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Rh operations and were soon on the gold. Leaving some of their number to open out their claim the rest returned to the Grey, and coming into the store one of them (Michael Spillan) asked me when I was going to get my bullocks and dray down from Nelson. I told him I was sorry to say they would be down next steamer. ‘You ought to be glad,’ he said; ‘look here, I got this off the bottom of a paddock, 6 feet deep by 7 feet square, in one day.’ He had 7 ozs. 12 dwts. of shotty gold. Another party had a parcel of 8 ozs. of the same kind of gold, both being similar to that which I had purchased from the Maoris.

“The men who were waiting for the steamer then came into the store and seeing the gold could scarcely believe their eyes, but when I showed the 50 ozs. I had bought from the natives, they wanted to know why I had not shown them that before. My answer was that they would not have believed me if I had shown it to them. Then came a rush for stores again and those who had been among the grumblers I charged an extra price as they had compelled me to take back their stores and tools.

“From that time commenced the great rush to the Golden West Coast, which up to the present time (1869) has brought out of the earth 40 tons of gold, for which I was to be hanged because those first arrivals chose to call the expedition a ‘duffer rush.’ After this gold