By the end of September there were 567 men at Ballarat; they, by means of the primitive Australian gold rocker, had rocked out 4010 ounces or £12,030 worth of gold, taking it at its then commercial value of £3 per ounce. There were only 143 rockers, yet this amount had been won in 712 days’ work, representing a day and a quarter’s work per man. At the beginning of November it was estimated that there were 67,000 ounces of gold in banks and private hands at Melbourne and Geelong. From this date new fields, to which wild stampedes took place, were discovered almost daily. Forrest Creek, Bendigo, Ararat, Dunolly and the Ovens all showed colour in turn.
It was some months before the news of the great Australian gold strike spread round the world, and one can well imagine the excitement on board the incoming emigrant ships, when they were boarded almost before their anchors were down and told the great news. Often successful miners would come off and prove their words by scattering gold on the deck, to be scrambled for, or by removing their hats and displaying rolls of bank notes inside them. Settlers, bereft of their servants, sometimes even came off with the pilot in their anxiety to engage men. Indeed it was commonly reported in the winter of 1851 that the Governor was compelled to groom his own horse.
With such stories flying about, and every native apparently in a state of semi-hysteria, it is not surprising that often whole ships’ crews, from the captain down, caught the gold fever and left their vessels deserted. Not even the lordly Blackwall liners with their almost naval discipline could keep their crews. The six-shooter and belaying pin were used in vain. Shipmasters were at their wits’ end where to get crews for the homeward run. £40 and even £50 was not found to be sufficient inducement to tempt sailors away from this marvellous land of gold. Even the gaol was scoured and prisoners paid £30 on the capstan and £3 a month for the passage.
By June, 1852, fifty ships were lying in Hobson’s Bay deserted by the crews. Nor were other Australian ports much better. The mail steamer _Australian_ had to be helped away from Sydney by a detachment of volunteers from H.M. brig _Fantome_; and at Melbourne and Adelaide, where she called for mails, police had to be stationed at her gangways to prevent desertion, whilst at Albany she was delayed seven days for want of coal, because the crew of the receiving ship, who were to put the coal aboard, were all in prison to keep them from running off to the diggings.