Eureka - The Unfinished Revolution (51 page)

Yes, Sir Robert Peel had famously changed his mind on the matter of the Corn Laws and repealed the protection of home-grown grain, but that was in another time and another place, and even then Sir Robert had authority to do so. Even if Lieutenant-Governor Hotham had the authority to make the diggers’ changes, frankly, he would not be so inclined.

Other matters beckon.

‘Passing from that subject,’ Black says, ‘we would wish to know from Your Excellency what the government intend to do with regard to giving the diggers full and equal representation . . .’

‘You know that a despatch has gone home asking for the franchise,’ His Excellency replies. ‘This event took place before my coming into the colony and therefore I cannot speak with confidence upon it. You know also that I have no power to deal with the question, and could not do so if I would. You know also, as I have said before, that if the diggers will elect a nominee I will at once put him in and shall only be too glad to do it . . .’

‘I am quite sure,’ Black replies rather archly, ‘that only one seat in the Council would not satisfy the diggers.’

It is an obviously reasonable point, but Sir Charles is not moved.

‘I have not the means of doing more,’ he says. ‘You are asking me to do that which is impossible, and an impossibility cannot be got over.’

He does, however, draw their attention to the fact that ‘a commission has been appointed composed of gentlemen almost all of whom are in opposition to the government, and almost all of whom are representative members of the Legislature, selected with very great care purposely to enquire into the state of the goldfields, and it will be for you to come forward and state fairly and frankly to them what you require.’

George Black, for one, is not impressed, noting that the diggers would have been ‘better satisfied with that board had [we] been allowed to appoint or elect one half of that board’.

Certainly they are happy with John Pascoe Fawkner, and no doubt with other members of the board, but that is not the point. The point is, once again, people have been put into a position of power by appointment, not by election! As a significant body, the Ballarat Reform League should have been consulted. Instead, it is being
told
from on high.

‘I can only conclude by saying this,’ Sir Charles says. ‘You have placed me in a position which renders the release of these men impossible . . . As it has been observed, we have all of us to give an account to those above us, and it cannot be. I am sorry for it. Tell the diggers from me, and tell them carefully, that this commission will enquire into everything and everybody, high and low, rich and poor, and you have only to come forward and state your grievances, and, in what relates to me, they shall be redressed. I can say no more; we are all in a false position altogether. I can say no more than that.’

The three delegates leave the government offices with nothing less than a blank refusal to cede on any front.

What is clear to Sir Charles is that things are now getting out of hand and he is thankful that that very morning – even before the deputation had arrived – he had issued orders for 70 rank and file men of the 12th Regiment under the command of Captain Richard Atkinson and 50 Redcoats of the 40th Regiment under Captain Henry Wise to be dispatched by steamer to Geelong, with instructions to proceed at all speed to Ballarat. Captain Wise, for one, is chafing at the bit to go. Though from a fine family in England with the capacity to give him a very comfortable life without ever having to put himself in danger, he had always been one hungering for adventure, for action, and this certainly looks to be both.

A body of mounted police troopers is also placed under orders to proceed to the scene of the action, taking with them two pieces of artillery.
The Argus
reports they are to be followed by ‘large drafts from the City and District police . . . their places being supplied by special constables, who are to be sworn in forthwith’.

Monday evening, 27 November 1854, Government Camp receives a man in black

It is a very difficult meeting to participate in, but Father Smyth feels he has no choice. Deeply troubled by the direction things are heading, on this night he slips towards the Government Camp under cover of darkness and is soon taken to see Commissioner Rede. On the strict understanding that the Commissioner must never make use of Smyth’s name in any public forum, the priest tells him that things are taking a very dangerous turn. He fears that the emotions are so high among the diggers that there will soon be a ‘general assault on the Camp’.

