"Witness-His Excellency Edward John Eyre, Esquire, Captain-General and Governor-in-chief in and over our said island of Jamaica, and other the territories thereon depending in America, Governor and Commander-in-chief of the Colony of British Honduras, Chancellor of our said island of Jamaica, and ViceAdmiral of the same. (Signed) "By his Excellency's command, 66 "E. EYRE. 66 13th day of October, in the year of our Lord 1865, and took up arms against the Government of the Queen, were in the 29th year of our reign. Paul Bogle, M'Laren, and perhaps half a dozen more. The rest were on the first day a riotous mob, who thought that, by making a demonstration before the court-house, they would obtain the repeal of a burdensome law, and the removal of an unpopular custos; and afterwards they were a mob afraid of their lives, herding together for defence against the "white men," and still acting, without power of resistance, as Paul Bogle bid them. "The white people send a proclamation to the Governor to make war against us, which we all must put our shoulder to the wheels, and pull together "-those words, from a letter signed by Bogle and three others, express what he designed, and what he forced others to help him to do. Bogle was the spring of the whole movement; he was a fanatic, an organiser, a disciplinarian; he forced numbers to take the oath of allegiance to his cause, by flogging two refractory young men in their presence, and threatening death to those who would not join him. "He said if they would not go, he would take away their lives; and to save their lives many go along with him." The part played by this William Anderson, from whose evidence that statement comes, is typical of the nature of the "suppression." He was one of those who went with Bogle, on Bogle calling for five tamarind switches to make a rod, and for guns." He ran away on the first opportunity; he was taken up by a constable, tried by court-martial, and was offered his life on condition that he would be a guide to the soldiers. It was Colonel Hobbs, commanding the 6th Royals, who undertook the grateful task of acting upon the evidence of this Anderson, who, of course, was careful to ensure his own safety, by handing over a sufficient number of his countrymen to the colonel's justice. "The first day of his capture he gave me a list of about fifty rebels," wrote Colonel Hobbs; a statement which prepares the reader of the minutes for those immediately following, viz., that “a gang of twenty-seven were found guilty at Chigoe Fort Market; that all out of a batch of fifty, "except ten or a dozen" were shot; that nine were left hanging on a beam in the chapel which was called M'Laren's chapel," at Font Hill, and were not buried; that "fifteen or twenty were shot at extraordinary long distances," and so on. Nor were the soldiers of Colonel Hobbs alone or exceptional in their method of vengeance. The "black soldiers," that is the Maroons, descendants of the old Spanish slaves, and the enemies of the African negro population, shot one hundred and sixty on the road to Manchioncal. One thousand houses of the natives were burnt down by the soldiers. And how these acts were regarded by the superior officers at Kingston, cannot be better shown than in the words of the afterwards celebrated letter of Lieutenant-Colonel Elkington, Deputy Adjutant-General, to Colonel Hobbs. "I send you an order," he wrote on the 18th October, "to push on at once to Stony Gut, but I trust you are there already. Hole is doing splendid service with his men all about Manchioneal, and shooting every black man who cannot account (Signed) "EDWARD JORDAN, Governor's Secretary." The events which followed, and which had their support and authority in this proclamation, are commonly called "the suppression." From the time when Captain de Horsey, of the sloop Wolverine, wrote to Governor Eyre that he had landed a company of soldiers at Morant Bay, and was preparing to detach 114 of his own sailors to co-operate with them, to the time when "Martial Law" expired, not only was all law suspended throughout the east of the island, but all the guarantees of evidence were dispensed with, and the life of every negro man and negro woman hung upon the will of an angry soldiery and an excited ProvostMarshal. To the white planter and the white soldier, a negro is still, in spite of emancipation, a beast of burden, with a tendency to rebel. Hence the Morant Bay disturbance, which, grave and shocking as it was, has been proved beyond question to have been a local riot, and not the first outbreak of a rebellion, was seized upon without question and at once as a rebellion, and to be punished as such. The soldiers, sailors, and marines acted in three or four directions