The dismissal of the charge excited a storm of
indignation in the camp, and a body of diggers at once proceeded to
wreck the hotel and lynch the accused. In the latter object they,
fortunately, did not succeed, and so rendered themselves liable only to
charges of riot and arson, instead of the more serious charge of murder.
Four of the ringleaders were, through the prompt measures of Sir Charles
Hotham, shortly afterward arrested, and committed for trial. But the
accusations of partiality against the officials were too strong to be
resisted, and a board of inquiry hastily instituted by the Governor
disclosed the ugly facts that Dewes, the magistrate who presided at the
hearing of the charge against the Bentleys, had been in the habit of
borrowing money from residents, and that Sergeant-Major Milne, of the
police force, had been guilty of receiving bribes. The officials
implicated were at once dismissed, and the Bentleys and Farrell
rearrested and convicted. But the Governor very properly declined to
release the arrested rioters, who, shortly before Christmas, 1854, were
convicted and sentenced to short terms of imprisonment.
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