The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-15 00:00:00

arewell Addresses to Governor Eyre, and
his Vindication.

Yesterday
(From Me Jamaica Guardian of July 24.)
morning a committee of gentlemen
assembled at the Royal Mail Company's wharf, at
Kingston, to form themselves into a committee, re-
presenting over 1,200 subscribers to a farewell
address to his Excellency Governor Eyre, on the
eve of his departure from this colony.
The deputation consisted of the lion. L. Q.
Bowerbank, Custos; Hon. J. H. M‘Dowell, Captain
Cooper, R.N., J. S. Williams, A. L. Malabre, R.
Nunes, G. Henderson, J. S. Brown, A De Cordova,
and W. Lee, Esqs. At the hour appointed they
drove off to Paradise Penn, the residence of his
excellency, where they were received at the door by
Colonel Hunt, A.D.C., and conducted in.

The lion. Dr. Bowerbank then read the address
to his excellency as follows :

" We, the undersigned inhabitants of Kingston,
and others, cannot refrain from offering to your ex-
cellency and Mrs. Eyre, our most sincere sympathy
with you on your departure from the colony.
We rejoice that after a searching inquiry, the
Royal commissioners have reported to her Majesty
that praise is due to your excellency for your skill,
promptitude, and vigour, in the recent insurrection;
and that to the exercise of such qualities by you
its speedy termination is to be attributed ; and we
heartily congratulate your excellency that there has
been evinced, both in this country and abroad, a
general approbation of your conduct, in having saved
a colony to the Queen, and homes and lives to the
Queen's subjects in this her island of Jamaica.

" It is our firm conviction that a more intimate
acquaintance on the part of the Imperial Govern-
ment with the local affairs of the colony and its
condition, as well as with the true nature of events
which had endangered, and might continue to
threaten, the peace and welfare of the country,
would have shielded from censure a faithful servant
of the Crown.

" We nevertheless feel assured that when political
passions shall have given place to reason and to
justice, the vast majority of your fellow-subjects,
and others interested in the maintenance of public
safety and order, will consider that an officer who
(unaided by any instructions from superior autho-
rity, in times of extreme and sudden difficulty and,
very grave national peril) has, on the whole, done
his duty nobly and well, ought not, for any minor
errors or excess of his subordinates to be otherwise
than most favourably dealt with.

" We earnestly trust that a time will soon arrive
when the momentous services which your excellency
has recently rendered to Jamaica may meet with
that distinguished reward which her most gracious
Majesty the Queen so well knows how to confer on
those whom she cannot doubt to be meritorious
officers.

" That every blessing may be heaped upon your
excellency, Mrs. Eyre, and your children, is, we be-
lieve, the fervent hope of all the loyal and grateful
people of Jamaica."
To which his excellency read his reply in the fol-
lowing words :
"TO THE HON. L. Q. BOWERBANK, J. S. BROWN, J.
31`DOWELL, W. S. COOPER, W. TITLEY, J. S. WIL-
LIAMS, R. NUNES, E. EBBEKE, F. LYONS, A. MALA-
BRE, A. DE CORDOVA, ESQS., &C.

" Mr. Custos, Rev. Gentlemen, and Gentlemen,
—I thank you most sincerely for your very gratify-
ing address of sympathy with me on the occasion of
my departure from Jamaica.

" It is only natural that, after serving my Queen
and country zealously, and I hope not uselessly, for
25 years (since Sept., 1841), and after having had
the honour of representing my Sovereign in both
hemispheres as lieutenant-governor or governor for
nearly 20 years (since 1846), I should feel some pain
and regret that my career should now be abruptly
terminated by removal from the public service under
the disapproval and censure of the Colonial Minister.
" But this pain and regret are greatly lessened by
the reflection, that however able or impartial the
parties may be by whom my conduct has been in-
quired into and adjudicated upon, it is impossible
that persons imperfectly acquainted with the
negro character, with the country, and with the cir-
cumstances that surrounded me at the time, can
judge adequately or justly, after the event, of the
necessity or propriety of the action I found it im-
perative to take under a great emergency.

" The points on which I am condemned are three :
—lst. For permitting the trial and execution of G.
W. Gordon.

" 2d. For continuing martial law and the trials
by courts martial after the proclamation of the
amnesty on the 30th of October.
" 3d. For not being aware of the excesses com-
mitted under martial law, and for not issuing in-
structions which would have prevented those ex-
cesses.

" With regard to the first, I can only repeat my
conviction that however defective it may have been
in a strictly legal point of view, Mr. Gordon was
the proximate occasion of the insurrection, and of
the cruel massacre of particular individuals whom he
regarded as his, personal enemies, and that, there-
fore, he suffered justly.

" No impartial person can, I think, read the re-
port of the Royal commissioners without coming to
the same conclusion.

" The court before which he was tried was not a
court of law, but it was a perfectly legal court.
" To have issued a special commission to try him
was wholly impracticable at the time ; whilst to
have kept him as a prisoner for future trial would
have had a very bad effect, and might have been
dangerous in the extreme, in the excited and pre-
carious state the country was then in.
" I believe that it was only through the firmness
and decision of the Government in dealing with this
case summarily that seditious teachings and the
spread of the rebellion were checked.

"Indeed, in my opinion, the prompt trial and
execution of G. W. Gordon had more effect in pre-
venting further risings in other parishes than any of
the steps taken by the Government.
" Mr. Gordon was regarded by the negroes gene-
rally throughout the island as an obeah-man is by
his immediate neighbours, as all-powerful and be-
yond the reach of ordinary jurisdiction.
" llis trial and execution removed this delusion,
and showed that the authority of the Queen was
supreme. Nor was he the only person of better po-
sition and education engaged in stirring up and ex-
citing the negro mind.

"It was absolutely necessary that a stop should
be put to this action, and it could only be done by
the immediate trial of the chief agitator, and that
trial could only take place by court-martial under
the then existing circumstances.
" With regard to the continuance of martial law
and trials by courts-martial after the 30th October,
it must be remembered that during the whole period
for which martial law was in force, and for some
time afterwards, the accounts daily received from
the various parishes in the island led the Govern-
ment to believe the whole country to be still in a
state of great excitement and peril, and that further
risings amongstthe negroes might take place at any
moment or in any direction ; and although addi-
tional troops had arrived, the total number in the
colony was still very insufficient to cope with any-
thing like a general insurrection, or even to occupy
and protect many districts at a time, had active
military operation& become necessary.
g It was essential to overawe the disaffected, known
to be numerous in most parishes of the island.
,4 For this continuance of martial law became
requisite, and it was only by the continuance of the
trials and punishment of those guilty of rebellion
that the existence of martial law would be believed
in

"But there were also no gaols or Prisons in which
any large number of prisoners could be kept fur
future trial ; and even had it been practicable, de-
lay in dealing with prisoners charged with the more
serious offences committed during the insurrection
would have had a most injurious effect in other parts
of the colony, ripe as they were for rebellion.
" With regard to the trials which thus took place
before courts-martial, after the most searching scru-
tiny which practised lawyers could institute—a
scrutiny to which, I believe, proceedings under
martial law were warmly ever before subjected,
and from which I venture 40 think that few would