In late December 1854 the newly formed Victorian Government faced their first crisis. Three years earlier, in 1851, gold had been discovered in Ballarat, and soon after in Bendigo, triggering the Victorian gold rush. The government imposed heavy mining taxes, which caused a miners revolt, culminating in the Eureka Stockade. About 1,000 miners fortified a position, and at 3:00 am on 3 December 1854, a party of 276 members from the 1st/12th and 2nd/40th Regiments supported by Victorian police, under the command of Captain John Thomas, approached the Eureka Stockade and a battle ensued. The police took up holding positions on two sides of the stockade, with a further unit of mounted police held in reserve. On a third side mounted members of the 2nd/40th pressed in, supported by a combined storming party made up from members of the 2nd/40th and the 1st/12th Foot East Suffolk which approached from the north and south. The miners, about 150 strong – of whom 100 were armed – were no match for the military and they were routed in less than 15 minutes, with six soldiers and 34 miners being killed. A contingent of the 1st/99th Regiment, then serving in Tasmania, was dispatched to aid them, however they were not required. The result of this action was the effect that it had on public opinion surrounding the issue of the British garrison's presence in Australia; a gathering of citizens in Melbourne shortly after the incident at Eureka expressed a desire for the creation of a "constitution under which there would be no troops in the colony but for part-time citizens soldiers recruited from among the community".