; indeed, one of the plaques on the Maitland Brown Memorial that in part has commemorated the expedition for the past years plainly calls the group of people conducting it the "punitive party". On 6 April 1865, Brown's party became engaged in a conflict with a large group of Aboriginal people. Most accounts state that the party walked into an ambush, but at least one account asserts that they attacked an Aboriginal camp. Regardless of the cause, the outcome is not in dispute: at least six, and possibly as many as twenty Aboriginal people were killed, whereas the expedition party suffered no injuries. Aftermath The search party returned to Perth in May 1865. Panter, Harding and Goldwyer were given a public funeral. It was the largest ever seen in Western Australia; the funeral train consisted of some 750 people, and thousands of spectators lined the streets on the way to the East Perth Cemetery, where the men were buried. Maitland Brown returned home to public acclaim, both for successfully finding the men, and for avenging their deaths. Indeed, many settlers felt "the requital Mr. Brown had inflicted on the murderers utterly inadequate". The English Government, however, expressed the view that "force had been exercised towards the [Aboriginal people...] without sufficient warranty" and urged the necessity of maintaining friendly relations with the local Aboriginal people. Maitland Brown died in 1904 and was buried at Karrakatta Cemetery, but in 1911 his remains were removed from Karrakatta and reinterred with the remains of Panter, Harding and Goldwyer at East Perth. Shortly afterwards, Pietro Porcelli was commissioned to create a memorial to Brown. The result was the Maitland Brown Memorial, a bronze head and shoulders statue of Brown, on a granite base to which is attached plaques portraying the murdered colonists only and describing the circumstances of their deaths. During the 1990s, the biased nature of the monument was