at once; from Morant Bay, from Port Antonio on the north-east side, and from Newcastle towards the mountainous region in the centre of the county. The towns were all occupied, and their inhabitants, who were as much frightened as Governor Eyre had been, were not much injured by the soldiery; but the whole of the country districts were scoured with troops; negroes, unarmed as well as armed, were 'shot down as they ran from soldiers, or captured, tried by summary courts-martial, convicted on the evidence of informers, or on no evidence at all, and hanged or flogged, or flogged first and hanged afterwards. It was enough that a man should have been unpopular with the authorities of his district, or that he should have a bad character, or that a witness should inform against him, or that he should have been seen with Bogle," and he was forthwith hanged or flogged as a rebel. This last charge, in fact, touches the root of the whole matter. Undoubtedly Paul Bogle, the leader of the attack on the court-house, was a dangerous man and a rebel. Undoubtedly he was guilty of high treason, and his life was forfeit. But by all the evidence given before the Commission, and notably that given by William Anderson, the informer,* it appears that the only real "rebels," that is, the only persons who intentionally and of their own free will 66 "Royal Commission Minutes," p. 161, 66 "Royal Commission Minutes," p. 161, Anderson's Evidence, A.D. 1865.] THE CASE OF MR. GEORGE WILLIAM GORDON. for himself (sixty on line of march). Nelson, at Port Antonio, hanging like fun by court-martial." Nor was it the officers alone who had life and death in their hands-it was the soldiers individually; above all, it was the Inspector of Police, Gordon Ramsay. For instance, some soldiers, accompanied by the same Dr. Morris who fired two shots with his revolver into the body of the negro Donaldson as he was hanging,* dragged out of his cabin one Ned Bryan, tied him to a tree, and forthwith shot him. Bryan and his brother had been at Kingston all through the riots, and only landed at Manchioneal on the 15th October! That is one instance, literally taken at random from a mass of evidence. To illustrate Ramsay's proceedings is easier still, but it is a loathsome task which we would willingly pass by. He owned to the hanging of 184, six of them females; to the flogging of 237, eight of them femalesbut in this last respect he was perhaps outdone by Captain Hole, who owned before the Commission that he had flogged sixteen women, and among them one woman twice! Here we may end the catalogue of executions and floggings, only referring those who care to read of Ramsay's brutality, and of the nature of the "cat" frequently used—whipcord mixed with knotted wire-to the evidence of R. Clarke, of P. Bruce, and of Ramsay himself. The pen almost refuses to write the horrible details. He was But the story would only be half instructive were we to omit the record of some of the quasi-judicial proceedings by which some of the barbarities were guaranteed. Three memorable reports of trials are printed at the end of the Commissioners' blue-book, and to them, as showing what a court-martial may be, what a foregone conclusion, what a mockery of justice, we may refer any curious readers. The cases are those of William Grant, George M'Intosh, and Samuel Clarke-all of whom were sentenced to death by court-martial. The case of M'Intosh is, perhaps, the most instructive of the three. sentenced by Colonel Lewis, and General Nelson approved the sentence, literally for no crime at all, except for having spoken at a public meeting in the house of Mr. George William Gordon, whose friend he was. The evidence which hanged the others was about equally valuable. But the case which was the most outrageous, and which rapidly became the most famous of all, was that of Mr. G. W. Gordon himself. On his trial and execution were based the greater part of the attempt to obtain legal redress in the English courts of law; around his body, so to speak, was fought the question of the legality of martial law, of the responsibility of officers and colonial governors, and of the rights of colonists. The story need not be told at any great length. It is sufficient to say that Mr. Gordon was a negro gentleman, a member of the Jamaica Assembly, a prominent Baptist and leader of Opposition, the friend of the poorer classes of negroes, and in high disfavour with Governor Eyre. This gentleman, who was about as much responsible for the riot at Morant Bay as M. Gambetta was for "Royal Commission Minutes," p. 715, Captain Hole's Evidence. 