"From my account-book I can positively say, that on the fatal morning I
was arrested, the money I had on my possession, and what I had in my tent
in real cash, was 49 pounds. ALL OF WHICH I had earned by the sweat of
my brow, honestly, through downright hard work.
"During the whole of last season, on the Eureka, who was the first every
morning, between four and five to sing out 'Great works?' Who was the last
dilly-dallying at the cradle after sunset? I appeal to my fellow-diggers,
and with confidence.
"Brooding over the strange ups and down of life, I found some consolation
in the hearty cheers with which I was saluted at the Adelphi Theatre for
my song--
'When Ballaarat unfurled the Southern Cross;'
and I had the peculiar sensation on that particular night to lie down on
my stretcher very hungry!
"'Heu mihi! pingui quam macer est mihi taurus in arvo!' and it must be
acknowledged that it would have been paying an honest and educated man
a better compliment if my neighbours on the Eureka had found less
edification in witnessing my nice snug tent converted into a gambling
house by day, and a brothel by night. A sad reflection! however merry
some scoundrels may have made in getting drunk with my private brandy
in the tent.
"Never mind! the diggers have now a legion of friends. So I prevailed on
myself to tell, half-a-dozen times over to most of the 'well-disposed
and independent' yabber-yabber leaders on Ballaarat, how I had been robbed
at the Camp, how for my sorrows every mortal thing had been stolen from my
tent, and concluded with the remark, 'that in each case the thieves were
neither Vandemonians nor Chinese.
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