1. Themes
  2. A to Z
  • Click to view this Transcript

Extract

Title
A licence hunt
Description

This account of a licence hunt was written by digger William Kelly.

Published Source
Serle, Geoffrey, The golden age: a history of the colony of Victoria, 1851-1861, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1963. Details

Versions

  1. Click to view this transcript
    Type
    Transcript

Concepts

Transcript

As I gained the surface everybody was in commotion, diggers with their licenses lowering down their mates without them ... some ‘stealing away’ … The police, the mounted portion, under the commander-in-chief commissioner occupying commanding positions on the elevated ridges to intercept escape or retreat. A strong body of the foot force, fully armed, swept down the gully in extended line, attended by a corps of light infantry traps ... But the orders of the officers could not be heard, from the loud and continuous roars of ‘Joe! Joe! Joe!’ – ‘Damn the b----y Government! the beaks, the traps, commissioners and all – the robbers, the bushranger’, and every other vile epithet that could be remembered.