The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-14 00:00:00

THE EXECUTIONS AT MORANT BAY.

We (Manchester Examiner) have been favoured
with the following letter from a youth serving as
an engineer on board one of her Majesty's ships on
the West India station :

" Port Royal, Nov. 8, 1865.

" My dear parents,—The mail has just come in,
but brings me no news from you. I hear that two
bags of letters have been left behind at the island of
St. Thomas, so I expect that some of your letters
are there, andl shall have them by next mail. I had
not an opportunity of writing you last mail, for I
was sent to do duty in one of our gunboats against
the rebellion. I suppose you will hear before this
of the rising throughout the island of the negroes
against the white people. Our first trip was about 30
miles to Morant Bay, the place where they first broke
out, and burned down the court-house, and murdered
nearly all the inmates. We saw the blackened walls
looking sadly down upon the quiet but beautiful
landscapes. I went ashore, and found the prisoners
under tents, guarded by soldiers, and waiting to be
tried by the drumhead court-martial. Soldiers and
volunteers were scouring the country, and bringing
the prisoners by the dozen. Two courts were sit-
Oing and trying the prisoners. Very few words were
required—such as, Do you know the prisoner ?
Yes. Where did you see him ?—Amongst the mob
with a stick and bayonet. Death. Others were
found with stolen property—death. Some foretel-
ling the outbreak and sharpening their zutlasses—
death ; others for entering houses and demanding
powder—death ; and so they went on sending them
off with a few minutes' trial, all pinioned and
strongly guarded till sunset, when they were marched
out and hanged in dozens together on the place of
the late murders. I went ashore on Oct. 20, and
saw 18 of them hanging together. I will try and
give you as near as I can what I saw. At the back
of the court-house there was a large space, such as
you would see at the front of a market house or
town hall. The soldiers were drawn up in two rows,
with the supposed leader, George William Gordon,
standing in the centre with his arms pinioned ; on
the left were the prisoners, all pinioned, and headed
by the provost-marshal, who held a bundle of papers
in his hand—the death-warrants. In the centre of
the ruins of the court-house a long tree was put
horizontally and resting on tressels. There were 12
ropes hung dangling ready for their victims. On
each side of this were two small archways, and over
each hung three more ropes. When all had been
arranged, the general gave the order to Commence ;
the provost-marshal called over the names one by
one, followed by the dreadful, ominous word—
death. His assistants led each to the fatal rope a
prisoner, and pinioned their hands behind their backs.
They stood on a rough plank, supported on wooden
blocks. Two carts were run under each archway,
and three more victims were tied up there on
each side, one of them a fine young woman,
who had been found battering the head of a man
after he was dead. The fatal nooses were all
arranged, and silence was called for. About a
minute and -all the blocks and carts were drawn
out, and 18 distorted corpses hung dangling on the
blackened walls of the building to which, only a
fortnight before, fire was set, and all who came out
murdered. After the execution they commenced
flogging others that had been taken, and not being