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- 254 REMINISCENCES OF OLD VICTORIA
called together by the Governor in a room within the Fort, and by him, with counsel and prayer, commended to the long-coveted duties of legislation. Thus was a small shoot of an Empire unsurpassed for the freedom of its subjects well and truly planted in the western shore of the vast possessions of Great Britain, this side of the provinces in the East, and now did the people, rejoicing in their freedom, begin to look for expansion and progress. But with what hope? What was the prospect of their reaching the conditions which we see to-day?
Looking at the more than twenty years it had taken to reach their present population of six hundred souls; looking at the inaccessibility of the Island to all but a few adventurous or wealthy immigrants; allowing also full force to the new attraction of a land whose people enjoyed the privilege of self-government; I think the most sanguine in that day could not have expected such a result as we see to-day in a less period than centuries to come. To us who know what brought it to pass; to us who know that the real efficient cause of the marvelous effect was the strongest passion and incentive to adventure that ever actuated the mind of man, it all seems natural and easy; but to the six hundred in 1856 it would have seemed a dream. At the same time it must, I think, be admitted that such a sudden inrush must have endangered, if not the independence, at least the peace and order of the community on which it fell. For what, we may ask, might have been the consequence if the cry of gold for the picking up had been raised earlier, in the time, say, of the dual government, when, as is well known, the people were discontented with a government which, excellent as it confessedly was for the times, had its own profit first of all to be
BISHOP CRIDGE'S CHRISTMAS STORY 255
considered, instead of coming, as it did, to a people which, rejoicing in its newly-found freedom, was not to be reckoned on for favoring any schemes of wildness or riot? I do not suggest any danger of invasion or overthrow of the government when hundreds of thou-sands of gold-seekers from the neighboring country filled the streets of our little city; England's far-reaching arm sufficed to cope with that; but I do suggest danger to law and order afterwards. For this the presence of warships in Esquimalt harbor could afford but slight remedy. The remedy must be in the people themselves and in the administration of law. A little leaven leavens a great lump, but in this case the leaven of discontent being removed, the lump remained uncontaminated. That this was how order was restored will appear from what followed after the suppression of the disorder which broke out among the miners at the be-ginning.
Mr. Augustus F. Pemberton, commissioner of police, was staying at my house when, after lie had gone to bed, a message came from the Chief of Police that the town was in an uproar, and that the miners were threatening to take the city. Mr. Pemberton immediately repaired to the Governor's and reported. His Excellency's first impulse was to fix on his sword; but he changed his mind and sent a messenger express to order a gunboat from Esquimalt. Meanwhile Mr. Pemberton went into the city and conferred with the miners till the gunboat arrived, and thus ended the matter.
As I went with Mr. Pemberton to the Governor's house and to the city on this occasion, I write as an eye-witness. I may say that my impression is that there was no serious intention on the part of the miners as a body to take the city by force. I knew too many of
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