66 155 the excesses of the Commune, was residing peacefully at Kingston at the time of the outbreak. Governor Eyre's own words shall show how little he, the representative of law, cared for legality. "Throughout my tour in the Wolverine and Onyx," writes the Governor to Mr. Cardwell, "I found everywhere the most unmistakable evidence that Mr. George William Gordon, a coloured member of the House of Assembly, had not only been mixed up in the matter, but was himself, through his own misrepresentation and seditious language addressed to the black people, the chief cause and origin of the whole rebellion. Mr. Gordon was now in Kingston, and it became necessary to decide what action should be taken with regard to him. Having obtained a deposition on oath that certain seditious printed notices had been sent through the Post-office, directed, in his handwriting, to the parties who have been leaders in the rebellion, I at once called upon the custos to issue a warrant and capture him. For some little time he managed to evade capture; but finding that, sooner or later, it was inevitable, he proceeded to the house of General O'Connor, and there gave himself up. I at once had him placed on board the 'Wolverine' for safe custody and conveyance to Morant Bay.” Now, even supposing the proclamation of martial law to have been legal, which we believe it not to have been, it expressly excluded Kingston from the operation of martial law. What Governor Eyre did, therefore, was to seize a political opponent, to carry him off in a ship of war from a district under civil jurisdiction to a district under military jurisdiction, and then to hand him over to the tender mercies of a court-martial. There is an account in Thucydides of what was done by the Lacedæmonians to the defenders of Platea when the town fell into their hand, which forms an instructive parallel. The defenders were promised a trial. They were taken one by one before a Spartan court-martial; they were asked one question, and one only-" whether, during tho war, they had done any good to the Spartan cause ? " As they failed to answer yes, they were taken quietly and put to death without further question. So with Mr. Gordon. He was brought before a court-martial, composed of two naval lieutenants and an ensign lately gazetted; one of the lieutenants being the same Lieutenant Brand who, with a couple of "dingy boys" from his ship, had "had the pleasure" (his own words) of hanging the first "rebel," and shooting him with his own revolver as he hung; who had openly said that "nothing would give him greater pleasure than hanging this Gordon ;" who, some time later, when a newspaper-writer who had offended him was ill, went into his bedroom, revolver in hand, and threatened him; and who afterwards awoke the laughter of all England by sending a letter, richly garnished with oaths, to Mr. Charles Buxton (a prominent member of the Jamaica Committee), challenging him to fight a duel. To such temperate-minded men was Mr. Gordon delivered. He was an old man; he had been barbarously treated; he was wretchedly ill. Before his trial he was called out by Ramsay, the Provost-Marshal, to witness the execution of Grant, who had been a political friend of his. "Look there," said Ramsay; "that is your friend Grant, and you will be hanged like him." A Mr. Joseph G. Smith, a volunteer, thus tells, in his evidence before the Commission, how witnesses were collected against Mr. Gordon: "Afterwards I went into the guard-room, and he [Ramsay] was then swearing five of the prisoners, with their hands fastened and a rope round their necks, and he was swearing them in these words, You shall well and truly state what G. W. Gordon has to do with the rebellion;' law-according to no known rules of right or justice, could possibly have been admitted." But even supposing it had been admitted, all that was proved was that Mr. Gordon had written letters to, and been on friendly terms with, some of the rioters; but none of the letters were produced except one, where he said that "the people of Jamaica were very wretched." He was proved to have called the Governor "a bad man." He was proved to have had an action-at-law against the late Custos von Kettelholt. Above all, he was proved to have spoken at and between each part of this a sailor came down with public meetings, and to have dwelt on the misery of the the whip over their shoulders." On evidence of this kind, the evidence of men who had had the promise of their lives if they would accuse him, Mr. Gordon was tried. As to the taking of the evidence, we have the words of the Lord Chief Justice of England, Sir Alexander Cockburn, in his famous charge to the grand jury in the case of Nelson and Brand: "He could not be tried on that evidence. No competent judge acquainted with his duties could have received that evidence. Three-fourths-I had almost said nine-tenths