The feelings of William Patterson, and of thousands of other diggers, were outraged, and they burned for revenge.  A roll-up was called, and three public meetings were held on three successive Saturday afternoons, on a slight eminence near the Government camp.  The speakers addressed the diggers from a wagon.  Some advocated armed resistance.  It was well known that many men, French, German, and even English, were on the diggings who had taken part in the revolutionary outbreak of ’48, and that they were eager to have recourse to arms once more in the cause of liberty.  But the majority advocated the trial of a policy of peace, at least to begin with.  A final resolution was passed by acclamation that a fee of ten shillings a month should be offered, and if not accepted, no fee whatever was to be paid.

It was argued that if the diggers stood firm, it would be impossible for the few hundreds of soldiers and police to arrest and keep in custody nearly twenty thousand men.  If an attempt was made to take us all to gaol, digger-hunting would have to be suspended, the revenue would dwindle to nothing, and Government would be starved out.  It was, in fact, no Government at all; it was a mere assemblage of armed men sent to rob us, not to protect us; each digger had to do that for himself.

Next day, Sunday, I walked through the diggings, and observed the words “No License Here” pinned or pasted outside every tent, and during the next month only about three hundred licenses were taken out, instead of the fourteen or fifteen thousand previously issued, the digger-hunting was stopped, and a license-fee of forty shillings for three months was substituted for that of thirty shillings per month.

II.

As no man who had a good claim would be willing to run the risk of losing it, the number of licenses taken out after the last meeting would probably represent the number of really lucky diggers then at work on Bendigo, viz., three hundred more or less, and of the three hundred I don’t think our gully could boast of one.  All were finding a little gold, but even the most fortunate were not making more than “tucker.”  By puddling eight tubs of washdirt I found that we could obtain about one pound’s worth of gold each per day; but this was hardly enough to keep hope alive.  The golden hours flew over us, but they did not send down any golden showers.  I put the little that fell to my share into a wooden match-box, which I carried in my pocket.  I knew it would hold twelve ounces—­if I could get so much —­and looked into it daily and shook the gold about to see if I were growing rich.