The government in trouble
Indeed, even so, by Monday morning the government was beginning to believe it may face a revolt in Melbourne. The extent of government panic over this business is extraordinary.
It was actually quite simple, if perhaps rather surprising. Popular disgust with what many people were regarding as the massacre at Ballarat had turned most Victorians against Hotham's government. In evident ignorance of ways to minimise the risks of a general uprising, Hotham and his Executive Council proclaimed martial law in and around Ballarat. Hotham met a delegation of "influential" citizens and asked them to organise a defence of Melbourne as all his troops were in Ballarat.
When a call went out for men to help defend Melbourne from the scourge of the diggers, 1500 men signed up. However, it's worth noting only one man signed up in Ballarat. It would be interesting to know what happened to him later, but sadly, no-one apart from us actually appears to find that interesting, at least, not in our sources of information.
By Wednesday 6 December, public meetings were being called across Victoria, decrying the government's actions. Newspaper articles also began to appear condemning Hotham's actions. The Age, for example, stated, "There are not a dozen respectable citizens in Melbourne who do not entertain an indignant feeling against it for its weakness, its folly and its last crowning error. They do not sympathise with injustice and coercion".
The general populace don't seem to have regarded the diggers as rebels against Her Majesty's Government. Rather, the workers seem to have seen them as fellow workers driven to rebellion as a form of self-defence. And business people appear to have seen them as small-business people trying to graft a living as best they could in the face of unwarranted government interference, and like the workers they saw the diggers as being forced to rebel in self-protection.
It was actually quite simple, if perhaps rather surprising. Popular disgust with what many people were regarding as the massacre at Ballarat had turned most Victorians against Hotham's government. In evident ignorance of ways to minimise the risks of a general uprising, Hotham and his Executive Council proclaimed martial law in and around Ballarat. Hotham met a delegation of "influential" citizens and asked them to organise a defence of Melbourne as all his troops were in Ballarat.
When a call went out for men to help defend Melbourne from the scourge of the diggers, 1500 men signed up. However, it's worth noting only one man signed up in Ballarat. It would be interesting to know what happened to him later, but sadly, no-one apart from us actually appears to find that interesting, at least, not in our sources of information.
By Wednesday 6 December, public meetings were being called across Victoria, decrying the government's actions. Newspaper articles also began to appear condemning Hotham's actions. The Age, for example, stated, "There are not a dozen respectable citizens in Melbourne who do not entertain an indignant feeling against it for its weakness, its folly and its last crowning error. They do not sympathise with injustice and coercion".
The general populace don't seem to have regarded the diggers as rebels against Her Majesty's Government. Rather, the workers seem to have seen them as fellow workers driven to rebellion as a form of self-defence. And business people appear to have seen them as small-business people trying to graft a living as best they could in the face of unwarranted government interference, and like the workers they saw the diggers as being forced to rebel in self-protection.