Two reasons counsel me to undertake the task of publishing this work;
but a third reason is at the bottom of it, as the potent lever; and they are--
1st. An honourable ambition urging me to have my name remembered among
the illustrious of Rome. I have, on reaching the fortieth year of my age,
to publish a work at which I have been plodding the past eighteen years.
An ocean of grief would overwhelm me if then I had to vindicate my character:
how, under the hospitality of the British flag, I was put in the felon's dock
of a British Supreme Court to be tried for high treason.
2nd. I have the moral courage to show the truth of my text above,
because I believe in the resurrection of life.
3rd. Brave comrades in arms who fell on that disgraced Sabbath morning,
December 3rd, worthy of a better fate, and most certainly of a longer
remembrance, it is in my power to drag your names from an ignoble oblivion,
and vindicate the unrewarded bravery of one of yourselves! He was once
my mate, the bearer of our standard, the "Southern Cross." Shot down by
a murderous hand, he fell and died struggling like a man in the cause
of the diggers. But he was soon forgotten. That he was buried is known
by the tears of a few true friends! the place of his burial is little known,
and less cared for.
'Sunt tempora nostra; non mutabimur nec mutamur in illis; jam perdidi spem.'
The work will be published on the 1st of December next, and given to each
subscriber by the Author's own hand, on the site of the Eureka Stockade,
from the rising to the setting of the sun, on the memorable third.
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