348 



A I 'S TR. I L.lS/.l //. /. ( *.V TR. 1 TED. 



Kenworthy. The clivers who took an active part in the defence of the Stockade 

 numbered two hundred or thereabout ; and they conducted themselves with great bravery. 

 The military and police numbered two hundred and seventy-six. Of these one hundred 

 and seventeen, belonging to the Fortieth Regiment, were commanded by Captain Wise 

 and Lieutenants Bowdler, Hall and Gardyne; sixty-five belonged to the Twelfth Regiment, 

 under the command of Captain Queade and Lieutenant Paul : the mounted police, led 

 by Sub-inspectors Furnley, Langley, Chomley and Lieutenant Cossack, numbered seventy; 

 and the foot police, under Sub-inspector Carter, twenty-four. 



.\fu-r several volleys had been fired on both sides, the first line of defence, a rough 

 barricade, was crossed, and the police sprang over the inner barrier and captured the 

 flag hoisted by the insurgents. The military followed, and in spite of the gallant resis- 

 tance offered by the diggers, carried the entrenchment at the point of the bayonet. 

 During the engagement, which lasted for nearly half an hour, several volleys were fired 

 on both sides. Captain Wise, of the Fortieth, was mortally wounded ; Mr. Peter Lalor 

 was left for dead in the Stockade, but escaped with the loss of an arm ; Lieutenant 

 Paul, of the Twelfth, was severely wounded ; about thirty of the insurgents are believed 

 to have been killed, one hundred and twenty-five were taken prisoners, while the casual- 

 ties among the military were four dead and many wounded. All the tents within the 

 enclosure were burnt down, and the district was placed under martial law. Upon the ist 

 of April, 1855, the prisoners were arraigned on a charge of high treason in the Supreme 

 Court at Melbourne, but the three leading actors in the insurrection, Messrs. Lalor, Vern 



and Black, succeeded in evading the vigi- 

 lance of the police, and the first-named 

 gentleman, who is only recently deceased, 

 was for years afterwards Speaker of the 

 Legislative Assembly of Victoria. Public 

 sympathy was so powerfully enlisted on 

 behalf of the insurgents, owing to the charac- 

 ter of the provocation they had received to 

 take up arms in resistance to the malad- 

 ministration of the law, that no jury could 

 be found to convict the men who had been 

 placed upon their trial. Their defence was 

 gratuitously undertaken by several of the 

 leading barristers, and their acquittal was 

 hailed with general satisfaction. It was 

 followed by an amnesty, and the judicious 

 removal of the causes which had led to the 

 outbreak. A commission of inquiry declared 

 that the diggers had been goaded to insur- 

 rection by bad laws badly enforced, and recommended the introduction of constitutional 

 government, with a -broad franchise as the basis of its representative system. 



Between the last hours of the year 1855 and the first of the year 1856, Sir Charles 

 tiothan succumbed to an attack of dysentery, brought on or aggravated by mental worry, 



IKi.V. 1'KTIik I.Al.OK. 



