of court when he refused to acknowledge Whannell as his superior. The jail at Yale was already full as a result of Whannell's 'law and order' agenda, a condition which prompted British Columbia's first judge, Matthew Begbie to later comment, "the gaol at Yale, which, being circumscribed in its limits, must when thus containing prosecutor, witnesses, and constable—everybody but the accused persons—have been rather inconveniently crowded." The angry Hill's Bar miners, headed by McGowan, set out with a warrant issued by the Hill's Bar magistrate Perrier to arrest the Yale magistrate Whannell for contempt of court for imprisoning his constable Hickson. The American flag flew on the flotilla sent up from Hill's Bar, causing Whannell to remark that it seemed as if McGowan was going to make a national affair of the matter. McGowan, given the status of special constable by Perrier, threw open the jail and set all the prisoners free and brought magistrate Whannell back to Hill's Bar by boat. The unpopular Whannell was convicted of contempt of court by Perrier, and released after the $50 fine was paid. Whannell appeals to the Governor Whannell hastily penned a note to Governor James Douglas, playing on Douglas' fears of the intentions of the Americans: "The town and district are in a state bordering on anarchy. My own and the lives of the citizens are in imminent peril ... An effective blow must at once be struck on the operations of these outlaws, else I tremble for the welfare of the colony." The story, as relayed to Victoria by Vigilance Committee messengers, was that Ned McGowan had launched an attempt to overthrow the British authority in the new colony and declare the gold fields to be part of the United States. Given McGowan's unsavoury reputation, the combative nature of the incident which had the two communities up in arms caused significant alarm in the colonial capital of Victoria. Moody's Royal Engineers to the rescue Richard Clement Moody had arrived in British Columbia in December 1858, in command of the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, to found the British Empire's "bulwark in the farthest west" and "found a second England on the shores of the Pacific". Moody had hoped to begin immediately the foundation of a capital city, but upon his arrival at Fort Langley he learned of the violence at the settlement of Hill's Bar. Moody describes the incident thus: The