l866 THE JAMAICA COMMITTEE 303 



Committee was addressed to the Pall Mall Gazette in reply to 

 some editorial speculations as to my reasons for so doing. 



I forget the date of the number in which my letter appeared, 

 but I will find it out and send you a copy of the paper. 



Mr. Eyre's personality in this matter is nothing to me ; I 

 know nothing about him, and, if he is a friend of yours, I am 

 very sorry to be obliged to join in a movement which must be 

 excessively unpleasant to him. 



Furthermore, when the verdict of the jury which will try 

 him is once given, all hostility towards him on my part will 

 cease. So far from wishing to see him vindictively punished, 

 I would much rather, if it were practicable, indict his official 

 hat and his coat than himself. 



I desire to see Mr. Eyre indicted and a verdict of guilty in a 

 criminal court obtained, because I have, from its commencement, 

 carefully watched the Gordon case ; and because a new study of 

 all the evidence which has now been collected has confirmed my 

 first conviction that Gordon's execution was as bad a specimen 

 as we have had since Jeffries' time of political murder. 



Don't suppose that I have any particular admiration for 

 Gordon. He belongs to a sufficiently poor type of small political 

 agitator — and very likely was a great nuisance to the Governor 

 and other respectable persons. 



But that is no reason why he should be condemned, by an 

 absurd tribunal and with a brutal mockery of the forms of jus- 

 tice, for offences with which impartial judges, after a full in- 

 vestigation, declare there is no evidence to show that he was 

 connected. 



Ex-Governor Eyre seized the man, put him in the hands of 

 the preposterous subalterns, who pretended to try him — saw the 

 evidence and approved of the sentence. He is as much respon- 

 sible for Gordon's death as if he had shot him through the head 

 with his own hand. I daresay he did all this with the best of 

 motives, and in a heroic vein. But if English law will not 

 declare that heroes have no more right to kill people in this 

 fashion than other folk, I shall take an early opportunity of 

 migrating to Texas or some other quiet place where there is 

 less hero-worship and more respect for justice, which is to my 

 mind of much more importance than hero-worship. 



In point of fact, men take sides on this question, not so 

 much by looking at the mere facts of the case, but rather as 

 their deepest political convictions lead them. And the great use 

 of the prosecution, and one of my reasons for joining it, is that 



