At the beginning of August, 1853, a petition had been presented by the Bendigo diggers, in which they urged the reduction of the license fee and the grant of representation to the diggers.  The Lieutenant-Governor returned a pacific reply, but the delegates in charge of the petition were evidently bent on arousing strong feelings, and they held meetings in Melbourne which went the extreme length permissible to loyal subjects.  Still, the Lieutenant-Governor shrank from strong measures, and endeavored to remove one ground of complaint by appointing, as a nominee member of the Legislative Council, a gentleman who was believed to possess the confidence of the diggers.  The nomination was at once repudiated by the delegates of the latter, and at the end of August an organized attempt was made to resist the renewal of licenses on the old terms.  Hundreds of diggers pledged themselves to pay no more than a third of the sum previously demanded, and those who were inclined to yield to the Government’s demands were warned that the agitators would not “be responsible for their safety” if they remained at the diggings.  The license system had by this time extended, beyond the diggers, to the storekeepers and other tradesmen at the gold-fields, who were making enormous profits out of the diggers, and these, for the most part, unhesitatingly complied with the demands of the agitators, willing rather to pay the fines for breach of the government regulations than to offend their customers.  A daring attack on a private escort of gold near Bendigo, which occurred about this time, showed that the colony was on the verge of civil war.

Just at this moment an event occurred which rendered it impossible for the Government to maintain its position unimpaired with the scanty forces at its disposal.  In the middle of September, 1853, the total abolition of the license fee was seriously proposed in the Legislative Council of New South Wales.  The news flew like wildfire to Victoria, where the diggers had hitherto looked upon the colonial legislatures—­in which, it will be remembered, they were not yet represented—­as their natural enemies.  It seemed to them now that they had everything in their own hands, and it became clearly impossible for the Government, in the existing temper of the diggers, to exact the full amount of the license fee.  A proclamation, hastily published with a view to allay excitement, by an unfortunate omission in the printed copies led the public to believe that the total abolition of the license system was contemplated by the Victorian Government.  A select committee of the Legislative Council reported unfavorably upon the system.  The Government made the best of a bad bargain, and accepted a fee of forty shillings for the three months ending November 30, 1853; and, on the following day, the Legislative Council passed a new Gold-fields Act, which greatly reduced the fees for diggers’ licenses, while it substantially increased those demanded for permission to open stores