Panning for Gold

Faces of the Gold Rush

What's the meaning?

You be the Judge...

Thompson River First Nations

When Yale was reached all was peaceful. Where was the rebellion? Not at Hill's Bar. No one was more astonished than the miners there to see all the war like preparations. A few brief inquiries on the spot satisfied Colonel Moody that there was no need for the military and naval forces under his control. The squabble over magisterial dignity was disclosed as the real root of the matter. The rebellion diminished to a trifling, insignificant dispute. McGowan succeeded in satisfying the officers that 'he had acted in accordance with his instructions as a special constable. He took the Colonel and his officers to his claim on the Bar and showed them how to wash gold. From this claim an adjournment was taken to his cabin, where the officers drank champagne with McGowan and Californian mining friends. Lieutenant Mayne speaking of the matter says: "Whatever opinion the Vigilance Committee of San Francisco might entertain of these gentlemen, I, speaking an I found them, can only say that all things considered, I have rarely lunched with a better spoken, pleasanter party."

But the rebellion, where was it? It had never existed. It had disappeared like the phantom it was. The military expedition received the dignified name of "Ned McGowan's war! -the most bloodless war on record. The Colony paid the expenses --and large expenses they were;---the touchy magistrates lost their positions; and Dickson, the negro, though hidden from sight in the squabble between the magistrates about contempt of their respective official dignities, gained some notoriety as the man whose ill-usage, had, by a strange concatenation of events, been magnified into high treason.