The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The inquiries of the Jamaica Commis-
sioners were nearing their close at the date of the
last advices, and from the excellent summaries of

•
the evidence given by the correspondents of the
English newspapers we may form a tolerably correct
judgment on the events which have formed the sub-
ject of inquiry. The fact that stands out in the
strongest relief, and appears to be indubitably esta-
blished by the testimony of witnesses of all opinions,
is that a widespread and increasing discontent
existed among the negroes during the six months
preceding the outbreak, and that the knowledge of
this discontent hurried the Executive and the mili-
tary authorities into measures of excessive severity.
It appears that -even now the disposition to resist
the law is not extinct among a part of the popula-
.

tion. The misfortunes which have fallen on the
island, and have caused the cultivation of so many
estates to be abandoned, have produced their na-
tural consequences. Negroes have settled on land
that apparently had no owner ; they have dealt with
it as their own, have felled and sold the timber,
erected their dwellings, planted the soil, and may
be excused, if not justified, in the opinion that their
occupation has given them a right of property. The
incident related by our correspondent with respect
to the Hartlands estate probably represents a con-
dition of things which prevails more or less through-
out the island. In this case all the firmness of
Sir Henry Storks was required to enforce obe-
dience to the law. Whether the negroes had mus-
kets and powder or not, they at any rate determined
to prevent by force the survey of the property on
which they had squatted. A detachment of troops
was told off to escort the surveyor and magistrate
to the place, and it was only when the occupiers
found that this force would execute its orders, and
punish any attempt at resistance, that they yielded
and the survey was made. The evidence on the
part of those concerned in suppressing the outbreak
shows how much this kind of disaffection influenced
their acts. To the minds of people at a distance
there can be no justification of the severities which
were inflicted after the outbreak was really sup-
pressed, and when the troops had.,the population of
St. Thomas-in-the-East at their mercy. But one
and all who were concerned in the business have a
single tale, and as it is in accordance with the facts
proved by other evidence, there is no reason we
should doubt it. It is, that they thoroughly believed
the island to be on the verge of a general rebellion,
and that only measures severe even to cruelty would
strike terror into the negro and protect the lives
and property of the white inhabitants. It is need-
less to have recourse to any other theory than this.
The political hatred of the Conservative official to
the Democrat ; the caste hatred of the planter to
the negro ; the savage nature of the Anglo-Saxon,
when dealing with inferior races ; the especial
brutality of the British soldier, demoralised by
the Indian war, have been put forward as causes
of the severity of the punishment inflicted
on the black people. But it is now very clear
that, in their panic, the whites, both British and
Colonial, really believed that their only hope was to
be beforehand with the supposed assassins. Such a
panic does not, indeed, excuse acts of barbarity ;
for when men take upon themselves responsible
offices or enter the Queen's military service we
have a right to expect that they shall not give way
to undue apprehensions. But the knowledge that
there really was an expectation of a general rising
enables us to understand more fully the history of
late events, and explains not only the conduct of
the executive and the acts of the soldiers, but also

