[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.]
LXVIII.
Condemn the wicked, and bring his way upon his head, oh, Lord God of Israel!
The first witness against me was such a rum sort of old colonial bird of the jackass tribe, and made such a fool of himself for Her Majesty’s dear sake, about the monster meeting, where as it appeared, he had volunteered as reporter of the Camp; that now God has given him his reward. He is a gouty cripple, still on “Her Majesty’s fodder” at the Camp, Ballaarat.
Who will sharpen my quill and poison my inkstand, that I may put to confusion the horrible brood of red-tape that ruled on Ballaarat at the time. To administer justice in the sacred name of Her Most Gracious Majesty, they squandered the sweat of self-over-working diggers, on a set of devils, such that they actually competed with one another, in vomiting like sick dogs! Their multitude was taken as a test of their veracity, on the Mosaical ground, that “out of the mouth of two witnesses shall the guilty be condemned;” and yet, with the exception of spy Goodenough, and spy Peters, none other to my knowledge ever did see my face before.
I assert and declare as an honest man and a Christian, that my eyes never did see the witnesses against me, before I was under arrest at the Camp. My soul was drowned in an ocean of bitterness when of that brood of Satan, one did swear he had run from before my pike; another had fired at me, but his pistol “snapped;” a third made me prisoner within the stockade; a fourth took me up chained to other prisoners who had surrendered, from the stockade to the Camp.
Such, then, is the perversity of the human heart! In vain did I point out to the sitting magistrate the absurdness of their evidence, and the fact that Sub-inspector Carter, and Dr. Carr could prove the contradiction. I was so embittered and broken-hearted at the wickedness of so many infuriated mercenary rascals, that had made up their mind to sell the blood of an honest man, in as much as I had repeatedly told each and all of them, when they came to “recognize” in our prison, that they must mistake me for another as I was not within the stockade that Sunday morning; that I . . . . but it is too humiliating to say any more.
Mr. Sturt, with an odious face, whose plumpness told me at once he was no friend to fasting, strutted to the magisterial chair, and committed me and the nigger-rebel, to whom I was kindly hobbled, to take our trial for high treason!
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 86-87
Editor’s notes:
Condemn the wicked, and bring his way upon his head, oh, Lord God of Israel = this is the title of chapter LXVIII (68) of The Eureka Stockade, which was derived from 1 Kings 8:32 in the Bible, “then hear in heaven: and do and judge your servants, condemning the wicked, and bringing his way upon his own head, and justifying the just, and rewarding him according to his justice”
References:
“1 Kings 8”, New Advent (accessed 10 January 2013)
“1 Kings 8:32”, Online Multilingual Bible (accessed 10 January 2013)
“I Reges 8:32 : Clementine Latin Vulgate Bible parallel: Douay-Rheims, Christian Community, New Jerusalem, Biblia Sacra Vulgatam”, Veritas Bible (accessed 10 January 2013)
The Institute of Australian Culture
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