The Eureka Stockade [9]
proclamation.
The following is transcribed from my diary:-
"Saturday, August 26th, 1854: His Excellency dashed in among us 'vagabonds' on a sudden, at about five o'clock p.m., and inspected a shaft immediately behind the Ballaarat Dining Rooms, Gravel-pits. A mob soon collected round the hole; we were respectful, and there was no 'joeing.' On His Excellency's return to the camp, the miners busily employed themselves in laying down slabs to facilitate his progress. I was among the zealous ones who improvised this shabby foot-path. What a lack! we were all of us as cheerful as fighting-cocks.--A crab-hole being in the way, our Big-Larry actually pounced on Lady Hotham, and lifting her up in his arms, eloped with her ladyship safely across, amid hearty peals of laughter, however colonial they may have been.--Now Big Larry kept the crowd from annoying the couple, by properly laying about him with a switch all along the road.
"His Excellency was hailed with three-times-three, and was proclaimed on the Camp, now invaded by some five hundred blue shirts, the 'Diggers' Charley.'
"His Excellency addressed us miners as follows:-
"Diggers I feel delighted with your reception--I shall not neglect your interests and welfare--again I thank you.
"It was a short but smart speech we had heard elsewhere, he was not fond of 'twaddle,' which I suppose meant 'bosh.' After giving three hearty cheers, old Briton's style to 'Charley,' the crowd dispersed to drink a nobbler to his health and success. I do so this very moment. Eureka, under my snug tent on the hill, August 26, 1854. C.R."
Within six short months, five thousand citizens of Melbourne, receive the name of this applauded ruler with a loud and prolonged outburst of indignation!
Some twenty Ballaarat miners lie in the grave, weltering in their gore! double that number are bleeding from bayonet wounds; thirteen more have the rope round their necks, and two more of their leading men are priced four hundred pounds for their body or carcase.
'Tout cela, n'est pas precisement comme chez nous, pas vrai?'
Please, give me a dozen puffs at my black-stump, and then I will proceed to the next chapter.
Chapter XII.
Sufficit Diei Sua Vexatio.
Either this chapter must be very short, or I had better give it up without starting it at all.
Up to the middle of September, 1854, the search for licences happened once a month; at most twice: perhaps once a week on the Gravel Pits, owing to the near neighbourhood of the Camp. Now, licence-hunting became the order of the day. Twice a week on every line; and the more the diggers felt annoyed at it, the more our Camp officials persisted in goading us, to render our yoke palatable by habit. I assert, as an eye-witness and a sufferer, that both in October and November, when the weather allowed it, the Camp rode out for the hunt every alternate day. True, one day they would hunt their game on Gravel-pits, another day, they pounced on the foxes of the Eureka; and a third day, on the Red-hill: but, though working on different leads, are we not all fellow diggers? Did not several of us meet again in the evening, under the same tent, belonging to the same party? It is useless to ask further questions.
Towards the latter end of October and the beginning of November we had such a set of scoundrels camped among us, in the shape of troopers and traps, that I had better shut up this chapter at once, or else whirl the whole manuscript bang down a shicer.
"Hold hard, though, take your time, old man: don't let your Roman blood hurry you off like the hurricane, and thus damage the merits of your case. Answer this question first," says my good reader.
"If it be a fair one, I will."
"Was, then, the obnoxious mode of collecting the tax the sole cause of discontent: or was the tax itself (two pounds for three months) objected to at the same time?"
"I think the practical miner, who had been hard at work night and day, for the last four or six months, and, after all, had just bottomed a shicer, objected
The following is transcribed from my diary:-
"Saturday, August 26th, 1854: His Excellency dashed in among us 'vagabonds' on a sudden, at about five o'clock p.m., and inspected a shaft immediately behind the Ballaarat Dining Rooms, Gravel-pits. A mob soon collected round the hole; we were respectful, and there was no 'joeing.' On His Excellency's return to the camp, the miners busily employed themselves in laying down slabs to facilitate his progress. I was among the zealous ones who improvised this shabby foot-path. What a lack! we were all of us as cheerful as fighting-cocks.--A crab-hole being in the way, our Big-Larry actually pounced on Lady Hotham, and lifting her up in his arms, eloped with her ladyship safely across, amid hearty peals of laughter, however colonial they may have been.--Now Big Larry kept the crowd from annoying the couple, by properly laying about him with a switch all along the road.
"His Excellency was hailed with three-times-three, and was proclaimed on the Camp, now invaded by some five hundred blue shirts, the 'Diggers' Charley.'
"His Excellency addressed us miners as follows:-
"Diggers I feel delighted with your reception--I shall not neglect your interests and welfare--again I thank you.
"It was a short but smart speech we had heard elsewhere, he was not fond of 'twaddle,' which I suppose meant 'bosh.' After giving three hearty cheers, old Briton's style to 'Charley,' the crowd dispersed to drink a nobbler to his health and success. I do so this very moment. Eureka, under my snug tent on the hill, August 26, 1854. C.R."
Within six short months, five thousand citizens of Melbourne, receive the name of this applauded ruler with a loud and prolonged outburst of indignation!
Some twenty Ballaarat miners lie in the grave, weltering in their gore! double that number are bleeding from bayonet wounds; thirteen more have the rope round their necks, and two more of their leading men are priced four hundred pounds for their body or carcase.
'Tout cela, n'est pas precisement comme chez nous, pas vrai?'
Please, give me a dozen puffs at my black-stump, and then I will proceed to the next chapter.
Chapter XII.
Sufficit Diei Sua Vexatio.
Either this chapter must be very short, or I had better give it up without starting it at all.
Up to the middle of September, 1854, the search for licences happened once a month; at most twice: perhaps once a week on the Gravel Pits, owing to the near neighbourhood of the Camp. Now, licence-hunting became the order of the day. Twice a week on every line; and the more the diggers felt annoyed at it, the more our Camp officials persisted in goading us, to render our yoke palatable by habit. I assert, as an eye-witness and a sufferer, that both in October and November, when the weather allowed it, the Camp rode out for the hunt every alternate day. True, one day they would hunt their game on Gravel-pits, another day, they pounced on the foxes of the Eureka; and a third day, on the Red-hill: but, though working on different leads, are we not all fellow diggers? Did not several of us meet again in the evening, under the same tent, belonging to the same party? It is useless to ask further questions.
Towards the latter end of October and the beginning of November we had such a set of scoundrels camped among us, in the shape of troopers and traps, that I had better shut up this chapter at once, or else whirl the whole manuscript bang down a shicer.
"Hold hard, though, take your time, old man: don't let your Roman blood hurry you off like the hurricane, and thus damage the merits of your case. Answer this question first," says my good reader.
"If it be a fair one, I will."
"Was, then, the obnoxious mode of collecting the tax the sole cause of discontent: or was the tax itself (two pounds for three months) objected to at the same time?"
"I think the practical miner, who had been hard at work night and day, for the last four or six months, and, after all, had just bottomed a shicer, objected