The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka (59 page)

Black immediately repeated the mistake he had made with Hotham. He
demanded
the release of the prisoners, and for good measure added his opinion that the soldiers were bullies and that Britons would not stand for such brutal treatment. The situation was hopeless. Rede expected the obedience and submission with which his office vested him. Black represented diggers who would no longer submit to tyranny; men who were desperate to assert their legitimacy after months of humiliation. The new codes smacked up against the old like waves against a cliff face.

Rede knew the licensing system was a scourge and must be replaced by something more prudent and acceptable to the people. He himself had written to Hotham on 7 November, suggesting alternative methods of raising revenue and stating baldly:
I look at all direct taxation now as impolitic
.
⁵⁵
He must also have known that ordering a full-scale licence hunt on the morning after the impulsive burning of licences at Bakery Hill was sure to exacerbate the already inflamed passions of the movement's vanguard. But he was not prepared to appear anything but complete master of his senses and his forces.

Black now offered him a perfect bridge over the troubled waters that raged between them. Stop the licence hunts until the people had had the opportunity to put their case against the licensing system before Hotham once more. In return for such consideration, the people would lay down their weapons and pick up their shovels. They would cease their armed resistance if assured that they would not need to defend themselves and their families against actions such as the morning's digger hunt.

But Rede smelled a rat, or at least the acrid stench of his own reputation going up in smoke. Was this a trick? He already believed that the protest against the licence tax was merely the thin end of a deeper revolutionary wedge. Nothing short of self-government would appease the leaders of this agitation. Was he to be the man who rolled out the red carpet for their entrance to Spring Street?

No, he could not afford to be the one who stepped cautiously back from the brink. He would have to stand firm. Dig his heels in, keep from wavering and eventually emerge triumphant. He could not promise that there would be no more digger hunts, he told the deputation. Then he dismissed them.

I can only say that things look as bad as they almost possibly can
, lamented the
GEELONG ADVERTISER
after the deputation's second failed attempt to broker a truce.
Is there no peacemaker?
⁵⁶
Martha Clendinning, alone in her store, her sister having fled back to Melbourne, wondered the same thing.
Things must come to a violent ending
, she predicted,
and that very soon
.

TWELVE

BLOODY SUNDAY

So it came to pass that the Ballarat
diggings ground to an eerie halt on the first day of summer, 1854. If men were machines you would say that that a screw had shaken itself loose and the whole steely apparatus needed urgent maintenance. But human beings are made of flesh and bone and heart and mind, and on Friday 1 December the people of Ballarat stopped work of their own conscious accord. Miners downed tools. Storekeepers closed their doors. Families regrouped. Mates gathered in furtive clumps, like cows under a shade tree. Blacksmiths began fashioning pikes, the traditional weapon of peasant rebellion. Teams of diggers swept through the city, first requesting, then insisting, that the occupants hand over their guns and ammunition. (All requisitioned arms, it was promised, would be returned when they were no longer needed.) The hotels and shanties were humming with rumour, but there was a surprising lack of drunkenness.
¹
Battening down the hatches was a serious business. An uneasy hush fell over the festive season, as a community held its collective breath.

That night at the Adelphi Theatre, Sarah Hanmer held a benefit performance. It was a tribute to herself, under the patronage of Resident Commissioner Robert Rede and American Consul James Tarleton. The piece she chose to perform was
Money
—an irreverent poke at the very foible that had led all these feverish lambs to the slaughter.
²
The Adelphi Players were in fine form.
Mrs Hanmer as Lady Franklyn, Miss Julia Hanmer as Clara, and Miss Stevens as Georgiana, sustained their well merited reputation
, wrote the
GEELONG ADVERTISER
. During the evening, Mrs Hanmer was presented with a gold watch and chain, as a
mark of respect for her private worth and public character
.
³
The watch was purchased from funds raised from the benefit Mrs Hanmer had previously held to free the alleged sly grogger Frank Carey. Carey had refused the money after his reprieve by Hotham.
Owing to the circumstances
, neither Tarleton nor Rede was present on this balmy night to see Mrs Hanmer receive her gift.

Had they been there, they might have wondered what sort of game this formidable woman was playing. Earlier that evening, the Americans had held a meeting at the Adelphi to determine what their position would be in the looming crisis. The atmosphere was considerably charged. Charles Ferguson was at the meeting. Tarleton had warned his countrymen to stay out of any impending conflict, but
others complained that we were doing nothing, while it was a matter of as much interest to us as to them, and began to accuse us of cowardice
.

Publicly, the Americans voted to desist. They would not be seen as instigators.
We regarded ourselves as foreigners
, recounted Ferguson,
and had no right to be foremost in an open outbreak against the government.
Privately, it was obvious that many Americans, notably Mrs Hanmer's friend Captain McGill, were taking pole position. The diggers could count on their support. Like other foreign nationals who were joining the drilling corps at the Stockade, they believed their actions were essentially defensive; a collective stand against a government that had proved at the Gravel Pits that it had no hesitation in
firing on the people
.

