BRINGING THE MATTER TO A CRISIS

On the evening of 29 November Captain Pasley, one of the military commanders now stationed at Ballarat, wrote to Hotham. The meeting at Bakery Hill had passed off very quietly, he reported, with speeches less inflammatory than previous public demonstrations.

It is therefore, I think, clearly necessary, Pasley wrote, that some steps should be taken to bring the matter to a crisis, and to teach those persons (forming, no doubt, the great majority of the mining population) who are not seditiously disposed, that it is in their interest to give practical proofs of their allegiance. Such persons, he hoped, would not only discourage the rebellious portion of the community, but also interfere to prevent their future activities.

With the appearance of the Australian Flag—the flag of the Southern Cross—community unrest had suddenly entered the realm of sedition.

Were the rebels really in the minority, as Pasley claimed?

By the end of November 1854, the population of Ballarat was around 30,000. Up to 15,000 people assembled at Bakery Hill that day, which means almost half of the total population walked off the job to attend a protest meeting.

Just imagine if that sort of percentage of citizens—say half of Melbourne’s current population of five million—turned up to any public meeting. On climate change, maternity leave, nuclear disarmament, Aboriginal land rights, bank fees, the trains not running on time—anything. It would be political chaos.

Faced with this sort of numerical opposition, the authorities of Ballarat were now itching for something simple: a violent confrontation that would assert their supremacy. Their power and legitimacy were being questioned daily—by everyone from Ellen Young, the Ballarat Times and the conscientiously objecting unlicensed diggers on the outside to the grumbling foot police on the inside.

An open rebellion would sort out the mutineers from the loyal crew and force everyone to declare: which side are you on?

Each man felt something would happen before the day was over. So wrote Alexander Dick on the morning of Thursday 30 November, as he sat on a hill overlooking the Gravel Pits. The heat was intense; the day overcast, windy, foul. The young Scotsman looked down on the usual comings and goings of a busy working goldfield. The noise and clamour. The shouts from holes and the creak of turning windlasses. Tents and flags flapping, children darting about. Shops trading. The workplace and the home as one.

And then, a torrent of foot and mounted police suddenly descended from the Camp to the Gravel Pits. A massive licence hunt began, led by James Johnston, on the very morning after so many diggers had burnt their licences in the communal protest.

It was a show of strength from the Camp, designed to restore the power they’d lost since the burning of Bentley’s Hotel.

It was a test of the rebellious miners’ pledge to defend the unlicensed among them.

It was an arm-wrestle to see who, when push came to shove, would gain the upper hand.

TREASON AND SEDITION

In law, sedition is the crime of conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch. The charge is often used against artists, writers and intellectuals. Opponents of sedition laws argue that they are a means by which authorities can frighten those who might criticise a government’s policies or actions, thus limiting free speech. In Australia today, sedition laws are contained in anti-terrorism legislation passed in 2005.

Treason is the crime of betraying one’s country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government. A person who commits treason is known as a traitor. In English law, treason was punishable by various forms of the death penalty, including being hung, drawn and quartered (for men) and burnt at the stake (for women).