Above the Starry Frame

by Helen Townsend

The digger raised his glass and made a toast to the ashes of the Eureka Hotel. William saw he was outnumbered on the matter of the rights and wrongs of setting fire to hotels.

  ‘The comfort is,’ he said to McCrae, who came to help with the crush of customers, ‘they’re unlikely to burn our hotel. On account of us not murdering our customers.’

  Humffray came in with Thomas Kennedy.

  ‘I don’t condone it,’ said Humffray, ‘but it is entirely the fault of those who failed to administer the law in the first case. Justice has been sold by those who should have held its administration sacred.’

  ‘The diggers have been provoked beyond measure,’ agreed Kennedy.

  Later, Humffray had more to say in the press about the burning of the hotel. He said – most poetically, William thought – that it had made a bundle of crayons to write the black history of crime and colonial misrule.

  Three diggers were arrested for inciting the burning. Indignation ran high, since one had not been there and another had tried to stop the burning. Bentley was re-arrested to be tried for the death of Scobie, but the bail for the diggers was many times that set for Bentley. At the Star Hotel, a committee of diggers took depositions from witnesses who had seen the fire and whose testimony could assist the arrested diggers. They carefully asked questions and recorded the answers, taking their time to piece together the events of that day. They took over the meeting room of the hotel and William and McCrae provided them with food and drink.

  The diggers had developed a taste for monster meetings, of which there were more as the discontent grew. Many resolutions were made and committees formed, with Humffray and other intelligent men emerging as leaders. Humffray advocated the ‘moral force and natural justice of the cause’, although there were others who advocated stronger methods.

  In the bar, William saw the passions of the diggers deepen, run fiercer and become more explosive as the camp ignored them. The licence hunts continued, and Governor Hotham showed he was not a new man at all. William understood the diggers’ passion, and as he worked the bar he often felt his passions at one with them, especially with the Irish, who nursed a considerable grievance against the English, for he remembered the days of the famine and how shamefully the English had behaved. But he felt that taking up arms, as some advocated, was no solution. Many of the police were drunkards and idlers, but the soldiers were pledged to defend the government, and trained to do so, and against them the diggers stood no chance. The more he talked to Humffray, the more he felt that moral force could not be ignored by the government, especially when men of powerful reasoning were leading the cause. He was glad there were moderate men to calm the high passion, for he in no way regarded death lightly, either his own, or that of any other man.

  The Irish Catholics were dubbed the ‘Tipperary Mob’ by the camp, and they, with Catholics from Scotland, England, Germany, France, Italy and other parts of Europe, remained much stirred up by the insult to their priest. There was wild talk of storming the camp, or taking up arms, of taking the government in the name of the people. There were persuasive talkers, like Frederick Vern, who was a Hanoverian. Vern cut a fine figure and was known to be somewhat vain and to make conquests with the ladies. Despite this, he had intelligent words to say about liberty and the rights of man, and he eventually joined the committee upstairs. Tim Hayes the Irishman was also most persuasive, drawing on the long list of wrongs done to Ireland by the English. Peter Lalor was most concerned with the murder of Scobie, with whom he had worked. So while the temper in the bar and of those talking in the parlour or the dining room was a little different, they were, in general, in agreement.

  The government camp was alarmed at the meetings and set spies everywhere.

  ‘Spies are no concern,’ William told Bridget, who was most indignant at the idea. ‘They should know what we’re thinking. They come to the meetings and they listen in at conversations in the bar, yet they can’t understand that we want simple justice and liberty. No more, no less.’ William sometimes felt in these heady days that he himself was developing a taste for speechifying, but when he tried it out on Bridget, she was only mildly impressed, although she followed the cause of the diggers strongly. She was alarmed at the growing numbers in the camp – more policemen, as bad and drunken as those already there, and more troopers. A call to law-abiding townsfolk to be sworn in as special constables produced only three paltry individuals, not a digger amongst them.

  There was a Board of Inquiry about the murder of Scobie, which at least got rid of the corrupt magistrate D’Ewes.

