[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.]
LXXXVII.
Viri probi, spes mea in vobis; nam fides nostra in deo optimo maximo.
To be serious. I am a Catholic, born of an old Roman family, whose honour never was questioned; I hereby assert before God and man, that previous to my being under arrest at the Camp, I never had seen the face of 1, Gore, 2, Synnot, 3, Donnelly, 4, Concritt, 5, Dogherty, 6, Badcock, 7, Hagartey, and 8, Tully.
I challenge contradiction from any bona fide digger, who was present at the stockade during the massacre on the morning of December 3rd, 1854.
As a man of education and therefore a member of the Republic of Letters, I hereby express the hope that the Press throughout the whole of Australia will open their columns to any bona fide contradiction to my solemn assertions above. I cannot possibly say anything more on such a sad subject.
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], page 113
Editor’s notes:
*viri probi, spes mea in vobis; nam fides nostra in deo optimo maximo = (Latin) “the men be honest, my hope is in you, for our faith in God, the Greatest and Best” (*rough translation)
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