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Updated: June 16, 2025
Special constables were sworn in at Melbourne and Geelong, marines from two men-of-war stationed at Port Phillip guarded the prisons and the powder stores, wealthy men volunteered to serve as mounted police, and the arrival of the Ninety-ninth Regiment from Tasmania on December 10th dealt a final blow to the hopes of the insurgents.
When he had finished, not to be outdone in politeness, I thanked him in English for the kindly phrases in which he had spoken to me, assured him of my continued sympathy, and undertook to say that, if ever he came to Geelong, he would find there a house at his disposition, and a friend who would be ever ready to do him a service.
From this it will be seen that more than half of the entire population is within twenty miles of Melbourne, a third of the residue within fifteen miles of Geelong, and the remainder scattered, including the 1200 squatting-stations, over a very extensive country.
Its population is very nearly a million, on an area about as large as Great Britain, giving about 10 persons to the square mile. The chief towns after Melbourne are Ballarat, East and West, with a population of 37,000, and Sandhurst, with 28,000. Next comes Geelong, which, with its suburbs, has 21,000.
Captain Foster Fyans, a former Governor of Norfolk Island Convict Settlement, spent the last years of his life in the town I belong to, Geelong, in Victoria. The cruelties imposed on the convicts under his charge were justified, he declared, by the brutalised character of the prisoners.
In describing the road from Melbourne to Geelong, I have made mention of the Broken River. A few weeks after my arrival in the colonies this river was the scene of a sad tragedy. I give the tale, much in the same words as it was given to me, because it was one out of many somewhat similar, and may serve to show the state of morality in Melbourne.
Similar meetings were held at Geelong and Sandhurst, so that there could be no doubt as to the general feeling against the Government; and when, at the beginning of 1855, thirteen of the prisoners were brought up for trial in Melbourne, and each in his turn was acquitted, crowds of people, both within and without the courts, greeted them, one after another, with hearty cheers as they stepped out into the open air, once more free men.
About six weeks later I went to stay with some friends in the neighbourhood of Ballarat, between that town and Buninyong. I have previously referred to Ballarat as the next largest town to Melbourne. By rail it is 100 miles from Melbourne, though not more than 60 in a direct line. At present the rail goes round by Geelong.
During the gold fever of 1851, and before there was a line from Geelong, as much as £70 per ton was paid for carriage from that town. The distance is about 60 miles, and the transit occupied ten days for heavy goods. "Until last year," said my friend, "there was a man walking the streets of Ballarat who was known by no other name than Jimmy.
Thomson, of Geelong, of whom, as one of the very earliest, and only a few months behind Batman himself, I have already spoken. We enjoyed a chat over the very oldest Victorian times. I had one opportunity of taking "old friends and fellow-colonists" in a wholesale fashion.
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