As I’ve written before there was a major panic in 1885 that, on the back of the Panjdeh incident, there might be war between Britain and Russia, including the chance of an attack on the east coast of Australia by the Russian pacific fleet.

To add to the general feeling of unsettlement, there were fears about the impact of the German colonisation of New Guinea, fears that led Queensland in 1883 to attempt to colonise Papua as a bulwark against further German expansion on behalf of the British Empire, only to be roundly told off by the government in London that colonies could not establish colonies, and more interestingly, that colonisation might be met with some resistance by the indigenous population. [UK Hansard April 1883 :: Courier Brisbane June 1883]

However, by the middle of the year the panic had largely subsided, although in June a visitor to Cooktown was mistaken as a Russian spy, and detained before being released by the local magistrate.

After then seems to have ceased to panic about spies and invasion and returned to more prosaic concerns such as the sale of under strength rum…

Riverine Herald Echuca November 1885