Eureka - The Unfinished Revolution (46 page)

As it turns out, the Bentleys have already done half the work for the authorities: when they cannot be found on Ballarat, they are soon enough found in Melbourne. A warrant is ordered for their apprehension and the two are arrested by Detective Senior Sergeant Cummings – who has travelled from Ballarat to track down the dastardly duo – and thrown into prison to await trial.

Meantime, Sir Charles also begins to wrestle with the problem of what to do about the growing allegations of corruption coming from Ballarat, most particularly those concerning Magistrate Dewes . . .

22 October 1854, Bakery Hill, on the Ballarat diggings, the diggers speak truth to power

In truth, the ‘chapel’ on Bakery Hill is little more than a rough construction of upright slabs of wood upon which a canvas roof has been attached to keep the rain out, but at 85 feet long by 27 feet wide it is the largest construction on the goldfields and serves a variety of purposes beyond allowing Father Smyth to hold Mass for the 1100 Catholics of all nations on the Ballarat goldfields. It also serves as a meeting place and a school for the Catholic children – though John Manning left a few weeks earlier to take up a post as a writer with
The Ballarat Times
,
Anastasia Hayes is still a teacher there.

This particular Sunday, however, such are the tensions on the goldfields, so high are the passions over the conduct of the troopers towards the diggers, that after Mass – which seems to last an extraordinarily long time as Father Smyth unaccountably goes on and on – a meeting is held to discuss what can be done to help the ‘helpless Armenian’.

After much discussion, two motions are passed:

That this meeting is of the opinion that their respected pastor has been insulted by the disgraceful maltreatment endured by his servant at the hands of a government officer.

That this meeting is of the opinion that the Magistrates of Ballarat have been premature in the decision to which they have arrived on the matter, and that we . . . therefore call for a revision of the case, and if the evidence adduced demand a reversion of the sentence that such be promptly and publicly done.

Another step the meeting settles on is to immediately send a delegation to ‘wait upon the Bench’ at Ballarat and demand the case be revisited . . .

At meeting’s end the diggers are asked to make donations to the defence fund, at which point, sadly, there is hardly a flurry of pound notes. While it is one thing to put your hand in the air to vote for a motion, it is quite another thing to put that same hand in your purse – particularly when many of them have already given generously for McIntyre and Fletcher’s bail and defence fund.

Early afternoon, 23 October 1854, on Bakery Hill, anger unites

And yet so troubled are the Ballarat goldfields at this point that the following day, just 150 yards away atop Bakery Hill, a stunning 9000 diggers turn up to protest against the arrests of McIntyre and Fletcher and pass their own angry motions in their support. Donations are again called for, though the biggest cheer of the day comes when Sarah Hanmer, the American owner of the newly established Adelphi Theatre – ‘a vast tent, with plain benches and a rough stage’ – announces that she will put on a benefit show the following night, with all proceeds going to the defence fund.
Hurrah
!
The formation of a ‘Diggers’ Rights Society’ is discussed, and a committee is chosen,
The Argus
observes, ‘to tickle the Camp when it acted unconstitutionally’. Many note that it is Friedrich Vern who readily puts £100 of his own money into the fund. There is something about Vern that is quite compelling. In the later words of digger John Lynch, ‘Brave words came bubbling from his lips, and he spoke with the air of one having authority.’

The meeting concludes with three groans for the turncoat
Argus –
which has been unaccustomedly critical of the diggers of late – and three cheers and one more for the kindness of Mrs Hanmer. As Bakery Hill is clearly visible to all those in the Government Camp, the massive gathering is regarded with some alarm. This alarm becomes all the greater when the report of the magistrate and shorthand writer is submitted as – following Sir Charles’s instructions – they were present and recorded all of the speeches.

———

For Commissioner Rede, there are so many meetings going on, so many motions passed, so many petitions circulating, it is hard to keep track. What he does know is that the goldfields are now in a dangerous state of agitation.