Speaking urgently but quietly, a man torn between his commitment to civic peace and his loyalty to his flock – a flock he does not wish to see shot to pieces – he tells the Commissioner that the diggers are far better organised than anyone in the Government Camp can conceive and that no fewer than ‘1000 rifles can be brought to one spot’. It is on the strength of this warning that Commissioner Rede calls in the Sub-Inspector of Police, Samuel Furnell, an honest man who has been with Victoria Police since the crisis of filling the ranks hit in December 1852 and has risen quickly from there. Father Smyth says that he would ‘tell much more but feared to do so, that things [are] in a dreadful state . . . The only people not mixed up in it are the English. Amongst the agitators are men of most determined character and they are resolved to put down the Government at all costs’.

Deeply concerned at all this information, Commissioner Rede thanks the holy man, who takes his leave, the darkness soon swallowing his black-frocked figure whole.

Yet his words have had an effect on the Englishman, for no sooner has the priest departed than the Commissioner writes a frank missive to Colonial Secretary John Foster.

‘If law and order are to exert on the Goldfields, and I still believe that nothing but crushing the agitators’ movement can do it – should such a measure be intended a large force would be required . . . Whatever His Excellency may decide as to reinforcements I have one urgent request to make which is that Captain Thomas or some officer of known capability be sent up without delay as I do not place confidence in the present Officer.’

It is an astute choice. Captain John Wellesley Thomas is the softly spoken career officer who has already done great work improving the security at the Camp when he was on Ballarat a month earlier, and that is precisely what Rede feels he needs more of at this moment, as the situation deteriorates. It is one thing to have many men under arms, but having them properly organised militarily is quite another, and as that is not something within Rede’s field of training, Thomas would be a good fit.

As it turns out, Thomas is already on his way.

Tuesday morning, 28 November 1854, Ballarat boils

There is revolution in the air. It is not open rebellion, yet, but that heady sense that the diggers are rising against an iniquitous regime is everywhere, touching everything. All over the diggings, notices have been placed on posts, on walls, on anything standing still, advising of a meeting to be held on the morrow, mates:

DOWN WITH THE LICENSE FEE

DOWN WITH DESPOTISM!

——————

‘WHO SO BASE AS BE A SLAVE?’

ON

The 29th Instant, at Two o’clock

A MEETING

Of all the DIGGERS; STOREKEEPERS, and Inhabitants of Ballarat generally, will be held

ON BAKERY HILL

For the immediate Abolition of the License Fee, and the speedy attainment of the other objects of the Ballarat Reform League. The report of the Deputations which have gone to the Lieutenant-Governor to demand the release of the prisoners lately convicted, and to Creswick and Forest Creeks, Bendigo, &c., will also be submitted at the same time.

All who claim the right to a voice in the framing of the Laws under which they should live, are solemnly bound to attend the Meeting and further its objects to the utmost extent of their power.

N.B. Bring your Licenses, they may be wanted.

PRINTED AT THE TIMES OFFICE, BAKERY HILL, BALLARAT

It is with great interest that the increasingly alarmed authorities note that the posters have been printed in the office of Henry Seekamp’s
Ballarat Times
.

Tuesday morning, 28 November 1854, Melbourne looks north-west with anxiety

The good people of Melbourne are watching events in Ballarat with a growing, fearful fascination. On this day
The Argus
reports, in an article entitled ‘GOVERNMENT BY ARTILLERY’, ‘Intelligence reached town yesterday that the diggers at Ballarat were in open revolt and had seized upon Commissioner Rede and Inspector Evans, as hostages, till the release of the three men now in the Eureka riot. How this is true, we are unable positively to state but it is certain that troops, police, and artillery, have again been ordered up to the scene of action. This looks serious; and we fear that we may shortly have to report very sorrowful news indeed . . .

‘But threatening as appearances may be, the Government is now but receiving the due reward of its deeds. It sowed the wind, and it is reaping the whirlwind . . .

‘If blood be shed, the results will probably be very serious indeed . . . To fire rashly or inconsiderately upon such a mob would be to throw down the gauntlet of battle, and plunge the colony in the calamities of civil war.

‘But on the other hand we must warn the diggers that it is no slight affair upon which they are entering. They have a gentleman to deal with who will not bear to be trifled with. Sir Charles Hotham is, as he himself expresses it, ‘a man of war’, and as one who has smelt gunpowder, he is not likely to mince matters . . .’

