Eureka - The Unfinished Revolution (24 page)

Lalor’s favourite topic of conversation appears to be all the wrongs visited upon Ireland by iniquitous British rule and, though he is careful not to say too much, it is obvious that he had either been personally involved in the Irish uprising of ‘48 or some of his family had been. It had obviously been his disgust at the total and ignominious collapse of that movement that put him on this ship in the first place. For while just about everybody else on board is hustling to Australia with all speed, desperate to get to the goldfields to try to acquire instant wealth, Lalor evinces no interest in that at all. Rather, what seems to attract him to Australia is more the relatively clean political slate, the chance to play a part in the creation of the kind of self-government on Australian shores that the British had crushed in Ireland. And this portion of his views he is not remotely shy about expressing.

One hot afternoon as Craig and Lalor are chatting on the deck, in the vain hope of cooling themselves with an all-too-rare sea breeze from the shimmering ocean as they approach Australian climes, they are discussing – as ever – the state of affairs in Ireland. Lalor comments that, ultimately, the only way to redress the ills in his native land will be by recourse to ‘physical force’.

Craig demurs. Any effort in that direction, he says, against the immense power and wealth of Britain would be futile, as they would simply crush any revolution as they always had. Surely the only true solution could be ‘the establishment of a peasant proprietary on the land.’

‘Well,’ Lalor replies, ‘we shall see if a better state of things cannot be worked out in Australia. I intend to have a voice in its government before two years are over. The Lalors have always had a weakness for politics. My father sat in the British Parliament for Queen’s County, and I intend to sit in the Victorian Parliament after I find out where improvements are needed.’

September 1852, taxing times at ‘The Chalet’ in Jolimont, Melbourne

Improvements are needed.

Most particularly in the manner of revenue collection for the government coffers. In his increasingly desperate effort to balance his budget and find a way to match his revenue to his ever greater expenses in maintaining law and order on the goldfields, Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe peremptorily announces – right after receiving word from the Colonial Office that the matter of how the colonies raise their tax is a local matter – that he intends to place a duty of just over two shillings and sixpence on every ounce of gold exported from Victorian shores. To him, this makes a lot more sense than taxing men who frequently haven’t yet found gold – if tax were blood, stones would be tax free – and it would be a lot easier to collect besides. Against that, he does
not
announce an intent to eliminate the license fee, just to impose the export fee in addition to it. Once again, there is an enormous backlash. The diggers insist it should
replace
the license tax. Gold traders say it will ‘encourage smuggling’ because merchants will try to move their goods out through Sydney and Adelaide instead. And the Chamber of Commerce is vociferously opposed to all new taxes placed on the business community, just on principle. So great is the outcry, most particularly from those powerful enough to cry out loudest, that the proposal soon loses traction, the Lieutenant-Governor backs down, and the system with the license fees stays exactly as it is – unjust!

As to Charles La Trobe, once the most highly respected man in the colony, his stocks have now fallen so low that a mock advertisement has started to regularly appear in the advertising columns of
The
Argus
:

WANTED, a governor.

Apply to the People of Victoria

It does not make for pleasant reading over his morning cup of tea at
Jolimont
.
He has been doing this for a long time. Perhaps too long? No matter that the advertisement appears in that notoriously republican rag that is always attacking him, it is tiring all the same, and he is not as strong as he once was.

It is now well over a decade since he came here from Europe, and he misses his homeland. True, not as much as he and his wife, Sophie, miss their daughter, Agnes, who they sent back to Switzerland seven years earlier to be educated in the care of Sophie’s lovely sister, Rose, but still a lot . . .

Sunday afternoon, 11 October 1852, aboard
Scindian
,
approaching Melbourne

At last they near journey’s end. On this sparkling day, finally,
Scindian
closes with the coast. There before them, the passengers can see the heads of Port Phillip Bay. Shortly afterwards, a pilot comes aboard and those who can crowd around hear the latest news of the colony they are about to land on.

And it is good news! At least insofar as gold is concerned, if not everything else . . . Alternating his ruminations with puffs on his pipe, the old salt informs them that every day in Melbourne Town comes news of more discoveries of gold to the near north and north-west, and the gold fever has so taken hold of the town that the civil servants – including police officers, hospital staff and prison guards – have resigned practically en masse, and things are so tight now that the government has had to get soldiers to do the work of the police while the whole service is being reorganised. (Even then, the pilot advises, a fortnight ago 15 of the soldiers had scarpered. What’s worse, the Corporal’s guard sent out after them had still not returned.)

But it isn’t just in Melbourne –
puff
,
puff
–
oh no. For practically all of the able-bodied men of Victoria, South Australia and Van Diemen’s Land had also tossed in their previous work and gone in search of gold, while the men of New South Wales tend to be pursuing their fortunes at Bathurst. In Adelaide, which has a population just on 14,000, nearly 10,000 men have left for the Victorian diggings. As a matter of fact, the entire economy of Adelaide has ground to a miserable halt. Customs revenue, which had been up to £3000 a week, is now not too far north of nothing, and those still left in town are agog that a property that had sold the year before for £1500 has just sold for £43.

Everywhere bar the goldfields, ruin stalks close. There is insufficient manpower now to harvest the crops; shops close their doors; ships are abandoned in the harbour as sailors jump. Houses are going for a quarter of their previous price and are sometimes exchanged just for the horse and dray that would comfortably allow the previous owners to get their supplies to the goldfield to get started. Against that, the pilot also has to report that there is barely a bed to be had in all of Melbourne for under a pound a night, and the passengers will find everything very expensive. Against that again –
puff, puff
–
there is so much money around and so much work with so few to do it that anyone with even the most basic skills should be able to make between £10 and £20 a week!

