[Editor: This is a chapter from The Eureka Stockade by Raffaello Carboni. A glossary has been provided to explain various words and phrases that may be unfamiliar to modern readers.]
LI.
Tota domus duo sunt, iidem parentque jubentque!
A confusion ensued which baffles description; marching, counter-marching, orders given by everybody, attended to by nobody. This blustering concern, when brought forward on the stage at the State Trials, appeared so much to the heart’s content of his Honour, of his and my learned friend Mr. Ireland, that I must offer it here, nolens volens, for the confirmation of the Cracker-of-high-treason-indictments’ approbation.
Thomas Allen examined. — (See Report of the Nigger-Rebel State Trial, in The Age, February 24th, 1855.)
“This witness was so very deaf that the Attorney-General had actually to bawl out (oh! pity the lungs!) the questions necessary to his examination. He stated, he kept the Waterloo coffee-house and store at the Eureka. He had just returned from Melbourne on the Saturday, December 2nd. He heard inside the stockade the word to “fall in” for drill. Saw them go through several military evolutions. They did not exactly go through them in a military manner, but in the way in which what call an “awkward squad” might do. — (I believe you, Old Waterloo; go a-head). He had been at the battle of Waterloo, and knew what military evolutions were. Saw one squad with pikes and another with rifles. He heard one of them say, “Shoulder poles,” then he said, “Order poles,” “Ground arms,” “Stand at ease,” “Pick up poles,” “Shoulder arms,” “Right face,” “Quick march,” “Right counter march,” and they were then marched for more than two hours. After that he saw them “fall in three deep,” and were then told (by Captain Hanrahan) to prepare to “receive cavalry,” and “charge cavalry” — Poke your pike into the guts of the horse, and draw it out from under their tail.
“After that, in the evening, he saw the man who was in command again form his men around him, and he seemed to be reading a general order for the night. After it got night, one of them came up to him and said, “Now, Old Waterloo, you must come and join us,” and he threw down a pike which he told him to take. He said, “No; it is such a d——d ugly one, I’ll have nothing to do with it.” Another came, and witness asked what bounty he gave, saying £50 was little enough for an old Waterloo man. Because he would not join them he was taken into custody by them, and was guarded by three men with pikes at his door. (Great works!) All this was on Saturday. His tent was the second inside the stockade. His tent and all his property was destroyed by fire, it all amounted to £200. He believed it was set fire to by the police.” (And so it was, old Waterloo-no-bolter, good-hearted old man as ever lived in the world. If you wish call for a copy of this book; do.)
NOTICE.
Great Works!!
This day, Saturday, November 10th, 1855. A glorious day for Ballaarat: Peter Lalor, our late Commander-in-Chief, being elected by unanimous acclamation, Member of the Legislative Council for this “El Dorado.” I spoke at the Camp face to face with James M‘Gill. We shook hands with mutual respect and friendship.
M‘Gill, at my request, looked full in my eyes, and assured me, that the order old Waterloo speaks of, was to the effect of appointing officers for watch at the stockade, for “out-posts” to keep a sharp look-out, for march to intercept reinforcements; in short, an order for military discipline, very necessary under the prevailing excitement. Said order for the night (Saturday, December 2nd) was drawn up by his command, and written black on white by Alfred, the brother of George Black.
M‘Gill further stated that the supposed “Declaration of Independence,” on the model of the American one, is a gratuitous falsehood, which must have originated from some well-disposed for, or well-affected to, Toorak small-beer. Hence,
James M‘Gill hereby directs me to challenge the production of the document in question, either the original or copy of it, of course with satisfactory evidence of its being a genuine article.
I express the hope that H. R. Nicholls, ex-member of the Local Court, Ballaarat, will take notice of the above.
Let us return to the Eureka stockade.
Source:
Raffaello Carboni. The Eureka Stockade: The Consequence of Some Pirates Wanting on Quarter-Deck a Rebellion, Public Library of South Australia, Adelaide, 1962 [facsimile of the 1855 edition], pages 64-65
Editor’s notes:
nolens volens = “willing or unwilling” (“willy-nilly”); from the Latin “nolens” (“unwilling”) and “volens” (“willing”) [the term appears in Book 7 of Historia Expeditionis Hierosolymitanae (“History of the Expedition to Jerusalem”) by Albert of Aix (circa. 1120)] [Carboni uses the phrase “nolens volens” in chapters XLII (42) and LI (51)]
tota domus duo sunt, iidem parentque jubentque = (Latin) “the whole family are but two; the same persons both obey and command”; from Metamorphoses, book VIII (line 636), by Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BC – 17 AD) [“tota domus duo sunt, idem parentque iubentque”]
References:
nolens volens:
“Albert Of Aix: Historia Hierosolymitanae Expeditionis: Liber VII”, The Latin Library (accessed 9 January 2013)
“Albert of Aix”, Encyclopædia Britannica (accessed 9 January 2013)
tota domus duo sunt, idem parentque iubentque:
“P. Ovidi Nasonis Metamorphosen Liber Octavvs”, The Latin Library (accessed 9 January 2013)
Ovid (edited by Rev. John Bond and Arthur S. Walpole). Stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Macmillan and Co., New York, 1894, page 9 [“Philemon and Baucis (viii 618-724)”] (accessed 9 January 2013)
Ovid (translated by Henry T. Riley). The Metamorphoses of Ovid Digireads, [Lawrence, Kansas], 2009, page 164 (accessed 9 January 2013)
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