Not that he is afraid of the diggers by any means, or at all inclined to bow down to their demands. As a matter of fact, when the Catholic deputation comprising Timothy Hayes, Thomas Kennedy and the Irish firebrand John Manning – now the editor and reporter on
The Ballarat Times
– arrive for their first meeting with the Commissioner to express their concerns, the man with the gold lace on his uniform keeps them waiting so long they are insulted. Manning reports in the pages of his own newspaper, with the full approval of the owner and publisher, Henry Seekamp, ‘Mr Commissioner Rede, after detaining the deputation for an unreasonable time, at length made his appearance, and whether influenced by a sense of his own importance, or actuated with contempt for the deputation and its object, there appeared to be a certain haughtiness in his manner which offended the deputation.’

Finally, however, Rede grants the delegation their audience with the Bench, which comprises Police Magistrate Sturt, Acting Chief Commissioner of Police Captain Charles MacMahon and his goodly self.

And he does give them one bit of good news: ‘The trooper who has so abused the priest’s man, and so insulted the priest himself, is now under arrest.’

Beyond that, however, the best the Bench can advise is that the only way to get the Lieutenant-Governor to reopen the case on the priest’s servant Gregorius is to get up yet another petition with thousands of signatures upon it –
Maybe this one will actually make a difference
?
– and send it to His Excellency. Though Manning, for one, is growing fatigued with petitions and resolutions, the delegation tells him that they will organise just that and take their leave.

Fine, Commissioner Rede for one is glad to see them go. For the truth of it is that he remains so horrified by the burning of the Eureka Hotel and is so little in the mood for conciliation on any front – let alone the matter of the priest’s servant – that the previous evening he wrote to the Colonial Secretary in Melbourne, offering his formal advice that the best way forward was to toughen the government’s stance, not soften it. ‘I would strongly advise . . . to arrest all implicated [in the burning of the Eureka Hotel] as far as possible and if anything like a serious resistance is made or an attempt at rescue, a lesson should be given them which should prove that the Government could insist . . .

‘I feel convinced that if the License Fee is to be continued it must be by coercion and the sooner the miners are shewn that coercion can be used successfully the better.’

In fact, with the arrival of the reinforcements, Commissioner Rede – who has long been caught between what he sees as his duty to impose the
law
,
come what may, and his instinct to at least try to understand the grievances of the diggers and act accordingly – is feeling more aggressive by the day. It is his growing view that the essence of the problem is neither his administration nor the laws, but the fact that he is dealing with ‘the Tipperary Mob’ – or ‘Young Ireland’, as Carboni terms the group – with headquarters on the Eureka lead near the Catholic church, and Irishmen looking for trouble where no trouble truly exists.

Tuesday, 24 October 1854, the Legislative Council receives good news

St Patrick’s Hall is an imposing building, standing proudly at 85 Bourke Street West. Constructed in classic Victorian style, in a manner reminiscent of a Renaissance palace, it has high ceilings, arched windows and classical Ionic columns. Dedicated to the ‘memory of Ireland’, the hall opened five years earlier and was so highly esteemed by both the people and the body politic that it is here that the Legislative Council has met since its first days of existence on 11 November of 1851. Despite this, rarely has that council discussed more grave issues than it has lately, with report after report coming in from the goldfields. Today, however, the news is good.

Rising to speak, the Colonial Secretary, John Foster, is pleased to report that after the recent riot in Ballarat, ‘Captain Sturt, the Melbourne superintendent of police, with all the spare police, horse and foot, have been dispatched to Ballarat by the Government, together with a company or more of soldiers’. Altogether 450 soldiers and police, all armed, are now on Ballarat, meaning ‘that, no matter what the result might be, the law will be upheld, and it will be shown to the misguided men that the laws of the country are not to be broken with impunity’. Cheering breaks out around the chamber at this bit of news. The Government appears to at last have the situation regarding the men Foster considers as ‘lucky vagabonds’ in hand.

