[Editor: This is a chapter from The Eureka Stockade by Raffaello Carboni. A glossary has been provided to explain various words and phrases that may be unfamiliar to modern readers.]
XXVIII.
L’union fait la force.
We had better proceed with the meeting first, and with the letter afterwards.
Peter Lalor proposed the following resolution: —
“That a meeting of the members of the Reform League be called at the Adelphi Theatre, on next Sunday, at 2 o’clock, to elect a Central Committee; and that each forty members have the power to elect one member for the Central Committee.”
Being an old acquaintance of Peter, I supported the above resolution. He gave me his hand and pulled me up on the platform, from among the multitude. The whole of that Wednesday morning, my tent on the Eureka had been a regular Babel. Foreigners from all quarters of the globe and of the diggings, came to inquire from me what was the matter concerning so much excitement as then prevailed on Ballaarat. I translated for them the news from our Ballaarat Times, or from The Geelong Advertiser’s clever correspondent. Thus, and thus alone, I became honourably their delegate, and subsequently interpreter to Lalor, the Commander-in-Chief; and I hereby express the hope that in time, Peter Lalor, though mutilated, may find at Toorak, a little more credit for his testimony than did that infernal spy, Goodenough. Anyhow, for the present, Le Père Duprat, a well-known old hand, and respected French miner on Ballaarat, who was with me within the Eureka Stockade, and whose proposed plan for the defence, I interpreted to Lalor, is a living witness to the above. We must, however, attend to our Monster Meeting.
Source:
Raffaello Carboni. The Eureka Stockade: The Consequence of Some Pirates Wanting on Quarter-Deck a Rebellion, Public Library of South Australia, Adelaide, 1962 [facsimile of the 1855 edition], page 38
Editor’s notes:
l’union fait la force = (French) “the union makes strength”, which is also translated variously as “unity makes strength”, “unity means strength”, “from unity comes strength”, and “in unity there is strength”
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