1855 Victorian high treason trials

The trials have been described as farcical, and the colonial secretary would rebuke Governor Sir Charles Hotham over prosecuting the Eureka rebels for the lofty offence of high treason.

It was reported during the high treason committal hearings that the following detainees had been discharged for either "no evidence against the prisoners, or they were only proved guilty of living in the neighborhood of the Eureka Stockade, and giving no information as to its erection".

8 December 1854 hearing[10] 11 December 1854 hearing[50] The thirteen rebel prisoners had already been served with written summonses and, after being called by name and seated, were asked in the following manner to answer the following indictments: Prisoners at the bar, the charge against you in the first count of the information to which you are now called to plead is, that you did, on the 3rd December, 1854 (being at the time armed in a warlike manner), traitorously assemble together against our Lady the Queen; and that you did, whilst so armed and assembled together, levy and make war against our said Lady the Queen, within that part of her dominions called Victoria, and attempt by force of arms to destroy the Government constituted there and by law established, and to depose our Lady the Queen from the kingly name and her Imperial Crown.

[note 1] 2nd being armed with divers offensive weapons, you collected together and formed troops and bands under distinct leaders, and were drilled and trained in military exercise, to prepare for fighting against the soldiers and other loyal subjects of the Queen.

[note 2] Two privates from the 40th regiment testified that they saw the defendant fire a double-barreled shotgun, and by implication, that he inflicted the fatal wounds to Captain Wise.

[84][85] Butler Cole Aspinall, who appeared pro bono as junior counsel for the defendants John Joseph and Raffaello Carboni, was formerly chief of parliamentary reporting for The Argus before returning to practice and was elected to the Legislative Assembly in the wake of the Eureka trials.

He would receive many other criminal briefs later in his legal career, including the matter of Henry James O’Farrell, who was indicted for an 1868 assassination attempt on the Duke of Edinburgh in Sydney.

Gavan Duffy said of Aspinall that he was: "one of the half-dozen men whose undoubted genius gave the Parliament of Victoria a first place among colonial legislatures.

These matters were weighty and more conclusive of proof than a charge of murder, but they left the Crown with an arduous task of convincing the jury that Joseph had acted with such an elevated intent.

According to Richard Allan's account published in the Ballarat Star, upon emerging from the courthouse, Joseph "was put in a chair and carried around the streets of the City in triumph with the greatest demonstrations of joy".

The remaining trials were then presided over by Victorian Chief Justice Redmond Barry, with all the other accused men being acquitted in quick succession except Dignum, whose indictment was withdrawn nolle prosequi.

[93] The Colonial Secretary Lord John Russell rebuked Hotham over the decision to prosecute them for treason, saying in a despatch: respecting the trial of the prisoners taken at Ballarat, I wish to say that, although I do not doubt you have acted to the best of your judgment, and under advice, yet I question the expediency of bringing these rioters to trial under a charge of High Treason, being one so difficult of proof, and so open to objections of the kind which appear to have prevailed with the jury.