JAMAICA. 



451 



colored colonists as bad taken place in the east- 

 ern part of the island." 



On December 1st Mr. Cardwell writes as fol- 

 lows : "In your despatch of the 20th October, 

 you say that you cannot doubt that the rebel- 

 lion of the negroes in Jamaica is in a great de- 

 gree due to Dr. Underbill's letter, and the meet- 

 ings held in connection with it. That letter was 

 originally addressed, not to discontented per- 

 sons in Jamaica, but to me; and was by me 

 forwarded to you for your report. I am de- 

 sirous to know whether it was by your sanction 

 that it first obtained publicity in Jamaica, and 

 if not, what, so far as you know, were the cir- 

 cumstances under which it became the cause of 

 agitation." 



On the same day Mr. Oardwell wrote, alluding 

 to the despatch from Gov. Eyre, dated October 

 23d, and says that while it was in the discre- 

 tion of the island authorities to open letters 

 arriving from England, it is to be hoped no 

 further interception of letters will take place, 

 and it is added that only in very exceptional 

 cases could such a course be justified. Gov. 

 Eyre is instructed to send the letters he has 

 stopped to the persons to whom they are 

 addressed, unless serious mischief would fol- 

 low such a course. The despatch concludes : 

 " However reasonable may be the apprehen- 

 sions which you express as to tne general 

 effects of injudicious and inflammatory lan- 

 guage upon an excitable and imperfectly in- 

 structed people, it is not easy to see what steps 

 can be taken for the prevention of the evil. 

 The measure which you suggest is not one to 

 which I should wish you to have recourse. 

 The repression of overt proceedings might lead 

 to secret proceedings not less, but more dan- 

 gerous; and the banishment of persons who 

 are known, and may be made responsible to the 

 law, might have the effect of devolving their 

 influences upon persons who are more obscure 

 and less amenable to observation." 



The next despatch was as follows : 



DOWNING STRKET, December 1, 1S65. 

 Sir: In a recent despatch I called your attention 

 to passages requiring explanation in the reports of 

 officers employed against the insurgent negroes, and 

 to tire absence of the minutes of proceedings of 

 courts-martial, which one of the despatches addressed 

 to you by Maj.-Gen. O'Connor had purported to en- 

 close. I have now received your further despatches, 

 but they do not contain any minute of the evidence 

 taken by the courts-martial. No doubt the extreme 

 pressure of business, consequent on the insurrection, 

 and attendant on the meeting of the Legislature, must 

 account for the absence of these enclosures, and ren- 

 der your present reports in some points incomplete. 

 I assign to this cause that many important points are 

 still unexplained, on which it is necessary that her Maj- 

 esty's Government should be in possession of all the 

 information that can be given. I enclose a copy of 

 a letter from the Admiralty, with a copy of a de- 

 spatch from Commodore Sir Leopold McClintock, 

 dated the 8th November. This omcer states that it 

 will be impossible to ascertain the total loss of life 

 in the insurrection, but that 1,500 would perhaps be 

 a moderate computation; that, at the date of his 

 letter, arrests were being daily made, and the prison- 

 ers sent to Morant Bay, and a large proportion cf 



them hanged. I enclose also extracts from a report 

 made byiiieut. Adcock, of the 6th Regiment, dated 

 25th October, and transmitted to Lord de Grey in a 

 despatch from Maj.-Gen. O'Connor, of which I en- 

 close a copy, dated the 7th November ; and I enclose 

 an extract from a newspaper of a letter purporting 

 to have been written by Capt. Ford, in command of 

 the St. Thomas-in-the-East irregular troop. These 

 extracts, equally with those accompanying my de- 

 spatch of the 23d November, require explanation. 

 I should be glad to learn that the letter in the news- 

 paper is not authentic, and if any official reports have 

 been made by Capt. Ford I should wish to be fur- 

 nished with copies of them. And in reference not 

 only to the particular reports adverted to in this 

 and in my former despatch, but to the proceedings 

 generally, I am desirous to point to the topics which, 

 in the opinion of her Majesty's Government, demand 

 your report : 



1. The number of persons tried, and of those sen- 

 tenced by courts-martial, specifying the charge and 

 sentence, and whether or not the sentence was ex- 

 ecuted, and under whose authority, and whether 

 minutes were taken of the evidence on which the 

 sentence was found in each case : all minutes of 

 evidence so taken to be appended to the return. 

 The return should show also at what places and 

 times respectively the offences were charged to have 

 been committed, and the accused persons were ar- 

 rested or captured and tried, specifying in each case 

 whether the offence was committed before or during 

 martial law, whether the arrest or capture was made 

 during martial law, and in a place to which martial 

 law extended ; and if the person accused was ar- 

 rested or captured in a place to which martial law 

 did not extend, and removed to a place to which it 

 did extend, there to be tried by martial law, and for 

 an offence not committed during and under martial 

 law, it should be stated by whose authority this was 

 done, and whether under the advice of the Attorney- 

 General. 



2. Whether any persons were hanged, flogged, or 

 otherwise punished without trial; and if so, by 

 whom and under whose authority in each case, spe- 

 cifying the name, sex, color, and quality of the per- 

 sons punished, the nature and date of the punish- 

 ment, and the nature and date of the offence, and 

 the grounds on which it was assumed to have been 

 committed. 



3. The number of persons, so far as can be ascer- 

 tained, who were shot in the field or in the bush, 

 their name, sex, quality, and color, and whether 

 adults or children, specifying in all cases whether 

 they were resisting or flying, whether armed or un- 

 armed, and if armed, with what weapons, whether 

 such as are used only for purpose of offence, or such 

 as are used also in agricultural or other peaceful 

 occupations. 



4. Whether any and what oral or written instruc- 

 tions were given to officers in command of detach- 

 ments sent m pursuit of rebels, whereby they might 

 know on what evidence or appearances, other than 

 hostile action or attitude, they were to assume that 

 those they might meet with were rebels ; and whether 

 those officers, or any of them., were led by their in- 

 structions, or otherwise, and without authority in- 

 duced, to assume that all persons flying or hiding 

 from pursuit, or all persons found with plunder, or 

 all persons leaving their labor on plantations were to 

 be regarded as rebels and shot when met with. 

 Copies of all instructions should be furnished. 



5. Col. Fyfe being the only officer mentioned as 

 employed with the Maroons, whilst divers parties of 

 the Maroons appear to have been sent in various 

 directions out or the immediate observation of Col. 

 Fyfe, was there any and what control exercised over 

 the operations of those parties, and what was it ex- 

 pected that the nature of those operations would be ; 

 and of what nature, in point of fact, did those opera- 

 tions prove to be ? 





