The Eureka Stockade By Raffaello Carboni












































































 -   Their horses were really splendid animals.  A score
of troopers of the accursed stamp we had then on Ballaarat, sword - Page 75
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Their Horses Were Really Splendid Animals.

A score of troopers of the accursed stamp we had then on Ballaarat, sword unsheathed, carbines cocked, kept so close to our carts that one of these Vandemonians was half jammed on riding by a large gum-tree; was thrown from his horse, and disabled, but not killed.

We are at last in Ballan, for change of horses. Captain Thomas and a stout healthy-looking man, with a pair of the finest black whiskers I ever saw, in the garb of a digger, who gave such orders to the coachman, as were always attended to, with the usual colonial oaths as a matter of course, were regaling themselves with bottled porter on a stump of a tree outside the public-house. The dragoons and troopers had biscuit, cheese, and ale served to them, though paid for by themselves, before our teeth.

There was no breakfast for the poor state prisoners, in chains, and lying on the bare ground. They had some trouble before they could obtain from the red-coats watching over them, and blowing heaps of smoke from stump pipes, a drop of cold water - I mean actually a drop of cold water.

Good reader, you know WHOM I did bless, whom I did curse.

Chapter LXXV.

Petite, Sed Non Accipietis, Quia Petistis.

The following document, which does honour and justice to its writer, J. Basson Humffray, to 4500 of our fellow-miners of Ballaarat, who signed it, to the state prisoners themselves, is now here transcribed as necessary to the purpose of this book.

THE BALLAARAT DELEGATES, AND THEIR INTERVIEW WITH HIS EXCELLENCY SIR CHARLES HOTHAM, K.C.B., &c

The public has already seen the written reply of His Excellency to the petition from Ballaarat, signed by nearly 4500 of the inhabitants of that important, but 'officially' ridden place.

We deem it our duty to the public, and especially to those whose delegates we are, to state the main reasons urged by us for a general amnesty, and to make some general remarks thereon, and also upon the reply. We have delayed doing this, as we expected to have returned immediately to Ballaarat, and we did not wish to forestall our intended statement at a public meeting, which would have been held on our return; but as circumstances interfere with this arrangement, we now give our report.

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.

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