The conviction of their comrades infuriated the miners, and thenceforward their attitude was that of virtual rebellion. A “Ballarat Reform League” was promptly formed, whose avowed platform it was “to resist, and if necessary to remove, the irresponsible power which tyrannised over them.” The League was not yet indeed eager for an “immediate separation from the parent country ... but if Queen Victoria continues to act upon the ill advice of dishonest Ministers ... the League will endeavour to supersede the royal prerogative, by asserting that of the people, which is the most royal of all prerogatives.” The leading spirits of the League were of curiously diverse nationalities. Vern was a Hanoverian, Raffaello an Italian, Joseph a negro from the United States, Lalor--Peter Lalor, my friend of the Speaker’s chair, the court suit, and the one arm--was of course an Irishman, H. Holyoake (socialist), Hayes, Humfrays, and others were Englishmen. Delegates were despatched to the other gold-fields to bring in accessions of disaffected diggers. Holyoake went to Sandhurst; Black and Kennedy to Creswick. With drawn sword in hand, Black led into Ballarat the Creswick contingent, marching to their chant of the “Marseillaise.” On 29th November more than 12,000 miners gathered in mass meeting on “Bakery Hill,” just outside Ballarat. An insurrectionary flag was unfurled, and one of the leaders who advised “moral force” was hooted down as a trimmer. Peter Lalor, at that time in the enjoyment of both his arms, made himself conspicuous at this meeting, which ended with shots of defiance and a bonfire of the obnoxious licenses. But the miners, although they had pretty well by this time drawn the sword, had not yet thrown away the scabbard. Governor Hotham was a resolute man, and had the full courage of his opinions. He had concentrated at Ballarat about 450 regular soldiers and armed police, the command of which force he had given to Captain Thomas of the 40th Regiment, with instructions “to use force when legally called upon to do so, without regard to the consequences which might ensue.” As his retort to the “Bakery Hill” manifesto, he sent instructions that the license inquisitions should be more diligently enforced than ever. If he were convinced that the trouble must be brought to the definite issue of bloodshed as the inevitable prelude to the tranquillity of the defeated, he probably acted wisely in this; and doubtless he had calculated the risk that might attend this policy of forcing the game. One of the Gold-Field Commissioners, duly escorted by police, went out from the camp on the 30th, on the hunt after unlicensed miners. He and his police were vigorously stoned; more police came on the ground led by a specially resolute Commissioner. He ordered the diggers to disperse; they would not; so he read the Riot Act, and sent for the soldiers. Shots were fired--it is not said that anybody was wounded by them; but a policeman had his head cut open.