  Bridget laughed when she heard the news. ‘It only gets rid of D’Ewes and one other as bad. It doesn’t rid us of all the other magistrates and rotten police, or the troopers harassing the diggers. They talk of the diggers attacking the government, but the camp has got guns and bayonets.’

  Early in November, just a few weeks after the burning of the Eureka Hotel, the Ballarat Reform League was set up at another big meeting on Bakery Hill. It was a fine meeting, with bands and soft drink sellers, the flags of the various groups and nationalities flying high. There was the green flag of the Irish with its harp and shamrock, the revolutionary flags of the French and the Germans. The Scots assembled around the St Andrews flag, and there was the old Union Jack and an American flag. They all assembled in unity as diggers, and the gathering had something of the air of a market day, except they all felt Scobie’s ghost there. Humffray, Kennedy and Vern spoke passionately.

  ‘You need great lung power to be a democrat,’ William told Bridget in the parlour that night. ‘And fine words to put out your ideas.’ He had become a member of the Ballarat Reform League as soon as it was formed. He couldn’t explain to her the admiration he felt for those who led the cause. As a body, the miners and the storekeepers and the hoteliers – and he had been all of these – had the courage of lions and an instinct for liberty, but it seemed an art to put voice to such passions.

  ‘You should have heard it, Bridget. Not being disloyal, but they even put the Queen herself on notice that it is the authority of all the people that must be heeded; as Hotham had said himself, all power comes from the people. I felt so proud to be one of them, asking for what is right and fair.’

  ‘You don’t have to sky blather to me, Billy,’ she said. ‘I think John Humffray is a most remarkable man, and the others too. The government should take heed, which they don’t seem able to. It doesn’t seem to me that this government can count on the diggers being loyal much longer. Just on Friday, I seen more poor diggers being led up to the logs.’

  Bridget went to bed and William went out to see Martin, his nightwatchman, and to give a chicken carcass to Charity the bulldog.

  ‘Did you go up to the meeting up Bakery Hill?’ William asked Martin.

  ‘I don’t hold with these meetings so much,’ said Martin. ‘I’m more a physical force kind of man,’ which made William think of Thomas Kennedy’s famous couplet:

  Moral persuasion is all a humbug,

  Nothing convinces like a lick in the lug.

  The diggers charged with burning the hotel were found guilty in Geelong, although the jury had been reluctant to convict and commented that the incident would never have happened had the government done its duty in the first place. The people of Ballarat were furious with the outcome and sent a delegation, which included Humffray, to meet with Governor Hotham in Melbourne. Their job was to demand the release of the prisoners. While the town waited for the outcome of this meeting, there was wild talk in the bar, talk of rebellion and of arming the diggers, of attacking the camp. Much of it, William thought, came from drink and bravado, but the mood turned harder and harder against the government as the government turned against the people.

  Commissioner Rede called for reinforcements. Troops from Geelong marched through the Eureka field, with bayonets fixed. But many felt shame when the soldiers’ party bringing the baggage for the troops was stoned and pelted and carts overturned.

  ‘That’s where
John Humffray is right,’ said William to Bridget in the parlour that night. ‘Unless we act right, we can’t claim moral force. I know Father Smyth, the Catholic priest, takes the same view, but he has a hard time convincing his parishioners of it.’

  ‘Where will it end?’ asked Bridget. ‘I’m frightened to go outside the town at all. I heard the Irish and the Germans are drilling, others collecting weapons.’

  ‘If you need to go anywhere, I’ll send Martin with you,’ said William. ‘I can’t see the end of it, for I don’t think Hotham will listen to Humffray and the others. His mind is set.’

  ‘You know Charles Ross, the Canadian?’ asked Bridget. ‘He designed a flag for the diggers, and there’s a party of the wives is sewing it up. It’s a beautiful thing, the Southern Cross, the four arms dividing the flag. I was ordering new cloths for the dining tables and Mrs Whatley told me Tim Hayes’s wife, Anastasia, been in to get the silk to make up the stars. She’d seen a part of it; fine Irish needlework.’

