Eureka - The Unfinished Revolution (43 page)

Raffaello Carboni

The European gold hunter [in Victoria] had no more voice than the naked aborigine he saw prowling about the bush. At the root of all the troubles that led to the Eureka Stockade, lay the old tyranny of taxation without representation. Before he could legally put pick or shovel into the ground, the digger had to pay a heavy monthly tax, levied upon him by a Government and Parliament in which he was not represented.

W. B. Withers in
History of Ballarat

Afternoon, 14 October 1854, outrage on the Eureka . . .

Have you heard? Bentley and his missus, and that other bloke? They have got off! The case against them has been dismissed by Magistrate Dewes, the very bastard Bentley is in cahoots with!

The news spreads around the diggings like a bushfire with a hot, howling westerly behind it – it is, after all, a scorching, blustery day, perfect for such fires – passing from pit to pit, tent to tent, man to man, burning ear to burning ear. Scobie had been as popular with the diggers as Bentley has been unpopular, though the notoriously corrupt Dewes, who had personally fined many of them, many times, certainly runs Bentley close. It is a communal anger that starts to boil and bubble with the sun. That evening, eyewitness Thomas Pierson writes in his diary:

The jury’s verdict which I heard given was that there was not a particle of evidence against him – it gave general dissatisfaction and is supposed Bentley Bribed his servants & others . . .

The Ballarat Times
is stronger in its promise to its readers: ‘We intend to cleanse the Augean stable of the Ballarat Camp and purify its fetid atmosphere of those putrescent particles which offend the senses, by a rigid but wholesome exposure before the bar of public opinion.’

Early afternoon, 16 October 1854, on Ballarat, the heat starts to rise

The posters – organised by Peter Lalor and his cohorts – are now all over the goldfields, calling on those concerned with the lack of justice for Scobie to gather at noon on Sunday, 17 October, on the spot where he died, for a meeting.

Again, the word spreads quickly.
We’re gathering at the spot where Scobie got done in. Pass it on
.

A worried Bentley quickly dashes off a note to tell Dewes what is afoot:

Sir,

Inflammatory placards have been posted about the Diggings, to get up a meeting on the ground where James Scobie was murdered, near to my house, to enquire into the best method of convicting the murderer of the said James Scobie, and to demonstrate public feeling as to the manner in which the case has hitherto been conducted.

I have been informed that the meeting alluded to, is to be got up for the purpose of Riot and violence upon my person and house . . .

I therefore request that a strong force of protection may be present at 12 o’clock Tomorrow to see that the Law is in no way violated.

Dewes, while a little alarmed, cannot be there himself as he already has a legal commitment in Buninyong to preside over – a case of armed robbery – but he is quick to consult with Commissioner Rede, showing him the letter.

Rede moves promptly, giving orders to Police Inspector Gordon Evans to ensure his officers will be in attendance. Evans feels that five police should be sufficient.

Rede himself, as he would explain afterwards, decides not to attend: ‘There was some irritation against me in consequence of having sat on the Bench when Bentley was dismissed.’ Instead, he goes to the Eureka Station, the spot where Assistant-Commissioner Amos has his digs, from where he can observe the meeting while also sending a magistrate along ‘furnished . . . with the Riot Act to use in case of necessity’.

Meanwhile, as insurance, Dewes also talks to Lieutenant Broadhurst of the 40th Regiment to have some of his own men on stand-by. Satisfied that the matter is now covered, he prepares for his trip to Buninyong.

Still, Bentley is not the only one sensing trouble on the morrow, as digger Thomas Pierson writes in his diary:

{Bentley} is a ritch man and what they call here an old lag – he was sent out here some years ago for life for some crime committed in England – the inhabitants of Ballarat call a General meeting tomorrow to consider the whole of the Circumstances and from symtoms which exhibit themselves I should not wonder if the whole house was raided to the ground tomorrow.

