"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.