418 



JAMAICA. 



cess been obtained by the insurgents, a fearful 

 loss of life and property would have attended 

 their suppression ; that praise was due to Gov- 

 ernor Eyre for the skill, promptitude, and vigor 

 which he manifested during the early stages of 

 the insurrection, to the exercise of which qual- 

 ities its speedy termination was in a great meas- 

 ure attributable ; that the naval and military 

 operations were prompt and judicious ; but that 

 the continuance of martial law was longer than 

 necessary ; that the punishment inflicted was 

 excessive ; that the punishment of death was 

 unnecessarily frequent ; that the floggings were 

 reckless, and in some instances positively bar- 

 barous; and that the burning of 1,000 houses 

 was wanton and cruel. Considerable space was 

 given in the report to the case of Mr. G. "W. 

 Gordon, and his relations with the leader of the 

 revolt and the other negroes concerned in it, 

 and the opinion of the commissioners is summed 

 up in the following passage : 



"Although, therefore, it appears exceedingly 

 probable that Mr. Gordon, by his words and 

 writings, produced a material effect on the minda 

 of Bogle and his followers, and did much to 

 produce that state of excitement and discontent 

 in different parts of the island which rendered 

 the spread of the insurrection exceedingly prob- 

 able, yet we cannot see in the evidence which 

 has been adduced, any sufficient proof either of 

 his complicity in the outbreak at Morant Bay, 

 or of his having been a party to a general con- 

 spiracy against the government. On the as- 

 sumption that if there was in fact a wide-spread 

 conspiracy, Mr. G. "W. Gordon must have been 

 a party to it, the conclusion at which we have 

 arrived in his case is decisive as to the non-exist- 

 ence of such a conspiracy." Mr. Cardwell, the co- 

 lonial secretary, in his dispatch, acknowledging 

 receipt of the report, expressed the general 

 concurrence of her majesty ? s government with 

 the conclusions at which the commissioners 

 had arrived, and of Gordon's case especially, 

 said that her majesty's government agreed in 

 the opinion that "the evidence on which he 

 was convicted was wholly insufficient to estab- 

 lish the charge on which he took his trial." 

 The dispatch concluded with the following ref- 

 erence to the position of Mr. Eyre : "It will 

 be evident, from what I have already said, 

 that her majesty's government, while giving 

 to Mr. Eyre full credit for those portions of his 

 conduct to which credit is justly due, are com- 

 pelled by the result of your inquiry, to disap- 

 prove other portions of that conduct. They do 

 not feel, therefore, that they should discharge 

 their duty by advising the crown to replace Mr. 

 Eyre in his former government ; and they can- 

 not doubt that by placing the new form of gov- 

 ernment in new hands, they are taking the 

 course best calculated to allay animosities, to 

 conciliate general confidence, and to establish, 

 on firm and solid grounds, the future welfare 

 of Jamaica." It is but right to state here, that 

 great dissatisfaction was expressed by the Eng- 

 lish press with the report, which was pro- 



nounced to be most unsatisfactory on account 

 of the vague character of the conclusions at 

 which the commissioners had arrived, and the 

 absence of any explicit condemnation of the 

 principal actors in the bloody tragedy by which 

 the lives of so many hundreds of innocent peo- 

 ple had been ruthlessly sacrificed, and so much 

 property destroyed. 



Shortly after the suppression of the outbreak, 

 and before the English Government had had 

 time to move in the matter, the Legislature wf.s 

 opened by Governor Eyre, with a speech in 

 which, referring to recent events, and to the 

 unsettled state of things on the island, he urged 

 the necessity of remodelling the political con- 

 stitution of the colony, with a view to the es- 

 tablishment of what he called "a strong gov- 

 ernment; " in other words, to the investing of 

 the executive with greater power. To this both 

 the House of Assembly and the Legislative 

 Council immediately responded that they were 

 willing and ready to cooperate with his excel- 

 lency for such an end ; and accordingly without 

 loss of time a bill was introduced abolishing the 

 two Chambers, and substituting for them a 

 single legislative body. According to the bill, 

 the new body was to be composed exclusively 

 of nominees of the crown, to hold their seats 

 during the pleasure of the Governor; but the 

 bill was subsequently modified so as to make 

 the single Chamber partly elective ; and in 

 this form it passed the House and the Coun- 

 cil. The qualifications for an elective seat, as 

 well as the electoral qualifications, under the 

 bill, were fixed at so high a standard, that nono 

 but individuals of the planter class would have 

 been eligible for seats in the Chamber, while 

 the whole of the black population would have 

 been at once disfranchised. Before the Gov- 

 ernor could give his assent to the bill, however, 

 a dispatch from the colonial secretary was re- 

 received intimating that her majesty's Govern- 

 ment were convinced that the time had arrived 

 for taking the affairs of the colony under their 

 own control; in other words, for governing 

 Jamaica as a crown colony ; and the Legislature, 

 making a grace of necessity, at once signified 

 its willingness to agree to such an arrangement, 

 Accordingly a bill was introduced into Parlia- 

 ment for the future government of the colony 

 by the crown, and speedily became a law. Its 

 provisions will be hereafter described. The 

 Jamaica Legislature, previous to its final dissolu- 

 tions passed several measures of a most oppres- 

 sive tendency, ostensibly with the view of 

 bringing parties concerned in the late outbreak 

 to justice, but really for the purpose of wreaking 

 vengeance upon the blacks and their friends. 

 Among these measures was one appointing a 

 special commission for the trial of persons 

 charged with political offences, and under this 

 act many individuals, whose known sentiments 

 had made them obnoxious to the planters and 

 the executive were tried for the use of alleged 

 seditious language prior to the outbreak. In 

 two or three instances the prosecutions failed. 



