[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.]
LXXIII.
Amare Rimembranze.
At four o’clock on Tuesday morning, we were commanded to fall in, dressed and hobbled as we were. Captain Thomas, with the tone and voice of a country parson, read to us his “Order of the day,” to the effect that we were now under his charge for our transit to Melbourne; that if any of us stirred a finger, or moved a lip — especially across the diggings — his orders were that the transgressor should be shot on the spot. This arrangement, so Austrian-like, and therefore unworthy of a British officer, did not frighten us, and I cried, loud enough, “God save the Queen!”
Inspector Foster sprang up to me with his hopping leg, put on me tighter darbies, and together with the mulatto-rebel put us in front of the cart, giving strict orders to shoot us both down if we attempted to turn our heads. Veritatem dico, non mentior; and so Messrs. Haynau, Jellachich, and Co., from that morning my hatred for you is on the decline.
They rode us through the main road as fast is it was safe for the preservation of our necks — the only thing they wanted to preserve inviolate for head-quarters.
Though it was clear daylight, yet I did see only one digger on the whole of the main road.
On passing through the Eureka, I got a glance of my snug little tent, where I had passed so many happy hours, and was sacred to me on a Sunday. There it lay deserted, uncared for! My eyes were choked with tears, and at forty years of age a man does not cry for little.
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 92-93
Editor’s notes:
*amare rimembranze = (Italian) “bitter memories” [or “loving remembrance”?] (*rough translation)
darbies = handcuffs, or manacles (British slang, from the phrase “Father Darby’s bands”, possibly originating from being bonded, or indebted, to a 16th-century moneylender by the name of Darby)
veritatem dico, non mentior = (Latin) “I say the truth, I lie not”, or “I am telling the truth, I am not lying”; from 1 Timothy 2:7 in the Latin Bible [the same phrase (“veritatem dico, non mentior”) is used in chapters LVIII (58), LXXIII (73), and LXXIX (79) of The Eureka Stockade]; a similar phrase appears in Romans 9:1 in the Latin Bible, “veritatem dico in Christo, non mentior” (“I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not”, or “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying”)
References:
veritatem dico, non mentior:
“1 Timothy 2:7”, New Advent (accessed 9 January 2013)
“1 Timothy 2:7”, Online Multilingual Bible (accessed 9 January 2013)
“1 Timothy 2:7 : Douay-Rheims Bible parallel: Christian Community, New Jerusalem, Clementine Latin Vulgate, Biblia Sacra Vulgatam”, Veritas Bible (accessed 9 January 2013)
“Epistula Pauli AD ;Timotheum I”, The Latin Library (accessed 9 January 2013)
veritatem dico in Christo, non mentior:
“Romans 9”, New Advent (accessed 9 January 2013)
“Romans 9:1”, Online Multilingual Bible (accessed 9 January 2013)
“Romans 9:1 : Douay-Rheims Bible parallel: Christian Community, New Jerusalem, Clementine Latin Vulgate, Biblia Sacra Vulgatam”, Veritas Bible (accessed 9 January 2013)
“Epistula Pauli AD Romanos”, The Latin Library (accessed 9 January 2013)
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