THE REVOLT OF THE DIGGERS 35 



to with anxious attention. Black stated the case with painstaking 

 and judicial fairness, and declared that in his opinion the Governor 

 was in favour of the people, but was so surrounded by injudicious 

 advisers as to leave him helpless in the issue. Some feeble attempts 

 to call for cheers for the " New chum Governor " were coldly re- 

 ceived, and the suggestion to substitute a petition for the demand 

 for the prisoners' release was furiously scouted as contemptible 

 weakness. After some firebrand remarks from Kennedy, Humffray 

 made another effort to revert to negotiation, assuring the meeting 

 that the Governor was with them, and had appointed a Commission 

 to inquire into their grievances and suggest reforms. Peter Lalor, 

 who had sense enough to see that no calm consideration could be 

 given to proposals sprung without warning upon some thousands 

 of excited men, desired to have a working committee appointed to 

 deal with them, and he proposed that a meeting of the Eeform 

 League be held on the following Sunday at the Adelphi Theatre to 

 elect such a committee, and that every forty members should have 

 one representative thereon. This was carried, and it would have 

 been well for the cause if the future guidance had been left to 

 some such deliberative body. But in so large a gathering, variously 

 estimated at from 8,000 to 12,000 men, there were many fiery spirits 

 who chafed under inaction. Consequently half a dozen resolutions 

 were carried with wild enthusiasm, which might have been modified 

 with advantage under less tempestuous conditions. Of these the 

 most important and far-reaching in its results was the third, pro- 

 posed by Frederic Vern : " That this meeting, being convinced that 

 the obnoxious licence fee is an imposition and an unjustifiable tax 

 on free labour, pledges itself to take immediate steps to abolish the 

 same by at once burning all their licences. That in the event of 

 any party being arrested for having no licence, the united people 

 will, under all circumstances, defend and protect them." Strenuous 

 efforts were made by the Eev. Father Smyth and a few others to 

 protest against so extreme a step, but the meeting refused to hear 

 them. Hayes, the chairman, was determined it should not be carried 

 without a full understanding of its consequences. He asked the 

 crowd if they were really prepared to face death by storming the 

 Camp, if necessary, to liberate any miner locked up there for want 



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