[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.]
LXIII.
Et scias quia nihil impium fecerim.
It was now between eight and nine o’clock. A patrol of troopers and traps stopped before the London Hotel.
Spy Goodenough, entered panting, a cocked pistol in his hand, looking as wild as a raven. He instantly pounced on me as his prey, and poking the pistol at my face, said in his rage, “I want you.”
“What for?”
“None of your d——d nonsense, or I shoot you down like a rat.”
“My good fellow don’t you see? I am assisting Dr. Carr to dress the wounds of my friends!” — I was actually helping to bandage the thigh of an American digger, whose name, if I recollected it, I should now write down with pleasure, because he was a brave fellow. He had on his body at least half-a-dozen shots, all in front, an evident proof, he had stood his ground like a man.
Spy Goodenough would not listen to me. Dr. Carr, spoke not a word in my behalf, though I naturally enough had appealed to him, who knew me these two years, to do so. This circumstance, and his being the very first to enter the stockade, after the military job was over, though he had never before been on the Eureka during the agitation, his appointment to attend the wounded diggers that were brought up to the Camp, and especially his absence at my trial, were and are still a mystery to me.
I was instantly dragged out, and hobbled to a dozen more of prisoners outside, and we were marched to the Camp. The main road was clear, and the diggers crawled among the holes at the simple bidding of any of the troopers who rode at our side.
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], pages 81-82
Editor’s notes:
d——d = damned
et scias quia nihil impium fecerim = (Latin) “Thou knowest that I am not wicked”, or “And shouldst know that I have done no wicked thing”; from Job 10:7 in the Latin Bible
References:
et scias quia nihil impium fecerim:
“Job chapter 10”, New Advent (accessed 9 January 2013)
“Job 10”, New Advent (accessed 9 January 2013)
“Job 10:7”, Online Multilingual Bible (accessed 9 January 2013)
“Job 10:7 : Douay-Rheims Bible parallelChristian Community, New Jerusalem, Clementine Latin Vulgate, Biblia Sacra Vulgatam”, Veritas Bible (accessed 9 January 2013)
The Institute of Australian Culture
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