Galvanised by the escalation of violence, Arthur called a meeting of Van Diemen's Land's Executive Council—comprising himself, the chief justice and the colonial treasurer—and on 1 November declared martial law against the Aboriginal people in the Settled Districts, who were now "open enemies of the King". Proclamation of martial law was a crown prerogative to be used "against rebels and enemies as a ... convenient mode of exercising a right to kill in war, a right originating in self-defence"[37] and Arthur's move was effectively a declaration of total war. Soldiers now had the right to apprehend without warrant or to shoot on sight any Aboriginal person in the Settled Districts who resisted them, though the proclamation ordered settlers: