The Press.
London, England, 1856-08-30 00:00:00

INDIA AND THE CAPE.

The overland India mail, with dates from Caleutta
to the 17th of July, and Bombay to the 20th of July,.
has arrived.

Mr. Horsley, assistant-collector in the Madras.
Presidency, has bren murdered. The heir to the
throne of Burmah has been assassinated. Lord-
Canning was indisposed.
Intelligence from the Cape to the 4th of June•
states that the Governor, in a message to Parliament,.
had announced the intention of Ler Majesty's Go-
vernment to send 8,000 men of the German Legion,
armed with the Enfield rifle, to be placed as military
colonists upon the frontiers, and that 40,0004-

AUGUST 30, 1856.

would be required to carry out the plan. Resolutions
cordially approving the message were adopted in
both iliouses.

THE EXILES OF CAYENNE.

THE following letter, addressed to the " Editors,'
having appeared in all the daily journals of the past
yeek, we reprint it :
Sir,—ln February, 1855, I received a letter that
was signed as follows :

Fassiliez, a political prisoner, transported in June, 1848,
and •tvho has now been working fourteen months, like many
others among his fellow-sufferers, under a chain forty
pounds in weight, with a cannon-ball at the end of it.
In that letter, dated " St. Joseph, Island of Despair,
Oct., 1854," the gratuitous and unheard-of acts of
barbaric!, were stated which are inflicted at Cayenne
upon men belonging to all classes of society—artists,
..radesmen, workmen, barristers, physicians, farmers,
journalists, scholars—these men having been vio•
lastly driven out of their country, not in consequence
d any lawful judgment, but by the mere impulse of
political passions. I was requested to lay before the
civilised world the heartrending details, which 1 did
at far as my power went.
Since that period no change whatever appears to
Lave taken place in the situation of these unfortunate
people, who are subjected to forced labours (trona=
fortes) on a lonely rock, surrounded by the sea, at a
distance of about 6,000 miles from their native land.
Six months ago a second letter, which appeared
in the Leader, was forwarded to me, relating what
follows :

Every ship that comes from the pestilential shores of
Cayenne brings the death of a new victim. The latest
victim is Perot, some time mayor of Beziers, a most gene.
roua•hearted man, feeling acutely while he was rich that
many of his fellow-creatures were perishing of hunger, and
ready to spare neither his tOrtune nor his life to the cant-e
of humanity. Having been deported to Cayenne without
trial for resisting the coup-d'etat of the 2nd of December,
he attempted, with six fellow-prisoners, to escape from that
living tomb. They put to sea at night in a boat. Two
hours after they were drivenon the rocks. Peret, entangled
is his cloak, was drowned. The six others survived. But
what an existence ! For two days they live,' on what shell-
fish they could find on a desolate rock in the midst of the
mean, that threatened every moment to overwhelm them.
At last one of them resolved to risk his life for the rest.
Seeing no succour come he threw himself into the sea,
and, after three hours' swimming, reached the land. Un-
happily, the land was French Guiana. He could only save
his life on condition of surrendering himself a prisoner;
his five companions were rescued from the devouring sea
only to be cast in another dungeon. Tomb for tomb.
Now, sir, here is a third letter which has now
reached me :

To Mr. Louis Blanc, those deported to the French
Guiana, with urgent request to make public this appeal.
Those deported to the French Guiana make an appeal
to the feelings of justice and humanity of all honest men,
to whatever party they may belong.
At the very moment when it is so much spoken in France
of clemency and generosity, while so many families are
lulling themselves with the hope of clasping to their hearts
the dear ones whose absence they have so long lamented,
the political victims are treated in the French Guiana in
a manner worthy of the darkest ages of barbarity.
It is certainly a painful task to unveil such an amount
of iniquity, but how is it possible to pass over in silence
the unjust and cruel behaviour of French officers towards
their fellow-countrymen? Let it be known, therefore, that
we are unspeakably tortured on the flimsiest pretences,
while people, deceived by the solemn declarations of the
French Government, think perhaps that every prison is
open, and that we are at liberty. Let it be known for in-
stance that, out of five men lately arrested for some talk it
had been the fancy of an overseer to invent, two were tied
to a stake and dealt with as the most vile criminals ! As
they were reluctant to submit to an ignominious punish-
ment, soldiers were called for, who, rushing upon the vic-
tims, bruised them with blows, tore off their beards, and,
reckless of shrieks with which wild beasts would have been
moved, bound them with cords so fast as to make the
blood gush.

To relate all we suffer is more than we can possibly do.
Our cheeks kindle with shame and our hearts are bleeding.
Suffice it to say that, while the French Government has
its clemency cried up everywhere, there are Frenchmen in
Guiana who do gasp for life. Nor are they allowed the
sojourn of the Island of Despair, horrible as it is ; barbs-
row; administrators drag them violently on the continent,
to compel them to a labour of eight hours a day in the
marshy forests, from which pestilential vapours are conti-
nually rising.

We refused to submit to this outrage upon laws, to this
murderous attempt ; we claimed promised liberty, the
answer is death—a magnanimous answer after the birth of
a prince ! Is there, indeed, for us any other prcspect but
imminent death ? With no proper food, no garments, no
shoes, no wine since February last, is there any chance
that we should long be able to bear both the influence of
an exhausting toil, and a deadly climate ? Again, where
is the law which assimilates political proscripta to galley-
slaves ? From beneath the brutal force that weighs upon
us, heaped up together, almost breathless, but strengthened
by the courage we draw from the sacredness of our cause,
and our hope in the triumph of justice, we protest against
the violence which is offered to us. May public opinion
be moved at our misfortunes, and energetically rise against