To recompense him the diggers, therefore, subscribed and presented him with 12 ounces of gold for his efforts on their behalf. Swindells afterwards went to Forest Creek diggings, and as a report came to the Point that a license was again denied him, the diggers asserted that the Government had determined to put a stop to his mining in Victoria because he had championed their cause at Ballarat. On first hearing of the gold discoveries the Executive of Victoria had exercised their prerogative, as representatives of the Crown, to claim all precious metals found within the colony. A notice was issued forbidding anyone to dig for gold unless under certain rules, one of which was that the gold-seeker should pay a license fee of 30s. per month before commencing his search. The colony, which was then in its infancy, was governed according to the Crown Colony system; but by the incessant arrivals its population so increased in numerical strength as to be almost beyond the control of the ruling powers. The Government appear to have been particularly puzzled as to their duties towards the vast irregular society upon the gold-fields. That it should be regarded as merely a migratory flight of population from the old centres of civilisation, which having swooped down upon the gold sown broadcast in the land, would presently return whither it came, carrying away the best of the gold harvest, was the idea which must have occupied the minds of the authorities, for they never attempted to make the gold-fields' population a part of the colony until the clamouring of the insurrectionists at Ballarat dispelled the illusion, and apprised them of the impolicy of delay in according a social status to the gold-digger. The Executive of the day sought to solve the difficulty by the appointment of Police Magistrates or Commissioners, whose chief duty seems to have been the enforcement of the gold-tax act. Now in the digging community were many factious adventurers, whose peculiar ideas of rights and liberties would have clashed with any form of government. These malcontents exasperated the Commissioners, and caused the power lodged in them to be used in its fullest extent. The police force were directed to keep continual watch on the fields, and compel the production of licenses as often as they pleased to ask for them. Even the prudent exercise of this authority would no doubt have been galling to law-abiding miners, for tax-paying, without the surveillance, is not as a rule congenial to the feelings of members of settled communities. But the majority of the police officers were generally overbearing and insolent, and their want of tact when dealing with the rough natures on the diggings greatly increased the embarrassment of affairs. A license-hunt was the name among the diggers for the collecting of the tax--the police being the hounds, while many a digger in his wily attempt to escape payment proved himself a veritable fox in cunning.