Noon, 17 October 1854, Ballarat boils

And yet . . . perhaps five police might not be enough. So many diggers are streaming towards the meeting, such is the evident excitement on the diggings, that well before it begins Sub-Inspector Maurice Ximenes puts his police, armed with nothing but staves,
inside
the Eureka Hotel as insurance that it will be protected and to conceal any display of force that might aggravate the diggers.

And still from everywhere the diggers come, even as an intolerable dust storm is blowing hard. There is menace in the air, with this swirling, dirty heat just made for trouble. When the sun is near its highest in the sky, there are at least 3000 diggers milling around the spot where Scobie was murdered – joined soon by so many that they spill to ‘far, far off, on every hill round about’. Though there is a broad mood of mayhem abroad, there is no specific plan, no particular malice aforethought and, like the police, the diggers carry no firearms – at least no obvious ones. All they know is that they are collectively angry and intent on expressing that anger in some manner. And they are also, come to think of it, thirsty in the pressing heat. Having taken the opportunity of a day off work, they drink heavily as the sly-grog sellers move freely among them.

But to the business at hand!

The man who is to chair the gathering, Hugh Meikle, had been a juror at the coroner’s inquest and was horrified and bewildered in equal measure at the verdict given and how it was received by the onlookers with such great and appropriate hissing.

William Cockhill who, like Peter Lalor and the other jurors and witnesses, had signed the letter to the editor that appeared in
The Ballarat Times
critical of the judicial inquest is not long in putting the first of four motions: ‘This meeting, not being satisfied with the manner in which the proceedings connected with the death of the late James Scobie have been conducted, either by the magistrates or by the coroner, pledges itself to use every lawful means to have the case brought before other and more competent authorities.’ The motion is quickly seconded by the man who had been the foreman of that jury, James Russell Thompson.

Having seen all the evidence firsthand, the jurors are united in their horror at the verdict as it stands and in their passion for seeing justice done. The motion is carried unanimously.

The next motion is also passed, attacking those many storekeepers and business owners who still stand by Bentley – including an American by the name of John W. Emery, who owns the bowling alley adjoining the hotel – and who have published a letter to that effect in
The Ballarat Times
.
And then a new speaker steps up.

He is an imposing albeit squat Glaswegian shoemaker, head bald and bold, who stands on an upturned barrel to address the diggers, and in response they jostle a little forward to hear him better. For it is not just that their huge numbers mean that many men have to stand a long way away. It is that Tom Kennedy’s heavily lined face and jutting jaw somehow suggest that despite having known many anxieties in his life, he has borne them all with strength. He is obviously worth listening to.

Carboni describes him as ‘the lion of the day . . . [full] of the Chartist slang; hence his cleverness in spinning a yarn . . . blathered with long phrases and bubbling with cant’. The 35-year-old Kennedy is a handsome, strong, bewhiskered father of four, a veteran of many Chartist meetings and a fiery Baptist preacher besides. It all means he is nothing if not comfortable upon such a podium, speaking to such a throng, as he introduces the third motion: ‘That this meeting deems it necessary to collect subscriptions for the purpose of offering a reward for the conviction of the murderer or murderers, and defraying all other expenses connected with prosecution of the case.’

And here’s cheers to that! On this hot day, gathered for this purpose, the sly-grog sellers continue to do a roaring trade and the mood of the mass of men starts to become headier. The third motion is carried without one dissenting voice. And yet, as far as Kennedy is concerned, while speeches and resolutions are fine as far they go, it is simply not enough. He has contempt for the advocates of moral force, only exceeded by the contempt he has for the authorities, and he doesn’t mind saying so. For they have a
duty
, here, and that duty is clear!

For, do you not see, the spirit of the murdered Scobie is hovering over us right here, right now? Do you not know that justice – yes, my friends, justice – demands that he be avenged?

The diggers certainly do know, and roar their savage acclaim!

A final motion is put, appointing a seven-man Committee for the Prosecution of the Investigation into the Death of James Scobie – including Peter Lalor as secretary – responsible for seeing to all the resolutions that have been carried and getting a petition to His Excellency in Melbourne. And the hat is also passed around, with no less than £200 quickly raised as a reward for anyone who can come forward and provide evidence that will help convict Scobie’s murderers.