of the evidence upon which that man was convicted and sentenced to death, was evidence which, according to no known rules-not only of ordinary, but of military negroes and the way in which their case was misrepresented to the Colonial Office. For these offencesliterally for none other-he was sentenced to death. Lieutenant Brand signed his sentence, and Brigadier Nelson approved it. "He asked to see the Reverend Mr. Panther, Wesleyan minister," wrote Brigadier Nelson; "I considered it inexpedient." Without the consolations of religion, condemned on less than no evidence by an unauthorised and incompetent tribunal, Mr. Gordon was hanged on the 23rd October, 1865. He had been in life the representative of the negroes of Jamaica in their cry for equal government; in death he was their representative in their cry for justice. A.D. 1865.] CHARGE OF LORD CHIEF JUSTICE COCKBURN. "The total number of deaths caused by those engaged in the suppression amounted to 439, and the total number of dwellings burned was 1,000. . . . The whole number subjected to the degrading punishment [of flogging], during the continuance of martial law, we think could not be less than 600." These are the words of the Report of the Royal Commission, consisting of General Sir Henry Storks, Governor of Malta, Mr. Russell Gurney, Recorder of London, and Mr. Maule, Recorder of Leeds, who were sent out to Jamaica in the beginning of 1866, and who sat for fifty-one days examining witnesses. Long before 157 murder to be preferred against Mr. Eyre and the other persons concerned in the trial and execution of Mr. Gordon, and that no other mode of vindicating the law in reference to those facts is open to them, they have instructed their solicitors to proceed forthwith with an indictment against Mr. Eyre." They did proceed with an indictment against Mr. Eyre, Brigadier Nelson, and Lieutenant Brand. Mr. Eyre was domiciled in the country-he had been recalled from Jamaica and superseded-and the question of committing him for trial was argued before a Shropshire bench of magistrates. The the Commission went out, however-in fact, as soon as the news of the "suppression" arrived in England-public opinion had been roused. Public meetings took place, and a committee was formed, under the name of the Jamaica Committee, to see that full investigations were made, and that legal remedies should be sought against those who had been guilty of illegal excess. The battle of opinions, the fierce disputes in the newspapers and in Parliament, which followed are, perhaps, more properly to be treated under the history of 1866; but one point may be dwelt on here, that the responsibility of the Governor and his officers may be seen to be fully established. The Jamaica Committee announced that "having been advised that the facts disclosed in the Report of the Royal Commissioners afford a proper ground for an indictment for Shropshire bench of magistrates declined to commit him. The London stipendiary magistrate, being a trained lawyer, understood his duty differently in the case of Nelson and Brand; he committed them for trial at the Central Criminal Court. The prosecution failed in the end; but not before it had elicited from the Lord Chief Justice a charge to the grand jury so elaborate, so learned, so telling, and so clear, that it may be said to have once for all defined the scope of "martial law," and to have once for all settled the rights and duties of local authorities in dealing with riot or insurrection. That charge, which during the six hours of its delivery chained the attention of all who heard it, contained a complete review of all the statutory limitations of martial law in England, of all the notable opinions of great lawyers as to its nature and extent, and of all the important instances of its exercise. Two points stand out clear from the Chief Justice's charge: first, that martial law, exercised in Great Britain or in any of her dependencies, means the law administered by courts-martial-the law, that is to say, which is laid down for the trial of military offenders by military courts; secondly, that, by the Petition of Right and all the statutes and examples which have confirmed it, civilians are in no case amenable to this law. The statement of the Duke of Wellington, "that martial law is neither more nor less than the will of the general who commands the army," though it may be sound as to what may be done in an enemy's country in time of war, is repudiated by the Chief Justice as to England and her dependencies. Nothing so arbitrary or unfixed has any validity or any legal existence. Martial law means military law-that is, the law administered under the Articles of War and the Mutiny Act, with recognised procedure, recognised principles, and recognised limits. Moreover, no civilian can ever be tried under this law; it simply applies to soldiers; and even a phrase in an old law of the island of Jamaica, that "the martial law shall prevail," must be taken (says the Chief Justice) to mean that the militia are to be called out, and that those who compose it are, while it is called out, to be subject to military discipline and military jurisdiction. It was with high approval, and with a just pride in the supremacy of the civil courts, that the Chief Justice quoted the celebrated case of Wolfe Tone, a notorious Irish rebel in 1799, which may be told in the shorter words of another authority.