The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The question -which Mr. Buxton judi-
ciously abstained from putting on Monday night is
one which must have occurred to every attentive
reader of the Jamaica Papers. It is stated more
than once in Mr. Eyre's earlier despatches after the
Morant Bay massacre that its origin had been clearly
traced to Gordon, and Colonel Hobbs, in one of
his reports, declared that he had conclusive proof of
this fact in his possession. No such proof, as far as
we know, was produced before the court-martial,
nor is any to be found in the published despatches
of Mr. Eyre. Indeed we have no reason to suppose
that any authorised minutes of the court-martial
have yet reached the Colonial-office--an apparent
omission which, until it be explained, cannot be re-
garded as otherwise than suspicious. On the other
hand, we must bear in mind that, however strange
it may appear, no one in Jamaica at first anticipated
that for all the measures taken in putting down the
insurrection a strict account would be required by
this country. It is possible, therefore, that the ne-
cessity of sending the minutes or other documents
to which he refers may not have occurred to Mr.
Eyre until the receipt of Mr. Cardwell's despatch of
Nov. 23, calling for explicit information as to the
alleged connection of Gordon with the outbreak.
That despatch was not received till the night of
December 21, and was acknowledged by Governor
Eyre on December 23-4. In his reply (being the
last communication from the colony in Part H. of
the Jamaica Papers) Mr. Eyre encloses the letters
which had just passed between himself and General
O'Connor on the subject of Gordon's trial, and
other transactions of the same date. It seems that
no copy of the proceedings in Gordon's case had
ever been furnished to the Governor, who returned
the original to the general. The latter reported, on
Dec. 24, that he had taken steps to procure the
requisite particulars (without, however, specifying
Gordon's case), but that it would be impossible to
forward them in time for the mail closing December
24. Explanatorystatementswere, however, obtained
from Sir Leopold M'Clintock and Col. Pyle. Before
the, next mail left Jamaica Sir H. Storks had already
arrived with instructions to " relieve Governor
Eyre from the necessity of replying" to former des-
patches, and authority to inquire fully into all the
questions raised by them. The third series
of Jamaica Papers, which has just been pub-
lished, throws no fresh light on this matter, but
it possesses some interest of its own, as contain-
ing the last despatches of Mr. Eyre and the first of
Sir Henry Storks'. The new Governor reached Ja-
maica on Saturday, the 6th of January, and on
Monday, the Bth, the supreme command was formally
handed over to him by his predecessor. The letter
addressed by Mr. Eyre to Mr. Cardwell on the
morning of that day is not deficient either in dignity
or in generosity. " I shall transfer," he says, "to Sir
Henry Storks all the documents which were being
prepared in reply to your despatches relative to the
rebellion, and I shall be happy to afford him any
information or assistance in my power to facilitate
his administration. In giving up to another a Go-
vernment which I have had the honour of adminis-
tering for four years, under circumstances of great
difficulty and trial, I would respectfully request you
to convey to her most gracious Majesty my humble
assurance that in the discharge of the onerous and
responsible duties which have devolved upon me I
have ever been actuated by the single desire to do
my duty faithfully to my Sovereign, to uphold the
honour of the Crown, and to insure as far as prac-
ticable the safety and welfare of the colony and
people intrusted to my care." He concludes by
expressing his confident belief that the inquiry then
about to be instituted would show the justice and
necessity of the severe measures to which he had re-
sorted, upon his own responsibility, and with a
knowledge of the risk which they entailed. When
we consider the circumstances under which this de-
spatch was written, and the trying position of a'
Governor thus superseded, yet compelled to remain
in the colony of which he was so lately the ruler, we
cannot but respect the feeling which dictated such
language at such a time. Mr. Eyre may, or may
not, have been guilty of great errors, and great
errors on the part of a Governor affecting the lives
of others may or may not amount to crimes ; but
surely a man conscious of haring acted rightly and
looking forward to an honourable acquittal could
hardly have written in a more becoming spirit.
