The Eureka Stockade

Favete Linguis.

Mendacium sibi, sicut turbinis, viam augustam in urbe et orbe terrarum aperuit.

Stultus dicit in corde suo, "non est Deus."

Veritas vero lente passu passu sicut puer, tandem aliquando janunculat

ad lucem.

Tunc justus ut palma florescit.*

[*Listen to me- The lie, like the whirlwind, clears itself a royal road, either in town or country, through the whole face of the earth. The fool in his heart says, "There is no God." The truth, however slow, step by step, like a little child, someday, at last, finds a footpath to light. Then the righteous flourish like a palm tree.]

I undertake to do what an honest man should do, let it thunder or rain. He who buys this book to lull himself to sleep had better spend his money in grog. He who reads this book to smoke a pipe over it, let him provide himself with Plenty of tobacco-he will have to blow hard. A lover of truth- that's the man I want-and he will have in this book the truth, and nothing but the truth.

Facts, from the "stubborn-things" store, are here retailed and related- contradiction is challenged from friend or foe. The observation on, and induction from the facts, are here stamped with sincerity: I ask for no other credit. I may be mistaken: I will not acknowledge the mistake unless the contrary be proved.

When two boys are see-sawing on a plank, balanced on its centre, whilst the world around them is "up" with the one it is "down" with the other. The centre, however, is stationary. I was in the centre. I was an actor, and therefore an eye-witness. The events I relate, I did see them pass before me. The persons I speak of, I know them face to face. The words I quote, I did hear them with my own ears. Others may know more or less than I; I mean to tell all that I know, and nothing more.

Two reasons counsel me to undertake the task of publishing this work; but a third reason is at the bottom of it, as the potent lever; and they are-

1st. An honourable ambition urging me to have my name remembered among the illustrious of Rome. I have, on reaching the fortieth year of my age, to publish a work at which I have been plodding the past eighteen years. An ocean of grief would overwhelm me if then I had to vindicate my character: how, under the hospitality of the British flag, I was put in the felon's dock of a British Supreme Court to be tried for high treason.

2nd. I have the moral courage to show the truth of my text above, because I believe in the resurrection of life.

3rd. Brave comrades in arms who fell on that disgraced Sabbath morning, December 3rd, worthy of a better fate, and most certainly of a longer remembrance, it is in my power to drag your names from an ignoble oblivion, and vindicate the unrewarded bravery of one of yourselves! He was once my mate, the bearer of our standard, the "Southern Cross." Shot down by a murderous hand, he fell and died struggling like a man in the cause of the diggers. But he was soon forgotten. That he was buried is known by the tears of a few true friends! the place of his burial is little known, and less cared for.

'Sunt tempora nostra; non mutabimur nec mutamur in illis; jam perdidi spem.'

The work will be published on the 1st of December next, and given to each subscriber by the Author's own hand, on the site of the Eureka Stockade, from the rising to the setting of the sun, on the memorable third.

Fiat Fustitia, Ruat Coelum.

As an old Ballaarat hand, I hereby assert, that much of the odium of the mining community against red-tape, arose from the accursed practice of jumping.

One fact from the 'stubborn-things' store. The Eureka gutter was fast progressing down hill towards the Eureka gully. A party of Britishers had two claims; the one, on the slope of the hill, was bottomed on heavy gold; the other, some four claims from it, and parallel with the range, was some ninety feet deep, and was worked by day only, by three men: a fourth man would now and then bring a set of trimmed slabs from the first hole aforesaid, where he was the principal 'chips.' There was a Judas Iscariot among the party. One fine morning, a hole was bottomed down the gully, and proved a scheisser. A rush, Eureka style, was the conseqence; and it was pretended now that the gutter would keep with the ranges, towards the Catholic church.

A party of Yankees, with revolvers and Mexican knives-the garb of 'bouncers' in those days-jumped the second hole of the Britishers, dismantled the windlass, and Godamn'd as fast as the Britishers cursed in the colonial style. The excitement was awful. Commissioner Rede was fetched to settle the dispute. An absurd and unjust regulation was then the law; no party was allowed to have an interest in two claims at one and the same time, which was called 'owning two claims.' The Yankees carried the day. I, a living witness, do assert that, from that day, there was a 'down' on the name of Rede.

For the commissioners, this jumping business was by no means an agreeable job. They were fetched to the spot: a mob would soon collect round the disputed claim; and for 'fair play,' it required the wisdom of Solomon, because the parties concerned set the same price on their dispute, as the two harlots on the living child.

