to be resisted, and a board of inquiry hastily instituted by the Governor disclosed the ugly facts that Dewes, the magistrate who presided at the hearing of the charge against the Bentleys, had been in the habit of borrowing money from residents, and that Sergeant-Major Milne, of the police force, had been guilty of receiving bribes.  The officials implicated were at once dismissed, and the Bentleys and Farrell rearrested and convicted.  But the Governor very properly declined to release the arrested rioters, who, shortly before Christmas, 1854, were convicted and sentenced to short terms of imprisonment.

Meanwhile, more disturbances had occurred.  Though a commission upon the general condition of the gold-fields was holding its inquiries, in November many diggers again refused to pay the reduced license fees, and, on the 30th of the month, a serious riot took place.  The military were called out, the Riot Act was read, and there was some shooting.  Eight captures were made, but the lesson had not been severe enough, and a state of open war ensued.  The diggers intrenched themselves in a fortified camp known as the “Eureka Stockade,” openly drilled their forces in the presence of the authorities, and levied horses and rations from unwilling miners in the name of a “commander-in-chief.”  At the same time they issued a long political manifesto, which, while it did not avowedly disclaim allegiance to the Crown, contained proposals to which no regularly constituted government could ever have assented.

The Governor at once ordered all the available military force to Ballarat; but, before reinforcements arrived, the coolness and promptitude of Captain Thomas—­the officer in command of the troops on the Ballarat gold-field when the riot of November 30th took place—­had nipped the insurrection in the bud.  Captain Thomas saw that, while the Eureka Stockade threatened to become a serious obstacle to the Government if its completion were allowed, in its uncompleted state it was really a source of weakness to the insurgents.  By collecting their forces in one spot, and thus rendering them more exposed to a crushing attack, and by drawing off the men who threatened the government camp, it really left the commander of the troops free to act with decision.  Accordingly, Captain Thomas at once determined to attack the position.  Assembling his forces (somewhat fewer than two hundred men) at three o’clock on the morning of December 3d, he moved toward the stockade.

At about one hundred fifty yards from the intrenchments he was perceived by the scouts of the insurgents, who promptly fired on the advancing troops.  Thomas himself, Pasley (his aide-de-camp), Rede (the resident commissioner), and Racket (the stipendiary magistrate), all of whom were present at the attack, positively assert that the insurgents fired before a shot was discharged by the troops.  Upon this reception Captain Thomas gave the order to fire, and the intrenchments