It is, indeed, by actions, and not by words, that
Mr. Eyre's policy must ultimately be judged. How
far he was justified in delivering over so large a
district for so long a period to martial law ; how far
he was cognisant of, and responsible for, any ex-
cesses that may have been committed by military
tribunals or individual officers ; and how far the
supreme law of public necessity may be invoked to
excuse the arrest and execution of Gordon, are ques-
tions which the Commission alone can determine,
after solemnly reviewing the whole history of the
crisis. There are those, however, who have not only
condemned the Governor in the meantime, out of
his own Mouth, but have founded that condemna-
tion on the general tone of his despatches, as dis-
tinct from particular admissions that are said to be
contained in them°. This is a point upon which any
intelligent reader is as competent to form an opi-
nion as a Ccmmissioner or a Colonial Secretary,
and we shall not scruple to avow the impression
which a careful perusal of the whole correspondence
leaves upon our own minds. Had we no other evi-
dence before us than his own letters, with their en-
closures, we should conclude that Mr. Eyre was a
brave and conscientious man of no ordinary ability,
but without that judicial calmness which can alone
enable any man to estimate the true proportions of
a sudden emergency. The generalship and resources,
as well as nerve, which he displayed in confining
the original outbreak to the eastern part of the
island are facts beyond dispute, and though not
absolutely inconsistent with a deliberate cruelty, of
which he has never been suspected, they are at least
inconsistent with that kind of weakness which has
been so freely imputed to him. It is impossible to
read Mr. Eyre's letters and to believe that he was
so prostrated by panic as to be insensible to consi-
derations of humanity. On the contrary, if we duly
take into account the extraordinary demands made
upon him in addition to the every-day duties of ad-
ministration, and the mere literary effort involved
in corresponding at once on an infinite variety of
topics, some of principle and some of detail,
with the civil and military authorities of the
colony, the Colonial Legislature, the Colonial-
office, and the Governors of several other colonies,
e shall find reason to wonder that his despatches
betray so little excitement or distraction. At all
events, his own apology for any shortcomings or
omissions in his correspondence deserves to be re-
corded. Writing to Mr. Cardwell on December 24,
he pleads that he had literally no time to examine
critically the hurried reports from military officers
which have been the subject of so much just animad-
version. " For the last ten weeks," he continues, " I
have had an overwhelming pressure of work, arising
from the rebellion, and from the arrangements hav-
ing tobe made for the safety and tranquillity of the
island; from the labours incidental to a most im-
portant Session of the Legislature, under which a
total alteration of the Constitution has been effected;
from all the ordinary current business of the island,
and from the correspondence connected with the
subordinate Governments of British Honduras and
Turk's Island. There has scarcely been a day, Sun-
days even not excepted, that I have not laboured
from ten to sixteen hours, and of ten have been
called up in the middle of the night to do so also.
This pressure, and the anxiety attending my posi-
tion, has seriously affected my health, and I am
sure that you will therefore view favourably any
deficiencies which may have occurred in my corre-
spondence relative to late occurrences." No one who
has felt or is capable of imagining the effect of such
a strain as is here described will fail to be touched
by this appeal, but our sympathy must not blind us
to vulnerable points in Mr. Eyre's despatches, for
which overwork will not account. An impatience of
opposition, and a tendency to exaggerate the mis-
chievous designs of his opponents, may be traced in
many of them, nor are they free from the peculiar
weaknesses and littleness of colonial statesmanship.
He had, in fact, been far too long from home, and
had lived among colonial prejudices till he had lost
the power of judging men and things by an Im-
perial standard. There are two things which must
strike an impartial critic of this correspondence with
almost equal force. The one is, that an almost
universal belief in the reality of a widespread, if not
highly organised, conspiracy united all classes of
the white community, was shared by the officers of
both services, and rallied for the time round the
Governor his bitterest enemies and detractors. The
other is, that no evidence on which a lawyer would
place much reliance has yet been adduced to sup-
port this universal belief, or to justify the continu-
ance of martial law for more than a few days after
the outbreak. The line between smouldering dis-
affection and a premeditated jacquerie, between en-
couraging the former and instigating the latter,
may, doubtless, be difficult to draw, especially in
the case of a black population, but it is of essential
importance, and until this problem be solved the
Commission will have no satisfactory basis of in-
quiry.

POST.—The navy estimates for the ensuing
financial year are substantially the same as those
submitted to Parliament a twelvemonth since. A.
net decrease of about £4,000 is practically inappre-
ciable, and it may not incorrectly be assumed that
our navy and its appurtenances will cost us in 1866-7
as much as they did in 1865-6. Close on ten millions
and a half is, doubtless, a considerable sum to pay
yearly for maintaining a naval force which is to
all appearances unemployed; but we fear we must
abandon all hopes of seeing this navy expenditure
sensibly reduced, even though this country should