But, really, while small fortunes can be made doing such work, and large fortunes made in supplying the diggers, the most spectacular fortunes are made by those who
find
the gold, and –
puff
,
puff
,
puff
–
it is the new arrivals who have the gold fever the worst of all.

This last point, he says, they will be able to see for themselves when they arrive at Hobson’s Bay, right by the Port of Melbourne, as there are now no fewer than 50 ships there – everything from American clippers and towering East Indiamen to whalers, steamers, traders and foreign vessels of indeterminate type, unable to return to their ports of origin for the moment. Their crews have deserted and their captains are unable to get replacements, even on the offer of £50 for the return run.

All up, every morsel of news from the old pilot is devoured, first by the ship’s company within immediate earshot as they wait for the breeze to take them towards Williamstown, and shortly afterwards by everyone else in the ship as the good tidings are spread. Gold! There really is gold in those distant hills, apparently so plentiful that fortunes are being made overnight. The problem being, of course, that the fortunes made on this very night – and the next night and the night after that – would be made by others! They have to get to the diggings as soon as possible.

In the words of William Craig, the pilot’s story ‘created a profound longing on the part of almost all on board, the sailors included, to find the shortest way to Ballarat’.

As the ship has taken a pounding in high seas as it came around the Cape of Good Hope, there is a lot of maintenance work to be done now that
Scindian
is in a safe harbour. The captain orders four men to take the quarter boat from where it was stored on the fore-deck, lower it to the water and begin to clean and paint the ship.

Aye-aye, Cap’n.

But now here’s a funny thing. William Craig notes that as the quarter boat is being prepared for service, one of the four men appears to be in deep conversation with a ship’s apprentice. What is going on? Whatever they are talking about seems conspiratorial in nature, and only a few seconds after they have finished, the apprentice shinnies up the main rigging and looks to be scanning the nearest land around Port Phillip Heads. He quickly descends all the way to the quarter boat, which now bears his four companions and is rising and falling on the gentle swell. And then they start rowing! Not around the boat to get a better look at where they might start on the cleaning and painting, but after a farewell cheer of triumph and joy, they steer away from the ship, towards the shore, and no doubt soon to the goldfields!

Alerted by the commotion, Captain James Cammell soon charges up on deck and instantly appraises the situation. His first question: where the blazes is his Second Officer, the man he has left on watch to prevent precisely this kind of thing happening?

Oh. Oh dear. It is not by coincidence that the extra time it takes between searching for the Second Officer and him appearing before the skipper is exactly the same amount of time it takes for a man to hastily get dressed and walk the short distance from his cabin. For if the ship has been rocking a little more easily here at anchor, it is because the Second Officer has been entertaining in the traditional manner a comely female passenger in steerage and has had more important, alluring things on his mind than watching out for escapees.

The Captain is, justifiably, furious and immediately announces that the cost of the lost boat will be coming directly from the Second Officers wages. Unflinching, the Second Officer looks the skipper right in the eye and responds coolly that the Captain may charge for half a dozen such boats, for all he cares . . . so long as he is prepared to accept an IOU.

The ship’s company takes pause. For though the Second Officer is not insolent, per se, nor is he deferential, recognising the authority of the skipper. It marks the moment where the skipper’s lawful authority on
Scindian
has come to an end, where instead of the crew all finding themselves part of a strict hierarchy, they are all . . . equal. A staggering turn of events. It is William Craig who sums it up best. The pilot, he will later recount, ‘had given us to understand that, under existing conditions in Victoria, “Jack was as good as his master, and in many cases better”.’

The following morning, shortly after sunrise, the bulk of the crew gathers on the forecastle deck, an assembly that the passengers cannot even get close to if they wanted for, contrary to custom, two burly sailors are blocking the passage. Whatever these fellows are discussing, they intend to do it in private. It is obvious to all that something else is afoot.

And, sure enough . . .

Suddenly the meeting breaks up and within minutes the remaining quarter boat is the repository of several cases of spirits, some provisions, as well as oars and a sail! Where is the Second Officer this time? Why, if you please, right among them – and this time supervising the whole operation! The penultimate part of their plan is to grease the blocks so that the boat can be lowered to the water on the ropes without making too much noise. This accomplished, the entire remaining crew, less the Captain, the Chief Officer and just one sailor, climb aboard and cast off.

This time there is no cheer – the Captain is asleep and his crew prefer to get away without arousing him – but that good man has been awoken anyway by the last loyal sailor. He charges up onto the deck, again trying to take it all in at once.

It does not take long, for there, down in the departing boat, is the Second Officer with nearly all the remaining crew, pulling away on the oars.

‘We hope to see you soon on the diggings!’ his second-in-command calls out cheerily.

The time for talk is past. Without a word, the Captain races back to his cabin to retrieve the firearms he loaded the previous evening and returns on deck. At this point, the boat is just 50 yards from the ship and, amazingly, the men have ceased to row!

The Captain raises the most powerful of his guns to his shoulder and calls out that they must return at once to their duties, or he will fire upon them!

One of the crew, a real scallywag if ever there was one, calls to the Captain that he is the one who has lead them to do this, and therefore he is the one who should be the first victim shot. No, no, no, call out the others – their mate is being far too self-sacrificing. They all must be shot together, or none at all!

Extremely reluctant to fire on his crew, the Captain calls that he will give them five minutes to decide.

No need, Cap’n. ‘Fire away!’ they roar. Another scallywag stands up, bends over and offers the captain his rump as a fair old target.