300 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xx 



deed the last was that you were so rampageous you meant to 

 come to London and have a spree among its dissipations. May 

 that be true. 



I am in the thick of my work, and have only had time to 

 glance at your Historical Sketch. 



What an unmerciful basting you give " our mutual friend." 

 I did not know he had put forward any claim ! and even now 

 that I read it black and white, I can hardly believe it. 



I am glad to hear from Spencer that you are on the right 

 (that is my) side in the Jamaica business. But it is wonderful 

 how people who commonly act together are divided about it. 



My wife joins with me in kindest wishes to Mrs. Darwin and 

 yourself— Ever yours faithfully, T. H. Huxley. 



You will receive an elementary physiology book, not for 

 your reading but for Miss Darwin's. Were you not charmed 

 with Haeckel ? 



The " Jamaica business " here alluded to was Governor 

 Eyre's suppression of a negro rising, in the course of which 

 he had executed, under martial law, a coloured leader and 

 member of the Assembly, named Gordon. The question of 

 his justification in so doing stirred England profoundly. It 

 became the touchstone of ultimate political convictions. 

 Men who had little concern for ordinary politics, came for- 

 ward to defend a great constitutional principle which they 

 conceived to be endangered. A committee was formed to 

 prosecute Governor Eyre on a charge of murder, in order to 

 vindicate the right of a prisoner to trial by due process of 

 law. Thereupon a counter-committee was organised for the 

 defence of the man who, like Cromwell, judged that the 

 people preferred their real security to forms, and had pre-' 

 sumably saved the white population of Jamaica by striking 

 promptly at the focus of rebellion. 



The Pall Mall Gazette of October 29, 1866, made a 

 would-be smart allusion to the part taken in the affair by 

 Huxley, which evoked, in reply, a calm statement of his 

 reasons for joining the prosecuting committee : — 



It is amusing (says the Pall Mall) to see how the rival com- 

 mittees, the one for the prosecution and the other for the defence 

 of Mr. Eyre, parade the names of distinguished persons who are 



