We Were Very Kindly And Respectfully Received By His
Excellency.
We thought it right to state that we repudiated physical
force as a means of obtaining constitutional redress,
believing that the British constitution had sufficient
natural elasticity to adapt itself to the wants of the
age, and would yield under proper pressure.
But the
arming of the diggers of Ballaarat, however reprehensible
it might have been in itself, claims to be judged on
special grounds, inasmuch as they had special provocation.
The diggers of Ballaarat were attacked by a military
body under the command of civil (!) officers, for the
production of licence-papers, and, if they refused to
be arrested, deliberately shot at. The diggers did not
take up arms, properly speaking, against the government,
but to defend themselves against the bayonets, bullets,
and swords of the insolent officials in their unconstitutional
attack, who were a class that would disgrace any government,
by their mal-administration of the law.
The diggers did not take up arms against British rule,
but against the mis-rule of those who were paid to administer
the law properly; and however foolish their conduct might
be, it was an ungenerous libel on the part of one of the
military officers to designate outraged British subjects
as 'foreign anarchists and armed ruffians.'
The diggers were goaded on to take the stand they did
by the 'digger-hunt,' of the 30th November, which, we
are sustained in saying, was a base piece of gold and
silver lace revenge.
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