But is that enough? No, it is bloody well not enough. Why not march on the Eureka Hotel?

It is at this point that the authorities decide to make what
The Ballarat Times
calls ‘a very injudicious display of strength’ as mounted troopers suddenly make their way from the gully through the crowd and towards the hotel. They are not charging; they have neither swords drawn nor bayonets fixed – and in fact are armed only with staves – but it is done at a time when the diggers are feeling particularly aggrieved at the authorities and powerful in their own collective. Some of them begin to shout abuse. The diggers are many. The shocked troopers and police are few – perhaps no more than 80 men against a mob of thousands. And so when the troopers on horseback start to ride through the miners, breaking them up, trying to assert their authority, the diggers aren’t intimidated.

Instead they are furious at such high-handedness from those on their high horses. And they are not going to cop this any longer!

‘The people are not to be terrified like children,’ writes
The Ballarat Times
, ‘especially the men who have stood the working of a Canadian or Gravel Pit shicer. They have seen the earth, when at a depth of one hundred and fifty feet below the surface, move and tumble in; they have stood the risk of being buried alive underneath, and will such men tremble at a cap trimmed with silver or gold lace? Not they. They
shall not
as long as we can wield a pen to show them their majesty when united.’

More diggers begin to shout as the mood turns uglier and the surge starts towards the Eureka Hotel . . .

In the hotel, a worried Bentley can hear the approaching shouts but is soon soothed when one of his men, whom he has sent to observe proceedings, returns to tell him that most of the meeting was calm. In fact, the man says, the likelihood is that if the mob does turn up, they will probably ‘groan’ and then pass on, ‘as is usual with English crowds’.

‘They were “joeyed” most perseveringly,’ records
The Ballarat Times
.
Those police who had ventured out to survey the meeting now retreat to the sparkling hotel – its last features had been finished off by five carpenters that very morning – as the mob closes in. And the shouting begins: ‘Murderer!’ . . . ‘Justice!’

And, most alarmingly, ‘We’ll hang you from the lamp post!’ Caught up in the fun and fury of it all, a lad throws a well-aimed stone, which shatters the exquisite lamp positioned just above the hotel’s front door. And then someone else throws a rock and a window is broken. And then another digger does the same.

‘The sound of the falling glass,’ Carboni would recount, ‘appeared to act like magic on the multitude; and bottles, stones, sticks, and other missiles, were speedily put in requisition to demolish the windows, until not a single pane was left entire, while every one that was broken drew a cheer from the crowd.’

Outside the fun is building. Inside the tension is rising.

Seriously worried, Sub-Inspector Ximenes suggests to Bentley that the best way is for Bentley to take Ximenes’s own horse and gallop away to the Camp, hopefully diffusing the focus of the mob . . .

And there he is! Suddenly, from the back of the hotel, Bentley appears without his hat and coat, and some would even swear afterwards that he was in women’s clothes!
He was, I tell ya
!
Complete with bonnet, bodice and bloomers . . .

Whatever he is wearing, Bentley quickly jumps on a fine horse and gallops away to the Camp – leaving his heavily pregnant wife, Catherine, behind in the threatened hotel – with the jeers and shouts of the mob ringing in his ears.

‘He rushed past me in his flight,’ the 19-year-old auctioneer and digger Samuel Lazarus would record in his diary, ‘and I think I never saw such a look of terror on a man’s face.’

Far from placating the mob, Bentley’s move further fans their ire. The sound of the galloping horse is still in the wind when one of the diggers – a 40-ish, fattish fellow with barely a hair on his bonce, known to one and all as ‘Yorkey’ – steps forward, starts pounding the weatherboard sides of the hotel and, still imbued with the spirit of the meeting, yells, ‘I propose that this house belongs to the diggers!’ Then he proceeds to rip off one board after another, demonstrating how easy it is!