26-27 October 1854, on Ballarat, fortifications are strengthened

The bastards! Despite the promises that there would be no more arrests made over the burning of the Eureka Hotel, over two days the authorities have put eight more diggers in manacles, including Henry ‘Yorkey’ Westerby and the American Albert Hurd. Yes, Yorkey and Hurd were involved, but they certainly were not the key instigators any more than the other six men. Who knew who did what in all that madness? It really does look like the authorities don’t care so long as they can be seen to be punishing a few of the diggers.

Do they not understand?

It seems not. Even when over subsequent days the charges against all bar McIntyre, Fletcher and Westerby are dismissed – mostly for want of evidence, and in the case of Hurd, perhaps because he was an American – the anger does not abate. It is enough that the authorities intend to put three of their mates on trial, and likely in gaol, for engaging in what the diggers feel was a hugely justifiable act in the first place.

(For his part, Attorney-General William Stawell is equally intransigent. Appalled at this first case of ‘lynch law’ in the colonies, he is determined to make the charges stick and see the diggers held accountable for the unconscionable destruction.)

Meanwhile at the Government Camp, as tensions on the goldfields continue to rise so does Rede’s fear that the digger discontent will turn into armed insurrection. The mood has become so dark in recent days, the stance of the mass of diggers so threatening, that Commissioner Rede is not at all confident that he has the military wherewithal on hand to defeat them.

The first thing he decides to do is take measures to improve security and gives carriage of it to the finest military man on site, Captain John Wellesley Thomas, who arrived in command of a detachment of mounted men of the 40th Regiment just two days earlier in response to the urgent despatch requesting reinforcements after the burning of the Eureka Hotel. The highly decorated 32-year-old son of a gun of a famous British admiral has been with the 40th Regiment for the last 15 years, having graduated from the prestigious military college Sandhurst in southern England and served in front-line positions in Afghanistan and India. He arrived in Australia on his latest posting aboard
Vulcan
in late 1852.

Sah
!

A slim, neat man with a slim, neat manner, Thomas is nevertheless extremely energetic and has no sooner arrived in Ballarat than he begins a detailed study of the Government Camp, going from building to building and – only occasionally pausing to stroke his slim, neat moustache – works out exactly how the compound might be better fortified for defence. He determines just how many soldiers and police are needed to guard each building, which unit they should come from, how many should be in reserve and where a cavalry of 26 sabres of the mounted 40th Regiment and 50 mounted police should position themselves, ready to counterattack should any major offensive be launched. Still not content, he instructs carpenters on where to bore holes in the wall for defenders to fire through. Water barrels are to be immediately filled and placed strategically throughout the camp, in case the rebels try to set fire to the buildings.

‘Responsible persons are to be appointed to take charge of, and arrange the issue of Ammunition’ and all officers and ‘gentlemen’ not attached to any unit are to be held in reserve. If an attack beckons, all women and children are to be sent to the commissariat store building. Utmost silence is to be maintained, with no talking above a whisper, and all orders by officers and NCOs are to be given in a low voice.

It is a comprehensive effort, and Commissioner Rede is highly impressed at Captain Thomas’s military acumen. He regrets it when Thomas is called back to Melbourne only shortly after compiling the plan.

28 October 1854, Ballarat, the temper of the times starts to boil over

Henry Seekamp is in his element.

He is at his best when there is something to be upset about, and now there are more reasons upsetting him than he has fingers and toes, but he sums it up in a 28 October editorial in
The Ballarat Times
:
‘Everyone who has been a reflective spectator of the partial, oppressive, domineering and unjust line of conduct pursued of late by the authorities at Ballarat, must have considered the people less than men and worse than brutes to endure it much longer; must have considered the authorities more than men, and not less than gods to be able to continue their course of corrupt injustice without a serious interruption – without some popular and terrible demonstration of terrible disfavour . . .