'When Ballaarat unfurled the Southern Cross;'
and I had the peculiar sensation on that particular night to lie down on
my stretcher very hungry!
"'Heu mihi! pingui quam macer est mihi taurus in arvo!' and it must be
acknowledged that it would have been paying an honest and educated man
a better compliment if my neighbours on the Eureka had found less
edification in witnessing my nice snug tent converted into a gambling
house by day, and a brothel by night. A sad reflection! however merry
some scoundrels may have made in getting drunk with my private brandy
in the tent.
"Never mind! the diggers have now a legion of friends. So I prevailed on
myself to tell, half-a-dozen times over to most of the 'well-disposed
and independent' yabber-yabber leaders on Ballaarat, how I had been robbed
at the Camp, how for my sorrows every mortal thing had been stolen from my
tent, and concluded with the remark, 'that in each case the thieves were
neither Vandemonians nor Chinese.'
"I met with grand sympathy in 'words,' superlatively impotent even to move
for the restitution of my watertight boots!
"Hurrah! glorious things will be told of thee, Victoria!
"These waterhole skippers, who afford buzzing and bamboozling when the
rainbow dazzles their dull eyes, bask in their 'well-affected' brains,
the flaring presumption that 'shortly' there will be a demand for sheeps'
heads! (Great works!) and pointing at several of us, it is given unto them
to behold with glory 'the end of men whose word is their bond!'
"(Great works!)
"Let us sing with Horace -
TUNE - Old Style.
Quando prosperus et jucundus,
Amicorum es fecundus,
Si fortuna perit,
Nullus amicus erit.
Chorus - Cives! Cives!
Querenda pecunia primum,
Post nummos virtus.
"Which in English may mean this -
'A friend in need is a friend indeed,' that's true,
But love now-a-days is left on the shelf,
The best of friends, by G - - in serving you
Takes precious care first to help himself.
Ancestors, learning, talent, what we call
Virtue, religion - MONEY beats them all.
"I must now try the power of my old quill, perhaps it has not lost
the spell -
"In Rome, by my position in society, and thorough knowledge of the English
language, I was now and then of service to Englishmen THERE; in my
adversity is there a generous-hearted Englishman HERE who would give me
the hand and see that the government enjoins the restitution of the
property I was robbed of at the Camp. Let the restitution come from a
Board of Inquiry, a Poor-law Board, a Court-Martial, or any Board except
a Board (full) of Petitions. The eternal petitioning looks so 'Italian'
to me! And, especially, let the restitution of my new water-tight boots
be done this winter!