I. The conflicting evidence, in consequence of hard swearing, prompted by gold-thirst, the most horrible demon that depraves the human heart, even a naturally honest heart.-II. The incomprehensible, unsettled, impracticable ordinances for the abominable management of the gold-fields; which ordinances, left to the discretion-that is, the caprice; and to the good sense-that is, the motto, 'odi profanum vulgus et arceo;' and to the best judgment-that is the proverbial incapability of all aristocractical red-tape, HOW TO RULE US VAGABONDS. Both those reasons, I say, must make even the most hardened bibber of Toorak small-beer acknowledge and confess, that the perfidious mistake at head-quarters was, their persisting to make the following Belgravian 'billet-doux' the 'sine qua non' recommendation for gold-lace on Ballaarat (at the time):-

(ADDRESS)

"To the Victorian Board of Small Beer,

"Toorak (somewhere in Australasia, i.e., Australia Felix-inquire from the natives, reported to be of blackskin, at the southern end of the globe.)

"Belgravia, First year of the royal projecting the Great Exhibition, Hyde Park.

"LADY STARVESEMPSTRESS, great-grand-niece of His Grace the Duke Of CURRY-POWDER, begs to introduce to FORTYSHILLING TAKEHIMAWAY, Esquire, of Toorak, see address, her brother-in-law, POLLIPUSS, WATERLOOBOLTER, tenth son of the venerable Prebendary of North and South Palaver, Canon of St. Sebastopol in the east, and Rector of Allblessedfools, West End-URGENT."

In justice, however, to Master Waterloobolter, candidate for gold-lace, it must not be omitted that he is a Piccadilly young sprat, and so at Julien's giant 'bal-masque', was ever gracious to the lady of his love.

"Miss Smartdeuce, may I beg the honour of your hand for the next waltz? surely after a round or two you will relish your champagne."

"Yes," with a smothered "dear," was the sigh-drawn reply.

Who has the power to roar the command, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no further," to the flood of tears from forlorn Smartdeuce, when her soft Waterloobolter bolted for the gold-fields of Australia Felix.

To be serious. How could any candid mind otherwise explain the honest boldness of eight out of nine members of the first Local Court, Ballaarat, who, one and all, I do not say dared, but I say called upon their fellow miners to come forward to a public meeting on the old spot, Bakery-hill. September, Saturday, 30th, 1855. Said members had already settled at that time 201 disputes, and given their judgement, involving some half a million sterling altogether, for all what they knew, and yet not one miner rose one finger against them, when they imperatively desired to know whether they had done their duty and still possessed the confidence of their fellow diggers! They (said members) are practical men, of our own adopted class, elected by ourselves from among ourselves, to sit as arbitrators of our disputes, and our representatives at the Local Court. That's the key, for any future Brougham, for the history of the Local Courts on the gold-fields.

It has fallen to my lot, however, to put the Eureka Stockade on record; and, from the following 'Joe' chapter must begin any proper history of that disgracefully memorable event.

Abyssus, Abyssum Invocat.

"Joe, Joe!" No one in the world can properly understand and describe this shouting of "Joe," unless he were on this El Dorado of Ballaarat at the time.

It was a horrible day, plagued by the hot winds. A blast of the hurricane winding through gravel pits whirled towards the Eureka this shouting of "Joe." It was the howl of a wolf for the shepherds, who bolted at once towards the bush: it was the yell of bull-dogs for the fossikers who floundered among the deep holes, and thus dodged the hounds: it was a scarecrow for the miners, who now scrambled down to the deep, and left a licensed mate or two at the windlass. By this time, a regiment of troopers, in full gallop, had besieged the whole Eureka, and the traps under their protection ventured among the holes. An attempt to give an idea of such disgusting and contemptible campaigns for the search of licences is really odious to an honest man. Some of the traps were civil enough; aye, they felt the shame of their duty; but there were among them devils at heart, who enjoyed the fun, because their cupidity could not bear the sight of the zig-zag uninterrupted muster of piles of rich-looking washing stuff, and the envy which blinded their eyes prevented them from taking into account the overwhelming number of shicers close by, round about, all along. Hence they looked upon the ragged muddy blue shirt as an object of their contempt.

Are diggers dogs or savages, that they are to be hunted on the diggings, commanded, in Pellissier's African style, to come out of their holes, and summoned from their tents by these hounds of the executive? Is the garb of a digger a mark of inferiority? 'In sudore vultus lue vesceris panem'* is then an infamy now-a-days!

[* In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread.]

Give us facts, and spare us your bosh, says my good reader.-Very well.

I, CARBONII RAFFAELLO, da Roma, and late of No. 4, Castle-court, Cornhill, City of London, had my rattling 'Jenny Lind' (the cradle) at a water-hole down the Eureka Gully. Must stop my work to show my licence. 'All right.'

I had then to go a quarter of a mile up the hill to my hole, and fetch

the washing stuff. There again-"Got your licence?" "All serene, governor."

On crossing the holes, up to the knees in mullock, and loaded like a dromedary,

"Got your licence?" was again the cheer-up from a third trooper or trap.

Now, what answer would you have given, sir?

I assert, as a matter of fact, that I was often compelled to produce my licence twice at each and the same licence hunt. Any one who knows me personally, will readily believe that the accursed game worried me to death.