[11] On 16 August 1851, just days after Hiscock's lucky strike, Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe issued two proclamations that reserved to the crown all land rights to the goldfields and introduced a mining licence (tax) of 30 shillings per month, effective 1 September.

[12][13] The universal mining tax was based on time stayed rather than what was seen as the more equitable option, an export duty levied only on gold found, meaning it was always designed to make life unprofitable for most prospectors.

They pledged to withhold the licence fee, build detention centres, and begin nightly armed patrols, with vigilantes dispensing summary justice to those suspected of criminal activities.

That month, Government House received a petition from Lever Flat, Forrest Creek and Mount Alexander about policing levels as the colony continued to strain due to the gold rush.

[28] George Black assisted Dr John Owens in chairing a public meeting held at Ovens field on 11 February 1853 that called for the death of Guest to be fully investigated.

The high commissioner of the goldfields, William Wright, advised La Trobe of his support for an export duty on gold found rather than the existing universal tax on all prospectors based on time stayed.

Licence inspections, treated as a great sport and "carried out in the style of an English fox-hunt"[41] by mounted officials, known to the miners by the warning call "Traps" or "Joes", were henceforth able to take place at any time without notice.

[42][45][46] Miners were arrested for not carrying licences on their person, as they often left them in their tents due to the typically wet and dirty conditions in the mines, then subjected to such indignities as being chained to trees and logs overnight.

[52][53] Gregorius, a physically disabled servant who worked for Father Smyth of St Alipius chapel, had been in the past subjected to police brutality and false arrest for licence evasion, even though he was exempt from the requirement.

[67] Throughout the following weeks, the league sought to negotiate with Rede and Hotham on the specific matters relating to Bentley and the death of James Scobie, the men being tried for the burning of the Eureka Hotel, the broader issues of the abolition of the licence, suffrage and democratic representation of the goldfields, and the disbanding of the gold commission.

[85] Lalor knelt, pointed to the Eureka Flag, and swore to the affirmation of his fellow demonstrators: "We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other and fight to defend our rights and liberties".

[86][note 1] In a dispatch dated 20 December 1854, Hotham reported: "The disaffected miners ... held a meeting whereat the Australian flag of independence was solemnly consecrated and vows offered for its defence".

[98] Hotham feared that the "network of rabbit burrows" on the goldfields would prove readily defensible as his forces "on the rough pot-holed ground would be unable to advance in regular formation and would be picked off easily by snipers".

[99] Carboni details the rebel dispositions: The shepherds' holes inside the lower part of the stockade had been turned into rifle-pits, and were now occupied by Californians of the I. C. Rangers' Brigade, some twenty or thirty in all, who had kept watch at the 'outposts' during the night.

[100] The location of the stockade has been described as "appalling from a defensive point of view", as it was situated on "a gentle slope, which exposed a sizeable portion of its interior to fire from nearby high ground".

[110] Among those willing to credit the first report of the battle as being true and correct it has been theorised that the hoisting of a Union Jack at the stockade was possibly an 11th-hour response to the divided loyalties among the heterogeneous rebel force which was in the process of dissipating.

[112][113][114] Lalor's choice of password for the night of 2 December—"Vinegar Hill"[115][116][117]—caused support for the rebellion to fall away among those who were otherwise disposed to resist the military, as word spread that the question of Irish home rule had become involved.

[119] FitzSimons points out that although the number of reinforcements converging on Ballarat was probably closer to 500, there is no doubt that as a result of the choice of password "the Stockade is denied many strong-armed men because of the feeling that the Irish have taken over".

[127] In a signed contemporaneous affidavit dated 7 December 1854, Private Hugh King, who was at the battle serving with the 40th regiment, recalled that: ... three or four hundred yards a heavy fire from the stockade was opened on the troops and me.

[139] Rede planned to send the combined military police formation of 276 men under the command of Captain Thomas to attack the Eureka Stockade when the rebel garrison was observed to be at a low watermark.

[note 4] News of the battle spread quickly to Melbourne and across the goldfields, turning a perceived government military victory in repressing a minor insurrection into a public relations disaster.

[162] Hotham managed to have an auxiliary force of 1,500 special constables from Melbourne sworn in along with others from Geelong, with his resolve that further "rioting and sedition would be speedily put down", undeterred by the rebuff his policies had received from the general public.

The statement of one of this people, that "all" were coming, comprises an unpleasant possibility of the future, that a comparative handful of colonists may be buried in a countless throng of Chinamen ... some step is here necessary, if not to prohibit, at least to check and diminish this influx.

Ben Chifley, former ALP Prime Minister, believed the Eureka Rebellion was not just a "short-lived revolt against tyrannical authority" and expressed the view that it was consequential in terms of Australia's development as a nation in that "it was the first real affirmation of our determination to be masters of our own political destiny".

[4] Blainey has described Evatt's view as "slightly inflammatory"[126] for such reasons as the first parliamentary elections in Australian history actually took place in South Australia, albeit according to a more limited property-based franchise, observing that it had been a battle cry for nationalists, republicans, liberals, radicals, and communists with "each creed finding in the rebellion the lessons they liked to see".

[211] Following an earlier meeting on 22 November 1855 held at the location of the stockade where calls for compensation were made, Carboni returned to the rebel burial ground for the first anniversary of the battle and remained for the day selling copies of his self-published memoirs.

Sculpted in stone from the Barrabool Hills by James Leggatt in Geelong, it features a pillar with the names of the deceased miners and the inscription "Sacred to the memory of those who fell on the memorable 3 December 1854 in resisting the unconstitutional proceedings of the Victorian Government".

Since 1992, in commemoration of the Eureka Stockade, Sovereign Hill has featured a 90-minute son et lumière "Blood Under the Southern Cross", a sound and light show attraction played under the night skies.

[234] In 1973, Gough Whitlam gave a speech, to mark the largest and most celebrated fragments of the Eureka Flag donated by the descendants of John King going on permanent display at the Art Gallery of Ballarat.

[240] A life-size bronze sculpture of the Pikeman's dog was unveiled in the courtyard of the interpretative centre at Eureka Stockade Memorial Park on 5 December 1999 in a ceremony that was attended by the Victorian premier Steve Bracks, former prime minister Gough Whitlam, and the Irish ambassador Richard O'Brien.