The Eureka Stockade | Page 4

perfection. Hence, now and
then, probably to the annoyance of my Readers, I could not help the
foreign idiom. Of course, a proper edition, in Italian, will be published
in Turin.
I have nothing further to say.
Carboni Raffaello.
Prince Albert Hotel, Bakery Hill,, Ballaarat, Anniversary of the
Burning of Bentley's Eureka Hotel, 1855.

Chapter I
.

Favete Linguis.
Mendacium sibi, sicut turbinis, viam augustam in urbe et orbe terrarum
aperuit. Stultus dicit in corde suo, "non est Deus." Veritas vero lente
passu passu sicut puer, tandem aliquando janunculat ad lucem. Tunc
justus ut palma florescit.*
[*Listen to me-- The lie, like the whirlwind, clears itself a royal road,
either in town or country, through the whole face of the earth. The fool
in his heart says, "There is no God." The truth, however slow, step by
step, like a little child, someday, at last, finds a footpath to light. Then
the righteous flourish like a palm tree.]
I undertake to do what an honest man should do, let it thunder or rain.
He who buys this book to lull himself to sleep had better spend his
money in grog. He who reads this book to smoke a pipe over it, let him
provide himself with Plenty of tobacco--he will have to blow hard. A
lover of truth-- that's the man I want--and he will have in this book the
truth, and nothing but the truth.
Facts, from the "stubborn-things" store, are here retailed and related--
contradiction is challenged from friend or foe. The observation on, and
induction from the facts, are here stamped with sincerity: I ask for no

other credit. I may be mistaken: I will not acknowledge the mistake
unless the contrary be proved.
When two boys are see-sawing on a plank, balanced on its centre,
whilst the world around them is "up" with the one it is "down" with the
other. The centre, however, is stationary. I was in the centre. I was an
actor, and therefore an eye-witness. The events I relate, I did see them
pass before me. The persons I speak of, I know them face to face. The
words I quote, I did hear them with my own ears. Others may know
more or less than I; I mean to tell all that I know, and nothing more.
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.

Chapter II
.

A Jove Principum.
"Wanted a governor. Apply to the People of Victoria:" that was the
extraordinary advertisement, a new chum in want of employment, did
meet in the usual column of 'The Argus', December 1852. Many could
afford to laugh at it, the intelligent however, who had immigrated here,
permanently to better his condition, was forced to rip up in his memory
a certain fable of Aesop. Who would have dared then to warn the fatted
Melbourne frogs weltering in grog, their colonial glory, against their
contempt for King Log? Behold King Stork is your reward. 'Tout
comme chez nous.'
One remark before I start for the gold-fields. As an old European
traveller