Tuesday afternoon, 28 November 1854, an English officer arrives at the Government Camp in Ballarat

As opposed to many of the military men now in Ballarat, the newest arrival to the troubled town, Captain Charles Pasley, is not here because he has been commanded to be so. The 30-year-old Englishman is a high-ranking army officer with the Royal Engineers and of impeccable pedigree. His father is Sir Charles Pasley, founder of the Royal Military School of Engineering in 1812 and the current Colonel Commandant of the Royal Engineers. Charles Jnr is now the Colonial Engineer of Victoria and recently appointed by Lieutenant-Governor Hotham to the Legislative Council, so there are few who can actually give him orders.

Militarily, he is second-in-command to Captain Wellesley Thomas, who arrived again just the day before, but politically he reigns supreme on these goldfields. He has come from Melbourne at his own request, because, as he would explain in a letter to his father, he is fully cognisant of the political implications of the unrest should it start to grow in amplitude and spread to other diggings.

‘I thought the consequences would be very serious, and at the same time, if [we soldiers] resisted and were beaten in fights by the insurgents I had no doubt that a general rebellion would ensue. Feeling as I did upon the subject I thought it was my duty to offer my services at once, as I could not tell whether the authorities at Ballarat were as much impressed as I was with the importance of the events which must occur in a very few days.’

True, the reason he had been nominated to the Legislative Council in the first place had been to mollify him after the Lieutenant-Governor, without consulting the Executive Council or anyone else as far as Pasley could see, had appointed a rival as Director of Public Works. A pity, because Charles Pasley, too, really prefers building things to tearing them down. But now he is on the ground, in the middle of the greatest issue of the day, and determined to prove himself in this sphere.

He is appalled by what he observes upon his arrival at the Government Camp:

‘I . . .
found a small force . . . in an exposed and defenceless camp, consisting of tents and light wooden buildings, by no means musket proof, surrounded on three sides by hills and houses, pressing close upon it.’

The one positive thing that he can see is the presence of Captain Thomas, whom, though they have never met before, he likes a great deal and immediately respects for his ‘steady, resolute, business-like, and at the same time quiet manner’.

The two soldiers immediately get to work on how they can make the Camp more secure, and it is Pasley who comes up with the first serious idea, which Thomas immediately embraces. Noting how many habitations there are that practically surround the Camp, it becomes obvious that the buildings have to be neutralised as a staging point from which any attack could be launched. So Thomas and Pasley immediately call all the householders of the township together and tell them, frankly, that if that does happen their houses will be burnt to the ground. It is their duty to maintain the Camp’s position at any cost, including lost life and property, but they feel equally obliged to give fair warning to that effect so the residents and shop-owners can make their arrangements accordingly.

‘I believe this had a very good effect,’ Pasley tells his father, ‘because it brought their pecuniary interests on the side of order. This was not however a mere threat – it was fully intended to be carried out, and I had prepared fire balls to throw on the houses if necessary.’

It is something, anyway. Both men feel relieved that military reinforcements are not far off, as they had been due to leave Melbourne just behind them.

Tuesday evening, 28 November 1854, cries in the night on the Ballarat diggings

In that strong twilight hour of dusk, when the battle between day and night is at its most evenly balanced, when the air is thick with the delicious smoke of burning eucalyptus from the newly lit evening fires around the diggings, there is many a digger who has finished his day’s work and is just getting ready to rustle up some grub when he suddenly cocks his ear to the softly-softly wind. Say, mate, what is that . . .? Horses? Yes, horses. Many of them. And that jingle-jangle of the stirrups, the occasional guttural command from far off and the odd screech of, yes, metal on rock, says it is most likely military horsemen, mounted troopers leading horse-drawn carts in which many foot soldiers and supplies are being transported. And sure enough, within minutes, 106 Redcoats of the 40th Regiment appear. Having arrived in Geelong aboard the steamer
Shandon
from Melbourne just before midnight the previous evening, they immediately embark on the approximately 60-mile journey to Ballarat, and they are accompanied by a party of mounted police from Geelong.