question of whether New South Wales could legally exclude citizens of the Chinese Empire. A new Chinese Immigration Regulation Bill was being drafted for debate in Parliament while the first gold miners were arriving at Burrangong. The events at Burrangong were well-recorded at the time, and have been analysed by a number of historians in recent decades. The Burrangong affair was arguably the most serious civil disorder that has ever happened in Australia, involving more people and lasting much longer than the Eureka rebellion at Ballarat six years earlier. Trouble began late in 1860 with the formation of a Miners Protective League, followed by roll-ups (mass meetings) of European diggers evicting Chinese miners from sections of the field. These events involved the quasi-legal posting of notices to quit, and were carried out ceremonially, with a brass band leading the marchers. There was little violence at first. Most of the Chinese moved to new diggings nearby, and some returned soon afterward. This pattern of behaviour was to be repeated on several occasions over the next eight months; there seemed to be an understanding from early in the Burrangong events that the Chinese would be tolerated if they remained in certain areas of the goldfield. The Lambing Flat riots In ten months of unrest at Burrangong, the most infamous riot on the gold fields occurred on the night of 30 June 1861 when a mob of between 2,000 and 3,000 European, North American and Australian-born gold miners attacked about 2,000 Chinese miners and drove the Chinese off the Lambing Flat, and then moved on to the Back Creek diggings, where 150 - 200 Chinese were encamped, they went about destroying tents and looting possessions. Many of the Chinese were cruelly beaten, but no one was killed. About 1,000 Chinese abandoned the field and set up camp near Roberts' homestead at Currowang sheep station, 20 km away. There were two triggers for the violence: in Sydney the Legislative Council rejected the anti-Chinese bill, and a false rumour swept the goldfield that a new group of 1,500 Chinese were on the road to Burrangong. The police arrived in the days that followed, identified the leaders of the riot, and three were arrested two weeks later. The mob's reaction was an armed attack on the police camp by about a thousand miners on the night of 14 July, which the police broke up with gunfire