the temper of the community since the outbreak
and up to the present time. It is, of course, the
object of the officers examined to diminish, as much
as possible, the painful impression produced by the
accounts hich first reached England, and to a cer-
tain extent they have succeeded. It is now allowed
that the horrible narratives published in a local
journal and copied by a part of the English
press were fictions. Those who railed at us a
few months ago will now perhaps admit that
we were right in not publishing accounts which
placed the number of the negroes killed at 2,000
if not 3,000, and spoke of " eight miles of dead
bodies." The executions and shootings, though suf-
ficiently deplorable, will not at the largest estimate
exceed a fourth of the less of these two numbers.
Many of the worst of these appear to have been
the work of the negro soldiers themselves, un-
authorised by their superiors. The evidence of
Colonel Fyfe shows that, while the Maroons were
doubtless faithful adherents of the Government,
they were dangerous instruments to employ with-
out a stricter discipline than could be enforced
upon them in October last, and it is to be
hoped that the Colonial Government will hence-
forth dispense with their services. The burning
of the houses supposed to be the property of
rebels also appears to have been a gratuitous piece
of vengeance. In one case there was certainly
something like an armed opposition to the Maroons,
and, so far as it goes, it may be taken to confirm
the opinion of those who believed there was a neces-
sity for summary measures after the outbreak. The
negroes of a place called Torrington, which is said
to have despatched 100 armed men to swell the band
of Bogle, sent, according to Col: Fyfe, a challenge
to the Maroons. Whether this was really the act of
the people as a body, or the idle boasting of a single
negro, cannot now be known : but it appears that
when the Maroons ca.ne up to the place they were
fired at, and that then the people fled. This was, as
far as we can learn, the only resistance offered to
the military during the whole of the operations. On
the grounds which the Executive had for their fears
it is needless now to enter. The evidence is so con-
flicting that it is better to reserve judgment upon it
until the report of the Commission appears. It is
hardly to be doubted, however, that widespread
discontent prevailed ; that when the massacre of
Morant Bay was committed all the flying rumours
of impending revolt acquired consistency, and the
general alarm urged all possessed of authority to the
lamentable measures of severity which are now called
in question.
THE " ANGLO-AMERICAN TIMES" ON INTERNA -
SIONAL AmENmEs.—During the past week an event
has occurred which, we venture to say, is no less
graceful than unprecedented. The Queen of Eng-
land has addressed an autograph letter to an Ameri-
can citizen, acknowledging a gift made by him to the
poor of London, of more than princely munificence,
and entirely unprecedented in the history of private
charity. As a fitting expression of gratitude for
the gift of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds
made by Mr. Peabody to the poor of this metro-
polis, the highest personage in this realm, the
Sovereign, representing the people of Great
Britain, expresses her willingness to bestow on this
untitled American a baronetcy, or the Grand Cross
of the Order of the Bath ; but, appreciating the
fact that by the laws of his country he is debarred
from accepting any such titles, she proposes a gift
which we know he will esteem much more highly
—a miniature portrait of herself. Our contempo-
raries of the metropolitan press have very generally
commented on this event, and in nearly all quarters
is the Queen's letter warmly commended, as well as
the occasion which prompted it. But we are bound
to notice an article which has appeared in the
columns of the Liverpool Post, and which, we think,
is not only wanting in respect for the Queen, but
moat unjust to Mr. Peabody. Our Liverpool
contemporary suggests that that gentleman, in hand-
ing over to trustees a quarter of a million of money
to be invested in improved dwellings for the humble
classes, is simply a gigantic satirist, setting an ex-
ample which the Queen, the nobility, and the af-
fluent classes of England, cannot afford to follow.
" Is it not possible," inquires the cynical Post,
" that this large-hearted American, constantly en-
gaged in the contemplation of the misery and des-
titution which pervade the richest city on the
globe, meant something more in parting with
£250,000 than providing healthy homes for some
hundreds of poor people—intended, in short, to con-
vey his abiding impression that an indiffezence to the
poor is one of the characteristics of an aristocratic
country ?" Whatever Mr. Peabody may have meant
by his act of charity, it is evident to us that the Liver-
pool Post " means something more" than is apparent
at the first reading of the above quotation. The Post
has its rod in pickle for the Queen and the aristo-
cracy of Great Britain, but the whole tenour and
purport of the extract which we have quoted is to
throw doubts on the motives of a benevolent gen-
tleman who has bestowed a splendid gift upon those
who would be most benefited by it, and, by insulting
him, to insult the great and benevolent nation
of which be is an honoured citizen. Our con-
temporary would have the people of this coun-
try believe that the gift in question was bestowed
not as a friendly free-will offering, but as an
insult to this nation. He coolly assumes that
Mr. Peabody was actuated by a disposition to re-
buke the pharisaical aristocrats of Great Britain,
and that he paid £250,000 for the privilege.
We know not who is most slandered by this sup-
position—the people of this country, or Mr. Pea-
body himself. No one who walks the streets of
this metrcpolis, and sees the hundreds of charitable
institutions flourishing on every side, and supported
by the voluntary contributions of the country, will
deny that the English people are essentially a
charitable people. Nowhere else on the face
of the earth—not even in America, where,

happily, there is little occasion for them—
are these institutions so plentiful, so well provided
for, and so admirably managed as in Great Britain.
In fact, charity in this country is elevated to the
dignity of a science. If a stranger meets with an
accident in the streets, there are places within a
stone's throw of any part of the metropolis where
he can obtain medical and surgical attendance,
" without money and without price." There are
Royal Free Hospitals for the Ear, for the Eye, for
the Nose, for the Skin ; there are Fever Hospitals,
and Consumption Hospitals, and Hospitals for Incur-
ables ; there are Homes for the Fallen by scores ;
and, in short, every phase of human suffering finds
ready sympathy and relief in some one of the nu-
merous institutions which the hand of private
charity has reared for their alleviation. The
American people see in this gift of Mr. Peabody
to the poor of London a double virtue and a
double grace. They are proud of it and of him.
If they were selfish and narrow-minded, they might
claim that his charities could be well bestowed at
home ; but they take a wider and a broader view of
the matter. In the first place, they recognise the
personal obligations which he doubtless considers
himself under to the people among whom he has
lived for many years. Mr. Peabody amassed the
greater portion of his enormous wealth by trade in
London—what can be more appropriate than that
the scene of his successes should also be the scene of
his charities ? But for broader reasons than even
these are the American people more than satisfied
with his proceedings. They regard his gift not
merely as the bountiful benefaction of a wealthy
gentleman to the poor around him, but as a:free-
will offering from America to England. They do
not give all the credit to Mr. Peabody—they
claim a portion for themselves ! It is the working
of American institutions and American habits of
thought upon the minds of men that make such
gifts possible. Americans drink patriotism and
pure love of country with their mothers' milk; but
they live in a land so broad, so boundless, so
mighty in material prosperity, that their percep-
tions are undwarfed by territorial limits or accidents
of birth ; and their sympathies extend alike to the
poor, unfed, unhoused artisan of London as to the
humble and the suffering of their own land. They
recognise the claims of humanity everywhere; and
they can say to Mr. Peabody, in the over-
flowing fulness of their hearts, " Inasmuch as
you did it unto them, you did it unto us 1"
That these are sentiments which actuate the
great body of the American people, we have no
doubt whatever. And that the Queen, in ;her
graceful and womanly letter to Mr. Peabody, has
expressed no less her own feelings than those of the
people over whom she rules so wisely and so well,
is equally certain. What, then, is the obvious in-
ference to be drawn from these facts ? Why,
plainly that those three thousand miles of billows
which roll eternally between this land and that, are
no gulf of separation, for they are bridged over by
the affections of the two peoples. Let politicians
and agitators say what they will ; the people—the
resolute, generous, loyal, Christian people of Eng-
land and America—are in accord ; they are one in
sentiment, in feeling, in principle ; they are wedded
in the bonds of brotherhood and good-feeling—and
what God hath joined together, let not man put
asunder !

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