The Sun.
London, England, 1832-02-27 00:00:00

REBELLION OF THE JAMAICA SLAVES.

Rebellion of Slaves ! These are words of
vast significance. Out of their junction a flash-
ing truth is struck. They describe at once an
action, and the justice of the whole case.
Falsehood, with all its cunning, has not yet de-
vised the language in which we can speak of
slaves without self-rebuke,—without rebuking
ourselves for their condition more severely than
we can blame them for any depravities that may
proceed from it.

"Oh most degrading of all ills that wait
On man, a mourner in his best estate:
All other sorrows virtue may endure,
And find submission inure than half a cure
Grief is itself a medicine, And bc4towed
To improve the fortitude that bears the load,
To teach the wanderer, as his! woes increase,
The path of wisdom, all whose paths are peace
But slavery!—virtue dreads it as her grave;
Patience itself is meanness in a slave ;
Or if the wilt and sovereignty of God
Rid suffer it awhile, and kiss Laze rod,
Wait for the dawning of a brighter `clay,
And snap the chain the moment When you may.
Nature imprints upon what'Ver we see
That has a heart and life in it,—Be free.*"

Rebellion of slaves ! What term can be
placed in connection with slave which seems
more proper to it than rebellion—more in the
order of human nature and retribution P 'the
slave breaks out into violence, to vindicate his
right to his own body. "It is mine," says the
Black. " Rebel, it is mine !" answers the
White ; and the title is traceti Up to the foulest
of thefts. It is said, in excuse for the tolera•
tion of such enormous injustice, that we find-
ourselves in a state which allows of no imme-
diate remedy, without injury to the rights of
property. Whatever may be the force of this
plea for our Legislature, it is clearly not
binding on the African, who finds himself in
state which the crack of the whip admonishes
him cannot be too soon changed. His ar-
gument for impatience, like the opposite
one for gradual measures, has a regard to the
rights of property, and the property for which he
has so eager a concern is not the property in
sugar canes, but the property in his own person,
or the person which he is apt to believe his own,
even though the law assigns it to a master.
Fair and softly," is a very convenient maxim
for our Legislature ; but the negro says, that his
condition is neither fair nor soft, and his motives
are urgent for instant deliverance. Sitting here
at our ease, it is not difficult to be philosophical,
and to recommend patience, and a gradual ame-
lioration ; but people in the state requiring ame-
lioration, take a different view of' it, and may not
unreasonably desire to terminate their oppressions,
and have the ownership of their bodies before
death more certain and rapid than the course of
policy makes the question indifferent by turning
them to clay. But, then it is objected that the
slaves are insensible of the blessings of their
condition, which is described as one of such
comfort and happiness, as to make slavery pre-
ferable to liberty. Of this it were just to leave
the slaves to judge for themselves, and sup-
posing their treatment to be such as represented,
their very great impatience of it would seem
somewhat inexplicable ; but the fact is as strongly
disputed by the friends of the blacks, as it is
positively asserted by the slavers ; and if there
was before any doubt as to the side on which
the truth lay, we should say that the accounts of
this very insurrection determined the question.
The ferocity, the brutality, which escape from
the different writers, denote the sentiment which
must be prevalent, and we all know that when
inhumanity allows itself a tongue, its band is far
harsher than its wor4.'...iceNivCraia outruns its
tam. ' Accotaing to the representations of the
hostile partisans, the slaves broke into rebellion,
under a delusion that their liberty was granted
to them from the new year by the King, and ille-
gally withheld from them by their masters; and
yet the destruction of these poor creatures sup-
posed to be so deceived, is described with a
nonchalance, or actual glee, which few can note
without a thrill or horror, and a reflection on the
frightful hardness of heart which must be pro-
duced by the vile custom of slavery. Even
Mr. Macdonald, in one of his letters, regretting
that more vigour had not been employed at the
breaking out of the insurrection, says that " his
advice was to take as few prisoners as possible,"
obviously meaning that no quarter should be
given ; and yet this very gentleman admits that
the miserable creatures have had provocation for
their violence ; for he alludes to certain
indivi-
duals, against whom vengeance had been parti-
cularly directed, and couples it with an observa-
tion, that the insurrection would have been
avoided by kindness, such as was shown to the
negroes on the estates under his charge.
Sir Willoughby Cotton, iii some degree hav-
ing caught the spirit of the island, requires in-
stant examples of " the infamous wretches, who
have not only set property on fire, but whose
cruelties in various instances have been excessive,
besides being in rebellion." How, we would
ask Sir Willoughby, came these " infamous
wretches" in the country, whose properties they
have set on fire ? How came the " infamous
wretches" infamized with the name of slaves,
summing up all human abasements ? They have
violated the rights of property,—but who stole
their fathers, and by what title are they held in
thraldoin ? Does their condition impress them
with a respect for property ? Do they find in
their own breasts a monitor instructing them of
its sacredness ? Does the white man's claim to
their bodies sanction the institution of property
in their rude minds ? They have fired their
master's ,property ; but the trash-houses did not
feel the cruelty ; and when the master scourges
his living human property, the slave, not only
is the property injured, but its substance is
agonized.
" Their cruelties in various instances have
been excessive." Have they flayed their mas-
ters, and rubbed red pepper into their wounds
and starting eye-balls ? Have they flung them
down, and beat their backs to jelly, and then set
them at labour, and repeated the chastisement
when nature sank under the trial ? But, to sum
up all, they are in rebellion ? Slaves in rebel-
lion !—a word that stirs up the spirits, and make
the sympathies glow, when it comes from any
land but that of our own accursed oppression
And British soldiers shoot men for the delusion
of claiming their bodies as their own ! These
are indeed shocking necessities of a vicious
system ; and it needs not be said whether the
rebellion, or the suppression of it, is in the sight
of justice the more justifiable. Three Baptist
Missionaries are in custody, charged with hav-
ing incited the slaves to rebellion,—for, in the
\Vest Indies, it is potently believed that laves
can never be dissatisfied with slavery, without
some cause foreign to their condition ; there-
fore, when they do break out, their only friends
are fixed upon as the instigators, and they who
have given them knowledge that they are men,
are held answerable for their having lost the pas-
liveness of brutes. . .

Of the state of sentiment in the island, some
idea may be formed from the following remarks
• Cowper,