* "The rebellion was in full activity, and the state of martial law in force, when the famous leader of the Irish insurrection was taken on board an enemy's ship-of-war in an enemy's uniform. He was tried by court-martial, and sentenced to death. But the Court of King's Bench instantly granted a writ; and by a noble exertion of the judicial authority, tore a notorious criminal from the illegal fangs of a military tribunal. It established that the most flagrant traitor was amenable to the law, and not to the sword; that martial law exists only in reference to operations in the field; that civil justice will confront and arrest the red weapon of the soldier on service, in defence of the meanest of those who are committed to its keeping." What, then, the Governor and the military authorities in Jamaica had the right to do, was to use all diligence in suppressing what, for a moment-though probably wrongly -appeared to be a formidable insurrection; and to do this by military force. They had undoubtedly the right to put to death or flog any rebel captured with arms in his hands; their justification in this was, that highest law -necessity and the right of self-preservation. They had also the right to seize any dangerous persons, and hand them over to the civil courts. But they had no right to assume a jurisdiction over the whole actions of civilians, to hang and flog and burn on mere charges of " com Mr. Frederic Harrison: "Six Letters on Martial Law, to the Editor of the Daily News." 1867. plicity" or of past guilt. The trial of Mr. Gordon-all the trials that took place in the county of Surrey in that dreadful time-were no trials at all; they were military cruelty and race-tyranny aping the forms of law. The grand jury threw out the bill, but made a formal presentment, "strongly recommending that martial law should be more clearly defined by legislative enactment." Mr. Eyre and his subordinates escaped; but their actions afford, let us earnestly hope, the last example in the history of England of insurrection being met by giving free leave to a furious soldiery to hang, burn, and torture as they please. It is a consolation that the changes which followed upon her ordeal of fire have been fruitful to Jamaica. After Sir Henry Storks returned from his temporary government of the island, a new Governor was found in a distinguished and very able Indian official, Sir John Peter Grant. Under his rule, Jamaica has flourished in every way; security was established first, and has brought prosperity in its train. No better conclusion to this long and sad history of Jamaica's time of trial could be given than the accompanying figures from the returns of revenue, &c., during the years that succeeded Governor Grant's appointment : - At a later period, however, these figures became to somɔ extent modified by new circumstances. CHAPTER XVII. The Reform Question: Its History since 1832: It becomes a Government Question-Statistics Collected-The Compound Householder Meeting of Parliament-The Government Reform Bill: Great Speech of Mr. Lowe: Formation of the "Cave"-The Easter Recess-Mr. Gladstone at Liverpool-The Debate on the Second Reading: Mr. Gladstone's Speech: Lord Grosvenor's Amendment; Mr. Lowe's support of it: The Division-The Redistribution Bill: Concessions of the Government: Continued Contest and frequent Divisions: Small Majorities for Government: Mr. Lowe on Redistribution: Tactics of the OppositionThe Question of Rateable Value: Mr. Ward Hunt's Motion is Defeated: Lord Dunkellin's Motion: Speech of Mr. Gladstone Defeat of the Government-Resignation of the Ministry: Mr. Gladstone's Statement. DURING the whole of the year 1866, two great subject: occupied everybody's mind-the subject of the war in Germany, its antecedents and its consequences; and the subject of Parliamentary Reform at home. The history of the former will be told in a future chapter; but we may proceed at once to tell the story of the unsuccessful attempt of Lord Russell's Government to carry the Reform Bill, and of the serious popular agitation which |