town of Sheerness, Gipps became Private Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Auckland in 1834. A year later, on Auckland's recommendation, Gipps was knighted and sent to Lower Canada as a Commissioner, together with the Earl of Gosford and Sir Charles Edward Grey, to examine grievances against colonial rule there. Although the commission was a complete failure which helped to ignite the 1837 Lower Canada Rebellion, Gipps gained a reputation for political negotiation and colonial administration. On returning to England in April 1837, he found that he was promoted to the rank of major and was being considered for the role of Governor of New South Wales. He accepted and was officially appointed to the position on 5 October 1837. Governor of New South Wales Gipps arrived in Sydney aboard the Upton Castle in February 1838. He entered into the colony at one of its most turbulent periods during which drought, economic depression, cessation of convict transportation, frontier conflict with Aboriginal people, the rise of semi-elective government, and bitter contests with powerful squatters over land seizure would all create immense difficulties for him. Gipps' salary of £5,000 a year, the highest in the Empire for a colonial governor, was to be hard earned. Policies toward Aboriginal people When Gipps arrived in 1838 he was immediately faced with the issue of two major massacres of Aboriginal people: the Waterloo Creek massacre perpetrated by Major James Nunn and his detachment of New South Wales Mounted Police; and the Myall Creek massacre perpetrated by squatter John Henry Fleming and his ten stockmen. The British government at this time was interested in reducing the exterminatory effects of colonisation on Indigenous peoples and in 1837 a select committee had produced a report suggesting ways to do this. As Governor, Gipps was obligated by this report at least to attempt to protect the Aborigines under his jurisdiction. He ordered inquiries into both incidents with the Myall Creek massacre inquiry resulting in a judicial trial that saw seven stockmen being sentenced to death and hanged for the massacre. Although these actions upheld Gipps in the eyes of those concerned for Indigenous protection, the powerful squatters marked him as a dangerous enemy who interfered with their acquisition of vast tracts of Aboriginal land. Gipps attempted twice to introduce legislation that allowed for Aboriginal evidence to be given in the courts. In 1839, an Act was