Due to the ongoing hostilities Governor Brisbane declared martial law on 14 August 1824. The Commandant at Bathurst, Major Morisset, was given greater powers over Aboriginal people, and troop numbers at Bathurst were increased to seventy-five, and magistrates were empowered to administer summary justice. With the armed colonisers now backed by the military the violence quickly escalated, and the Wiradjuri people were terrorised and killed in increasing numbers. While there were reports of massacres of warriors as they attempted to bury their dead, the main victims appear to have been the Wiradjuri women and children, shot, poisoned, and driven into gorges. Recent estimates suggest that between a quarter and a third of the Wiradjuri in the Bathurst region were killed during these hostilities.