found myself imperatively drawn to the other side. But I desired to be fair. After a little a select committee, an embryo cabinet was formed to consider the question, and met nightly in a lawyer's chambers in Temple Court. The case of the squatters was considered without passion, and with a sincere desire to be just. The position of my own race was another question to which I gave early attention. They were nearly a fourth of the population, but they exercised little or no authority. There was only one Irish Catholic magistrate in the Colony, and not half a dozen Irish Catholics in the Civil Service. To strangers at a distance who read of Murphys, Barrys, MacMahons, and Fitzgeralds in high places, it seemed the paradise of the Celt—but they were Celts whose forefathers had broken with the traditions and creed of the island. Mr. O'Shanassy was the only man of his race who occupied a distinguished political position. Aspinall, whom I had met a good deal with Edward Whitty in London, was now a working lawyer on the goldfields. Shortly after my arrival he indicated in the pleasant banter he loved what an Englishman thought of this system and the cause of it.
"Now that you have got over the exhaustion of your triumphal entry into Victoria, you must allow me to offer congratulation and welcome.
"I am living here on the Diggings at present, and have been some time, and you, I suppose, must see the diggings and the diggers very soon, whatever else you do. … O'Shanassy will tell you that it has long been a standing joke and grievance in this colony that every public appointment is given to Hibernians, whether it be a postman's or a judgeship. Only while Mr. Stawell holds office they should add Orange theology to the indispensable brogue. But nationality beats bigotry altogether. The most orthodox Englishman has no chance against even a 'Papist' if his spiritual defects be counterpoised by the temporal advantage of Hibernian descent."
Another early welcome came from Orion Horne. The poet (who resided in Dublin as correspondent of the Daily News during the Young Ireland era) had been a digger, an official, and was now content to be clerk to Mr. Michie,
