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JEREMIE, SIR JOHN. 



JEREHIE, SIR JOHN. 



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sion any important difficulty, as we are generally informed in whose 

 reign and at what time the several distinct prophecies were delivered. 

 They are very easily distributed in the chronological order by any 

 one who ia desirous to do so, and thus to obtain a more distinct idea 

 of the object of the prophet, and the relation of these compositions 

 to the time at which he lived ; and on this account we omit the 

 chronological arrangement of the several prophecies, either as fol- 

 lowing Dr. Blayney, or the German critic Roseninuller, or proposing 

 any other of our own. Those who desire to read the Scriptures with 

 understanding can have no more agreeable and profitable exercise 

 than thus to refer the writings of the prophets to the period of Jewish 

 history to which they belong, and to observe how suitable they are 

 to the then state of the people of God, and to the character which 

 the prophets sustained among them. 



The tone in which Jeremiah addressed the people was frequently 

 disapproved by the political authorities of the time. He appears to 

 have been an ever-faithful witness to the Most High, and to have 

 sought to support his honour as well in the good days of King 

 Josiah as in the evil days of his degenerate sons. In the later reigns 

 it was said that he di.-pirited the people, and that they were rendered 

 by him let* euergetic in the resistance which they offered to the 

 armies of Chak'uca. This led to his being placed under restraint and 

 puni.-htd. 



Hitherto our remarks have been confined to the first forty-two 

 chapters and to the fifty-second, the last. But when we arrive at the 

 forty-third chapter we find a new and very important circumstance 

 in the life of Jeremiah. In neither the first nor the second captivity 

 was Jeremiah carried away with his countrymen and king to Babylon : 

 he still remained in Judaea, lamenting her fallen and desolate state, 

 and exhorting and encouraging the remnant of the people to continue 

 in the land till they should be forcibly expelled. This was distaatcful 

 to a powerful party, who thought they saw in Egypt a safe place of 

 retreat from the power of the King of Babylon, and who finally led 

 the people that remained iuto that country, carrying Jeremiah with 

 them. They settled at a place called Taphanhes, which is probably 

 the Daplm;c of the Greek geographers. The forty-fourth chapter is 

 an exhortation which he delivered to his countrymen in Egypt. But 

 in the forty-fifth chapter we are carried back to the times of King 

 Jehoiakim ; so little of order and regularity ia there in the making 

 up of this book. After this there follow various predictive discourses 

 delivered by Jeremiah at various and uncertain periods concerning 

 other nations, the Egyptians, Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, 

 Edomitg, and others, ending with an awful denunciation against 

 Babylon, in which the utter desolation of that great and flourishing 

 city is predicted, and the return of the people from their long 

 captivity. The prophecy of the utter abolition of Babylon, so that 

 its site should become a place for the abode of wild beasts of the 

 desert, is very remarkable. 



The sacred books contain no later information concerning the 

 'prophet than that be was among those who went to Taphanhes. But 

 some of the early Christian writers relate of him that he was stoned 

 to death by big countrymen in Egypt for preaching against their 

 idolatry. 



Two very different accounts are given of the occasion on which he 

 wrote the book of Lamentations. The old opinion, after Josephus, 

 was that it was written on the death of King Joaiah : but the later 

 and more probable opinion ia that it is a bewailing of the lost state of 

 Judaea when it had Buffered so dreadfully from the armies of Nebu- 

 chadnezzar. It is a very tender and pathetic poem, consisting of five 

 portions, or, as they may be considered, distinct elegies. The structure 

 is very artificial, the successive etanzas in each of the elegies beginning 

 with the letters of the alphabet taken in order. Some of the Psalms 

 are alno in their utructure of this form. 



Some persons have imagined that they see in the style of Jeremiah 

 proofs of original rusticity. There are not the dignity and splendour 

 of Isaiah, but there are great beauties peculiar to this prophet, whose 

 province appears rather to be the expression of grief and concern 

 than of glowing indignation. 



JERKMIK, SIR JOHN, was born in Guernsey, August 19th 1795, 

 and was the eldest son of John Jeremie, a distinguished advocate of 

 the Royal Court of that island. At an early age he was aent to the 

 Blunileli grammar school, Tiverton, but his studies were aoon inter- 

 rupted by the premature death of his father. Upon his return to 

 Guernsey he devoted himself to the study of the law, which he com- 

 pleted during a residence at Dijon in France. As early as 1815, at the 

 commencement of hid public life, ho distinguished himself before the 

 royal commissioners, sent over to Guernsey to correct certain abuses in 

 the laws and administration of justice in that island. He was afterwards 

 retained in many difficult cases, both civil and criminal, and soon 

 acquired a high character for independence and energetic zeal in the 

 discharge of hu professional duties. On more than one occasion he 

 wa* chosen to plead cases of appeal before the Privy Couucil, where 

 his talents and eloquence found a larger sphere for their action, and 

 brought him before the notice of government. 



