he
Bendigo diggers, in which they urged the reduction of the license fee
and the grant of representation to the diggers. The Lieutenant-Governor
returned a pacific reply, but the delegates in charge of the petition
were evidently bent on arousing strong feelings, and they held meetings
in Melbourne which went the extreme length permissible to loyal
subjects. Still, the Lieutenant-Governor shrank from strong measures,
and endeavored to remove one ground of complaint by appointing, as a
nominee member of the Legislative Council, a gentleman who was believed
to possess the confidence of the diggers. The nomination was at once
repudiated by the delegates of the latter, and at the end of August an
organized attempt was made to resist the renewal of licenses on the old
terms. Hundreds of diggers pledged themselves to pay no more than a
third of the sum previously demanded, and those who were inclined to
yield to the Government's demands were warned that the agitators would
not "be responsible for their safety" if they remained at the diggings.
The license system had by this time extended, beyond the diggers, to the
storekeepers and other tradesmen at the gold-fields, who were making
enormous profits out of the diggers, and these, for the most part,
unhesitatingly complied with the demands of the agitators, willing
rather to pay the fines for breach of the government regulations than to
offend their customers. A daring attack on a private escort of gold near
Bendigo, which occurred about this time, showed that the colony was on
the verge of civil war.

Just at this moment an event occurred which rendered it impossible for
the Government to maintain its position unimpaired with the scanty
forces at its disposal. In the middle of September, 1853, the total
abolition of the license fee was seriously proposed in the Legislative
Council of New South Wales. The news flew like wildfire to Victoria,
where the diggers had hitherto looked upon the colonial legislatures--in
which, it will be remembered, they were not yet represented--as their
natural enemies. It seemed to them now that they had everything in their
own hands, and it became clearly impossible for the Government, in the
existing temper of the diggers, to exact the full amount of the license
fee. A proclamation, hastily published with a view to allay excitement,
by an unfortunate omission in the printed copies led the public to
believe that the total abolition of the license