  ‘The Southern Cross is a beautiful thing in the sky too,’ said William. ‘I wrote to my dear father about it. I’d miss the Cross if I ever went back to Ireland.’

  CHAPTER 8

  Word got around that the diggers’ delegation to Governor Hotham would be arriving back in Ballarat on the early coach. William found a crowd forming at the coach stop when he went out to supervise the changing of the horses. It promised to be a fiercely hot day, which matched the temper of the crowd, for few were confident of the success of the delegation, notwithstanding that those sent to see the governor were the most persuasive men in Ballarat, able to marshal their arguments and stick to them.

  ‘Hotham’s beyond persuasion,’ said Danny Phelan to William. ‘He’s taken those diggers as scapegoats for the burning of the hotel, never mind the false police evidence.’

  When the men alighted from the coach, the failure of their mission was obvious from their faces, even before anything was said. But word quickly passed around the crowd that Hotham had baulked at the fact the diggers had made a ‘demand’ that the prisoners be released. The word ‘demand’ was his sticking point.

  ‘Maybe if we had grovelled and humbly prayed on our knees things might be different,’ said William, ‘but the men are past crawling. This will be a hard case to steer.’ For he felt from the mood of the crowd, who were already out and about around Ballarat calling for a meeting, and from the talk in the bar the previous week, that tempers were rising to boiling point. John Humffray would have a hard time getting the men to stick to moral force.

  Thousands of diggers assembled on Bakery Hill that afternoon, and Charles Ross’s beautiful flag with the white stars of the Southern Cross against a blue background flew high above the meeting. Humffray stood on the platform and addressed the crowd, begging for peace, and asked for a petition to free the prisoners. As William had feared, Humffray’s message was hooted down, and later he was threatened by a man with a revolver, who blamed him for the failure of the mission to Hotham. The passions of the diggers went every which way.

  When Timothy Hayes, who had taken on leadership of the Irish faction, asked the diggers if they would die for the flag, he was cheered lustily. Frederick Vern, the big and handsome Hanoverian, called for the burning of licences but, while the resolution was much approved, only a few diggers burned theirs.

  The Irishman Peter Lalor, who had never before spoken to one of the mass meetings, called to elect a new committee of the Ballarat Reform League, since the old committee was giving no satisfaction. William felt this was unfair. There was nothing wrong with calling in new men, but the men who had led the Reform League had toiled mightily to put forward the diggers’ cause. But as he told Bridget that night, reason had ceased to prevail, and deeper passions had been invoked. The Irish had long been badly used by the English. Many of the Germans, Italians and Balts had had their desire for democracy thwarted in the revolutions that had swept across Europe in 1848. Many of the English on the field were former Chartists, appalled by the Crown’s tyrannical use of power. And the Americans were used to democracy and thought it every man’s right.

  * * *

  The next day, which was the end of November, was again hot and windy, but Commissioner Rede, despite knowing how provoked the diggers were, sent troopers out on a digger hunt. Shots were fired and the troops were pelted with stones. Rede read the Riot Act and took eight prisoners. As he rode off, he saw Humffray and called out to him: ‘See now the consequences of your agitation, Mr Humffray!’

  To which Humffray called back, ‘No! But see the consequences of your impolitic coercion.’ But when Humffray called in at the Star, he admitted to William that the physical force men, with their ‘lick in the lug’, had won the day over moral force. ‘Father Smyth is as gloomy as myself,’ said Humffray. ‘He and I both think this cannot be settled peacefully. There’s a meeting gathering now, but I’ll not do any good there.’

  ‘Men respect you,’ said William, and poured him a drink. ‘It’s the issue of the licence fee and digger hunting that unites us.’

  ‘And the corruption that surrounds it,’ said Humffray. ‘That’s what’s pushed so many past restraint.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Bridget asked Humffray.

  ‘I’ll stick by my principles and stick by the cause.’