In October 1824 he was appointed to the office of chief justice of 

 St. Lucia in the West Indies. " At the time the tender of an appoint- 

 ment was made to him," he observes, in his ' Essays on Colonial 

 Slavery,' " ho was unacquainted with a single individual in the service 



of the colonial department, and his political opinions were rather 

 opposed to the then existing government. On the question of slavery 

 he was thoroughly indifferent ; indeed, it was so remote from his usual 

 pursuits, that he may fairly say he had never given it a thought. Ia 

 the interval between the first proposal and his accepting office hi3 

 professional avocations brought him to England, and on thia occasion, 

 probably owing to this proposal, his curiosity prompted him to attend 

 an anti-slavery meeting. The impression made upon his mind was 

 rather unfavourable than otherwise to the abolitionists. He heard 

 much declamation, much angry and eloquent declamation ; but accus- 

 tomed from early life to sift evidence, it struck him that there was a 

 deficiency of facts and of evidence on which to found that declamation." 

 It was under this impression that he went to the colonies, and the 

 candid expression of his feelings on the subject of slavery, which we 

 have quoted, must acquit him of any bias in favour of its abolition ; 

 and proves that his subsequent devotedness to the great cause of 

 emancipation was the entire result of a conviction pressed upon him 

 by an actual knowledge of the evils of the system. No sooner indeed 

 was the slave-law of 1825 promulgated, and the slave enjoyed the 

 liberty of freely communicating with his protectors, than numerous 

 examples of revolting cruelty, brought before him in his official 

 capacity, produced a rapid but lasting change in his opinions. lu 

 proportion to the extent of his inquiries was the depth of his conviction 

 that the only remedy to the evil of slavery was the gradual emanci- 

 pation of the slave. His views on thia important subject are fully put 

 forth in ' Four Essays on Colonial Slavery,' which he published on his 

 return to Europe in 1831 : in them he describes the general features 

 of the slave communities, and the beneficial effect of the ameliorations 

 already adopted, and he proceeds to show what he considers to be the 

 further measures required for the entire annihilation of the system. 



In 1832 he was appointed to the office of procureur- and advocate- 

 general of the Mauritius. He had there to contend not only against 

 objections of a personal nature, arising from his known opinions on the 

 slave question, but against national and deep-rooted antipathies of a 

 population almost entirely of French origin, and strongly attached to 

 French institutions. The office moreover which he held presented 

 peculiar difficulties to (one who was determined conscientiously to 

 perform the duties it imposed. The procureur-general, among the 

 French, is an executive magistrate, and has to enforce the decrees of 

 the courts, and he has under his control the police force of the country. 

 When the disaffected party at the Mauritius heard of Mr. Jeremie's 

 appointment to an office which we believe had hitherto been held by 

 members of their own community, they broke out into an almost open 

 rebellion. On his arrival before Port Louis, eo great was the fear 

 entertained for his personal safety by the British authorities, that all 

 access to the shore was for a time forbidden him. The colonial 

 assembly had petitioned the governor altogether to prevent his lauding ; 

 their request being refused, after a detention of two days he went on 

 shore, under the protection of the whole naval and military force in 

 the island, and on the same day was sworn into office, at a meeting of 

 the legislative council. 



The many scenes of violence which ensued are fully detailed in a 

 pamphlet entitled ' Recent Events at the Mauritius,' which he published 

 in vindication of his conduct. It will be sufficient to mention that the 

 governor thought it advisable, for the security of the public peace, to 

 order him to return to England, ho having previously declined to do 

 so except a written command were given him to that effect. On his 

 arrival in London he immediately reported himself to the colouial 

 office, adding, that he was ready to resume his jouruey back to the 

 Mauritius at an hour's notice. His request, though delayed, was 

 granted, and his return to that island preceded by an additional mili- 

 tary force. The feelings however originally excited against him did 

 not easily subside, and his residence there, which terminated in 1835, 

 was embittered by a series of painful events, arising from tue fearless 

 advocacy of his opinions. 



In 1836 he was appointed to the office of puisne justice of the Supreme 

 Court of Ceylon, aud during the same year a valuable piece of plate 

 was presented to him by the Anti-Slavery Society in testimony of the 

 great service he had rendered to the cause of slave emancipation. His 

 residence during four years at Ceylon was the only tranquil period of 

 tiis eventful life. Early in the year 1840 he published a 'Letter on 

 Negro Emancipation and African Civilisation,' addressed to Sir T. F. 

 Buxton, in which he described the present and showed what he con- 

 sidered will be the future effects of emancipation in the colonies, and 

 ;ave a short outline of the practical steps which might be taken in 

 order to advance the civilisation of Western Africa. 



It was to carry into effect the measures which had been suggested 

 for ameliorating the condition of the liberated slaves that, undeterred 

 ay the perils of a pestilential climate, he accepted in October 1840 the 

 important office of governor and captain-general of Sierra Leone and 

 its dependencies, aud he received at the same time the honour of 

 tuighthood. On the 23rd of April 1841, only four months after his 

 arrival at Sierra Leone, he fell a victim to the prevalent disease of tho 

 climate, while engaged in a government mission at Port Lago. His 

 only son, John Robert Jeremie, a young man whose talents promised 

 ligh success in a career of honourable utility which had been opened 

 ;o him in Europe, had at his own earnest request accompanied his 

 "ather as private secretary, which appointment he held under the 



