We are at last in Ballan,
for change of horses. Captain Thomas and a stout healthy-looking man,
with a pair of the finest black whiskers I ever saw, in the garb of a
digger, who gave such orders to the coachman, as were always attended to,
with the usual colonial oaths as a matter of course, were regaling
themselves with bottled porter on a stump of a tree outside the
public-house. The dragoons and troopers had biscuit, cheese, and ale
served to them, though paid for by themselves, before our teeth.
There was no breakfast for the poor state prisoners, in chains, and lying
on the bare ground. They had some trouble before they could obtain from
the red-coats watching over them, and blowing heaps of smoke from stump
pipes, a drop of cold water - I mean actually a drop of cold water.
Good reader, you know WHOM I did bless, whom I did curse.
Chapter LXXV.
Petite, Sed Non Accipietis, Quia Petistis.
The following document, which does honour and justice to its writer,
J. Basson Humffray, to 4500 of our fellow-miners of Ballaarat, who signed
it, to the state prisoners themselves, is now here transcribed as
necessary to the purpose of this book.
THE BALLAARAT DELEGATES, AND THEIR INTERVIEW WITH
HIS EXCELLENCY SIR CHARLES HOTHAM, K.C.B., &c
The public has already seen the written reply of His
Excellency to the petition from Ballaarat, signed by
nearly 4500 of the inhabitants of that important, but
'officially' ridden place.
We deem it our duty to the public, and especially to
those whose delegates we are, to state the main reasons
urged by us for a general amnesty, and to make some general
remarks thereon, and also upon the reply. We have delayed
doing this, as we expected to have returned immediately
to Ballaarat, and we did not wish to forestall our intended
statement at a public meeting, which would have been held
on our return; but as circumstances interfere with this
arrangement, we now give our report.
We were very kindly and respectfully received by His
Excellency.
We thought it right to state that we repudiated physical
force as a means of obtaining constitutional redress,
believing that the British constitution had sufficient
natural elasticity to adapt itself to the wants of the
age, and would yield under proper pressure. But the
arming of the diggers of Ballaarat, however reprehensible
it might have been in itself, claims to be judged on
special grounds, inasmuch as they had special provocation.
The diggers of Ballaarat were attacked by a military
body under the command of civil (!) officers, for the
production of licence-papers, and, if they refused to
be arrested, deliberately shot at.