  William could see Humffray was much shaken, but despite that he took off to observe the diggers’ meeting. William heard many reports later in the bar, with men and the leaders of all the factions coming and going.

  ‘Lalor swore the men to an oath under the Southern Cross.’

  ‘They’ve gone back to Eureka field to fortify themselves.’

  ‘Some threatened to hang Humffray.’

  ‘They got the Irish, the Scots, the foreigners – Italians and such like, Hanoverians, some Californians, and some Swedes and French. They’re forming companies.’

  ‘Kennedy’s bringing a division of diggers from Creswick.’

  ‘They’re going to attack the government camp.’

  ‘They’re flying the flag of the Southern Cross.’

  ‘They’ll defend themselves against whatever Rede sends out from the camp.’

  ‘They’re making pikes.’

  ‘They set up a council of war.’

  Rede was still sending spies out amongst the diggers, although everything that happened was immediately around town by word of mouth. Lalor had emerged as the leader, and those who swore the oath followed him, even though he had no military experience. But he was brave, determined and intelligent. Many men who had sworn his oath were Irish also and agreed his leadership was a fine thing. But not all were Irish, for many others felt as passionately. Yet it was everywhere agreed that the thing could still be fixed by one single measure: the ending of the licence hunts.

  That day, under the direction of Lalor, the building of a stockade was started at the Eureka field. It was a rough construction in which the men could group. There was no clear plan, but it symbolised a point of resistance, a place where diggers would defend themselves against the licence hunts. That night, Lalor sent a deputation to Rede asking that there be no more licence hunting and also for the release of the prisoners taken that day. That, it was explained, would mean the end of the trouble – the diggers would go back to work and the field would be peaceful once again.

  ‘They didn’t ask it,’ said someone at the bar, ‘they demanded it. And Rede, being the bastard he is, and small like Napoleon, told them diggers don’t make demands.’

  ‘Rede’s not so small,’ said another, ‘but it’s no use talking to him, on account of him being Hotham’s man. And he thinks that the law must be law, just or unjust, it don’t matter. Never mind we diggers have been oppressed by this damn law for three years.’

  ‘All these spies he’s got,’ said someone else. ‘He thinks it’s a democratical revolution and the overthrow of the government. He can’t see we want the true British way.’ This remark was shouted down by those who were now thinking revo
lution, and how it might be a chance to get rid of the British.

  Bridget and William closed the doors of the bar on time, and William said good night to Martin the watchman.

  ‘It’s not a good night, Billy,’ he replied. ‘There’ll be blood shed here, that’s what I’m thinking.’

  ‘I pray not, Martin,’ said William.

  The first day in December, it was expected there would be a raid on the diggers. Rumours swept back and forth across the town. The government camp was fortified and the diggers not allowed near it. Down on the Eureka field, the stockade was built up more, although it was not a fortification, just an enclosure of palisades. William went to have a look. He found it hard to know how many men were involved, for there was much coming and going, but he estimated it was hundreds who camped there, although they had considerable support from diggers who were not in the stockade. William saw the German blacksmiths making pikes and he spoke to Captain Ross, the fine Canadian who was the bridegroom of the flag. Ross told him they were scrounging for ammunition, and they shook hands, not so much on the agreement of anything, except that William wished him luck. Walking away, he wished it over, whatever it might come to. It seemed that the thing had come to a head, and while there was no knowing quite what the thing was, it looked like it would be bloody.

  Rough-looking lads came to the hotel and demanded food supplies. McCrae said he wasn’t giving food supplies to anyone he didn’t know, and sent them packing. McCrae was as passionate a democrat as William, but he knew there were those who would exploit the situation for their own ends, and he refused to be bullied. Later, William found out there was a call for food and arms and other supplies for the stockade, and he and McCrae gave to men who had a letter from Lalor. The men gave them a receipt, and while William never expected payment, it was still an act of commerce, and he hoped that commerce would soon resume. The hotel trade was much down in terms of accommodation and now, with Rede closing the pubs, drink too. So the receipt was a token of William’s hope that the thing would soon be settled.