THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR HENRY BARKLY 103 



was with them, some of the convicts refused to go to work, and 

 others combined in active protests against the quality of their food, 

 and other matters. On the 26th of March, 1857, Mr. Inspector 

 Price, the head of the department, went down to Williamstown to 

 investigate matters for himself. He was a very strict disciplinarian, 

 with a record in Tasmania that made his very name detested by 

 the Victorian criminal recruits from that island. He went boldly 

 amongst the gang at work in the quarries, and demanded the cause 

 of their complaints. His manner was imperious and unconciliatory, 

 but he had a mob of crime-hardened ruffians to deal with, and in 

 the bad old school of Norfolk Island and Port Arthur he had never 

 been known to flinch from the severest measures to command sub- 

 mission. Many of the desperadoes around him, who had changed 

 their colony but not their nature, bore him a deadly hatred in 

 memory of old severities, and a sudden spasm of vengeance over- 

 took them. Unable to restrain their passion, and indifferent to any 

 consequences, they suddenly fell upon him, and with stone, hammer 

 and shovel battered him out of the semblance of humanity. Two 

 of the warders who were with him made some effort at protection, 

 but they were easily beaten off, and the others fled to give the 

 alarm. The situation was desperate enough. Some two hundred 

 men armed with spades, spall hammers and crow-bars could, if 

 they had made a determined rush for liberty, have swept all before 

 them. But while they hesitated what to do, and commenced knock- 

 ing off their irons, alarm bells were ringing, the volunteer artillery 

 corps turned out, a number of residents joined the police in forming 

 a cordon and reassuring the warders, and within a couple of hours 

 discipline had so reasserted itself that the bulk of the prisoners 

 marched down to the boats and re-embarked at the word of com- 

 mand. All who fled were recaptured, and a coroner's jury on Mr. 

 Price's body returned a verdict of wilful murder against fifteen who 

 had appeared to be ringleaders. A portion of the number went to 

 trial before Judge Barry, and seven of them were convicted and 

 executed. 



The evidence adduced at that trial was again a shock to the com- 

 munity, for after making every allowance for exaggeration it was 

 clearly shown that the system was worked with a rough severity 



