News of friendly encounters with Aboriginal people and a season decline in attacks prompted Arthur on 19 August to issue a government notice expressing his satisfaction "a less hostile disposition" being displayed by the indigenous population and advising that settlers cautiously "abstain from acts of aggression against these benighted beings" and allow them to feed and depart. But still the attacks continued, however, and as public panic and anger mounted, the Executive Council met a week later and decided a full-scale military operation would be required to force an end to what threatened to become a "war of extermination" between settlers and the Big River and Oyster Bay people. Martial law was extended to the whole of Van Diemen's Land on 1 October[48] and every able-bodied male colonist was ordered by Arthur to assemble on 7 October at one of seven designated places in the Settled Districts to join a massive drive to sweep "these miserable people" from the region.