[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.]
XCV.
Qui potest capere capiat.
ELECTION.
OLD SPOT, BAKERY-HILL, BALLAARAT.
According to notice, a Public Meeting was held on Saturday, July 14th, 1855, for the election of nine fit and proper men to act as Members of the Local Court — the offspring of the Eureka Stockade.
The Resident Warden in the Chair. Names of the Members elected for the FIRST LOCAL COURT, Ballaarat:—
ELECTED UNANIMOUSLY.
I. JAMES RYCE
II. ROBERT DONALD
III. CARBONI RAFFAELLO
IV. JOHN YATES
V. WILLIAM GREEN
VI. EDWARD MILLIGAN, elected by a majority of 287 votes.
VII. JOHN WALL . . . . . . . . . 240 ”
VIII. THOMAS CHIDLOW . . . . . . . . . 187 ”
IX. H. R. NICHOLLS . . . . . . . . . 163 ”
The first time I went to our Court, I naturally stopped under the gum-tree — before the Local Court Building — at the identical spot where Father P. Smyth, George Black, and myself delivered to the Camp authorities our message of peace, for preventing bloodshed, on the night of Thursday, November 30th, 1854, by moonlight. We were then not successful.
Now, I made a covenant with the Lord God of Israel that if I comparatively regained my former health and good spirits, I would speak out the truth; and further, during my six months’ sitting in the Court, I would give right to whom right was due, and smother the knaves, irrespective of nationality, religion, or colour.
I kept my word — that is, my bond is now at an end.
I hereby resign into the hands of my fellow-diggers the trust reposed in me as one of their arbitrators: after Christmas, 1855, I shall not sit in the Local Court. With clean hands I came in, with clean hands I go out: that is the testimony of my conscience. I look for no other reward.
(Signed) CARBONI RAFFAELLO.
Dec. 1st, 1855.
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 120
Editor’s notes:
qui potest capere capiat = (Latin) “he that can take, let him take it”, or “he who is able to accept this, let him accept it”; from Matthew 19:12 in the Latin Bible (“capiat” has been translated in various versions of the Bible as “accept”, “grasp”, “receive”, and “take”)
References:
qui potest capere capiat:
“Matthew 19”, New Advent (accessed 18 January 2013)
“Matthew 19:12”, Online Multilingual Bible (accessed 18 January 2013)
“Matthew 19:12 : Douay-Rheims Bible parallel: Christian Community, New Jerusalem, Clementine Latin Vulgate, Biblia Sacra Vulgatam”, Veritas Bible (accessed 18 January 2013)
“Matthew 19:12”, Bible Gateway (accessed 18 January 2013)
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