On 24 July Vernon returned from Perth with the year's rations. On 30 July shouting was heard down at the estuary, and the Bussells, Dawson and other settler men armed themselves and headed down there. They shot and killed at least six people. Bessie Bussell wrote "Three women, one man, one boy are known to be dead, but more are supposed to be dying." Three days later the Bussell brothers buried the bodies when they realised that Noongar people were not going to come back for their dead. Lenox refused to do a report on this incident to the resident magistrate John Molloy. Dawson submitted a report about his spearing instead. During these two massacres, John Bussell was away in England seeking a wife. The other Bussell brothers Charles, Lenox and Alfred were involved. In a letter to his brother John in England, Charles Bussell wrote that "the war with the natives had been properly conducted". In August 1837 Mr Bunbury's horse disappeared and the Bussells headed out again. (Lieut. Henry William St Pierre Bunbury had been stationed down at the Vasse, but was in York at the time.) This time an old Noongar man was shot and wounded and the child he was carrying was dropped. The Bussells kept this child as a hostage for ten weeks. Subsequently Bunbury's horse was found. In October 1839 Henry Camfield, a colonial settler in Perth who was looking for a wife, came down to the Vasse area to woo Fanny Bussell. During his stay there the Bussells set a trap for a Noongar man who came to steal food. They set a trap with a shotgun and the Noongar man was shot. The Bussells then rode off searching for collaborators and Camden was left to bury the body. Camden then decided against Fanny Bussell as a wife and returned to Perth. In February 1841 a third, much more deadly, massacrethe Wonnerup massacretook place after George Layman was killed by Wardandi warrior Gayware. John Bussell, newly married, was back from England by then. He and Captain John Molloy led a group of settlers in a massacre of dozens of Noongar people. Charles Bussell was part of this group, and Lenox may also have been involved (although by then he was mentally very unwell). The History of West Australia, written in 1897, states that during the massacre "the white men had no mercy" and