Sarah Hanmer was directing the proceeds of all her benefits to the Diggers Defence Fund. She was the war chest's principal contributor. Yet the shrewd theatre manager was still able to court the patronage of Ballarat's highest official and the honorary consul of the most influential immigrant group in the colony. Rede and Tarleton sponsored a benefit in her honour, despite the fact that within two days her theatre would be used to host the Ballarat Reform League's most important meeting yet. Why would these men flatter her with their sponsorship, legitimate her prestige? Did they think this leading lady, who commanded the respect and affection of the American diggers, would use her influence to act as a go-between? Her prima donna Miss Stevens had, after all, solicited signatures from 1700 people to aid Frank Carey's liberation. Did Commissioner Rede court Sarah Hanmer's power, hoping it would be used to his benefit? Or fearing it would be used against him?

Peacemaker or firebrand? Sarah Hanmer kept everyone guessing. Sometimes it pays to have one foot in both camps, adroitly straddling the line.

On Saturday morning, the people of Ballarat woke to a stiff southerly breeze. The cool change did nothing to ease tempers.
Business is entirely suspended
, wrote Charles Evans,
but one topic of conversation engrosses the attention of diggers and storekeepers
. Twenty-three-year-old Evans thanked his stars that, unlike so many of his fellow immigrants, he had not shacked up with a lass and planted his seed on Australian soil.
Those whose means enable them are sending their families away
, he wrote,

while others whom poverty compels to keep their wives and families amidst the scene of threatening danger are awaiting the approach of events which feeling bachelors may bless their happy fortune in not being troubled with.

For months—in some cases years—shamefaced men had been struggling to put food in the mouths of their children, watching their women labour under a hot sun or wash clothes in the driving rain to keep their families from the (purely figurative) poorhouse. Now these same men had to worry about how to protect their loved ones from an army that would scatter bullets among anonymous tents.

They knew they could do nothing to stop a storm at sea or a baby taken by merciful Providence but, lord knew, a man could stand up to another man. As the
BALLARAT TIMES
said,
who was to blame?
The Camp was legally in the right, but the licence hunt on the Gravel Pits, argued the
BALLARAT TIMES
, was a deliberate plan to
transform indignation into open riot…an embryo rebellion.
⁴
Could a man retreat from such wanton provocation?

There were at least 1500 people crammed into the Stockade by Saturday afternoon. Some had spent the previous night there, but most had slept in their own tents. The purpose of the Stockade, after all, was to prevent, by force if necessary, the arrest of unlicensed diggers. There had never been a licence hunt at night. But throughout the day on Saturday, more diggers kept rolling up, many coming from other goldfields, eager to add weight to the moral majority of resistance. The numbers were swelled by women who brought food into the Stockade, and at least one female sly-grog seller, who knew a captive market when she saw one and set up shop on the fringe of the palisade.
⁵
We were of all nations and colours
, wrote Raffaello Carboni.
Great works! was the shout.
Great Work. Magnum Opus. The alchemic principle of forging base matter into gold. A process that involves three stages:
Putrefactio
, corruption, darkness.
Albedo
, purification, whitening, the moon: female.
Citrinitus
, yellowing, enlightenment, the sun: male. The Great Work is said to be the uniting of opposites. Great Work requires conflagration to forge a bond.

But the fire in the bellies of the stockade's inmates was hardly transcendental.
A very mutinous and excited spirit was prevalent
, wrote Alexander Dick, who had only arrived in Ballarat on 22 November. He could immediately see that his chosen destination was
rife [sic] for an explosion
. Peter Lalor, whose tent was inside the Stockade, could read the mood too. He needed to corral the energy, lest a purportedly disciplined ‘army' disintegrate into a violent mob, as at Bentley's Hotel. Already there had been reports that there were gangs roaming the Flat demanding cash, firearms and provisions from frightened diggers and their wives. These thugs were not under his authority, but mere looters taking advantage of the situation.

Martha Clendinning was one of their victims. Martha was in her store on Saturday 2 December,
a date to be long remembered.
A group of eight miners marched up in military fashion. The leader claimed to be a representative of the diggers'
Minister of War
. He demanded any firearms she possessed. She said she had none, but was disbelieved. The leader moved to search her tent.

I did not like the idea of such a visitation so I said, ‘If you do not believe me, perhaps you would believe the Doctor if I called him to speak to you'. ‘Yes, yes' he said at once, ‘call him out' and he appeared much relieved at having a man to interview instead of a woman!

Martha escaped harm or loss of her goods, but knew that Saturday was a black day of wanton robbery and pillaging. She fetched her brother to stay with her that night when Dr Clendinning was called away.

On Saturday afternoon, Lalor once again stepped forward to take command. Emerging from
the committee room
of Diamond's store, he mounted an old log and gave a
stump oration
. Alexander Dick was there to hear it. Lalor held a double-barrelled gun in his hand
which he fingered in a nervous manner
. His message was simple:
We must make this a country we can live in
. He had personal reason to project a future that included basic human and political rights for all its citizens, rich or poor, landed or roving. Peter Lalor was waiting to be married. Two days earlier, Lalor had written a letter to his fiancée, Alicia Dunne. In it, he explained his motives for putting up his hand to lead the rebel movement. This is what he wrote:
I would be unworthy of being called a man. I would be unworthy of myself, and, above all, I would be unworthy of you and your love, were I base enough to desert my companions in danger
. He urged Alicia to
shed but a single tear
should his efforts fail, for he would have died in the cause of
honour and liberty
.
⁶
Lalor wanted to hold his head high as his young Irish bride walked towards him in the chapel of St Mary's, Geelong in July the following year.