THE REVOLT OF THE DIGGERS 31 



Government proclamation, no overt act of violence or any incitement 

 thereto could be brought home to him. 



Vern was undoubtedly an epitome of swaggering, egotistical 

 braggadocio, a vain, posturing creature, who gave just a touch of 

 comedy to the otherwise serious drama into which he intruded him- 

 self. He was a tall, good-looking, voluble fellow, always boasting of 

 his influence with a certain German legion, that apparently " never 

 was listed," and when the real fighting began he managed to save 

 his own skin. 



Baffaello, the man whom Hotham probably had in his mind's eye 

 when he dilated upon intriguing foreigners, was an extraordinary 

 character. Born in Borne, and by profession a teacher of languages, 

 he professed to have fled to Australia to put 16,000 miles between 

 him and his hated Austrian oppressors. Whether he had ever fought 

 in the cause of Italian liberty is doubtful. Marcus Clarke speaks 

 of him as the novelist's ideal of the sinister Italian conspirator, who 

 wrote, harangued, jeered and wept by turns. But whatever his in- 

 tellectual capacity may have been for that dramatic r6le, his outward 

 appearance had nothing of the picturesque. He was forty years of 

 age, short and squat in figure, with red hair and small, keen, restless 

 eyes. He was rather suspicious of some of his colleagues, but a 

 devoted adherent and blind admirer of Peter Lalor. 



These men of such varying characteristics represented the motive 

 power of the nascent Ballaarat Eeform League, and to them the 

 diggers in their wrath turned for advice and guidance. Certain re- 

 cent proceedings in the Camp, which had called forth strong denun- 

 ciations of the police methods by Mr. Sturt, the Eesident Magistrate, 

 strengthened the conviction that the three reputed incendiaries were 

 the victims of perjured testimony by the troopers, who were the only 

 witnesses called by the Crown. At a meeting called to decide what 

 steps should be taken in protest against the sentence on Mclntyre 

 and his companions the oratory grew warm. It was declared that 

 the time for petition, for pleading, nay, even for protest, had gone by. 

 They believed that gross injustice had been done, and they would 

 insist on its rectification, not as a concession, but as an inherent 

 right. It was decided therefore to send a deputation to Melbourne 

 to wait on the Governor, and to demand the release of the prisoners. 



