In fact, gentlemen, I expected some one
who is really well known (J. B. Humffray?) to come forward and direct
our movement! However, if you appoint me your commander-in-chief, I shall not
shrink; I mean to do my duty as a man. I tell you, gentlemen, if once I pledge
my hand to the diggers, I will neither defile it with treachery, nor render it
contemptible by cowardice."
Brave Peter, you gave us your hand on the Eureka, and left there your arm:
an incontestable evidence of Lalor's Pledge.
Manning then proposed Raffaello, and pointed at his scars as an evidence
of his tiger-pluck against the hated Austrian rule, which was now attempted,
in defiance of God and man, to be transplanted into this colony.
I declined, because, during the past winter, I had over-tasked my physical
strength, and did not possess that vigour essential to such an emergency.
Confidence is the bond necessary between the soldier and his officer.
It was my decided opinion, however much a foreigner may be respected
on the gold-fields, that the right man should be taken from among Britons.
Vern here began a portentous lecture on military science, military discipline,
military tactics, and other sorts of militaryism, but his English was
so wretched, his ideas so sky-blathering, his martial ardour so knocking down,
that no one could make anything out of his blabberdom.
