Page:The Eureka Stockade.djvu/132

122 "Awaiting my trial in Melbourne gaol, I made my 'complaint' to the visiting justice, for the recovery of my property; but as I had not even a dog to visit me in prison, so my complaint remained unnoticed. After all, said worshipful, the visiting justice (who was ushered into our yard with 'Fall in, hats off!'), needs more power to him, as Joseph, the nigger-rebel, for the £8. which had been robbed from him in due form at the Camp, had the consolation to be informed by his worshipful that gaoler Nixon had bolted.

"The glorious 'Not Guilty' from a British jury having restored me to my former position in society, I embodied my 'claim' for restitution in a constitutional form, and had it presented by a gentleman to the Colonial Secretary, to be submitted for his Excellency's consideration. His Excellency, soon after my trial on being assured of my testimonials to character and education, condescended to say 'He was glad to hear I was so respectable?;' but His Excellency has not yet been pleased to command the restitution of my property.

"Disappointed, in bad health, and worse spirits, I tramped for Ballaarat, where I found that my tent, on the Eureka, had been robbed of everything that was worth literally a sixpence——cradle, two tubs, digging tools, cooking utensils, all gone, even my very blankets! and, of course, all my little gold in specimens and dust, as well as my belt with money in it.

"From my account-book I can positively say,that on the fatal morning I was arrested, the money I had on my person, and what I had in my tent in real cash, was £49. I had earned by the sweat of my brow, honestly, through downright hard work.

"During the whole of last season, on the Eureka, who was the first every morning, between four and five to sing out 'Great Works?' Who was the last dilly-dallying at the cradle after sunset? I appeal to my fellow-diggers, and with confidence.

"Brooding over the strange ups and downs of life, I found some consolation in the hearty cheers with which I was saluted at the Adelphi Theatre for my song——

'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 acknowledge 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 been 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