344 A HISTOEY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



lative Council declined to sanction the expenditure of any portion 

 of the revenue under their control for services consequent on the 

 discovery of gold. Thirdly, he wished to place some additional 

 impediments in the way of persons nocking to the goldfields who 

 were neither in a position nor of a character to prosecute the search 

 with much advantage to themselves or the public. If these reasons 

 satisfied the Executive, which is very doubtful, the popular verdict 

 condemned them all ; the press unanimously derided the feeble 

 attempt to arrest the rush to a centre of attraction to which 

 thousands were already on their way from all parts of the world, 

 and the diggers, taking their tone from the daily papers, raised a 

 perfect tornado of opposition and defiantly refused to pay. Mr. 

 Latrobe could not stand against the unmistakable demonstrations, 

 and he felt compelled to withdraw the proclamation lest it should 

 result in a general insurrection. For if it came to fighting he was 

 practically helpless. The country was being overrun with ad- 

 venturers, many of them of questionable antecedents in New South 

 Wales and Van Diemen's Land, for the main stream of the diggers 

 from the motherland had hardly yet commenced. Fully half of 

 the police force had deserted. On New Year's Day, 1852, out of 

 forty constables in the city only two remained on duty after mid- 

 night. No one would volunteer to fill the vacancies, and an appli- 

 cation to Sydney for a few extra soldiers was grudgingly and 

 inadequately met. In desperation he appealed to the Secretary 

 of State, who promptly promised to send him a whole regiment 

 from England. In the meanwhile, after much pressure, he got 

 some little assistance from the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, 

 who spared him 130 pensioners, men habituated to the duty of 

 prison warders, and with these, though they proved both costly 

 and inefficient, he managed to keep up some show of order and 

 authority until the military arrived. 



The defection of the police was unfortunately coincident with a 

 great increase of crime. Highway robberies and outrages on the roads 

 to the goldfields were of frequent occurrence, and when their baleful 

 effects spread to Melbourne and suburbs, the citizens recognised that 

 an undesirable element of population had taken root amongst them. 

 The settlers of a peaceful pastoral time, whose traditions had been 



