The southern press., 1850-06-25
The Fruits of Emancipation.

If the voice OF reason is vain to arrest
the frantic spirit of Abolition fanaticism-
the lessons daily to be drawn from the re-,
suits of all experiments Of emancipation,
should teach the wickedness and folly Of re-
peating such disastrous policy. To the
bloody saturnalia of st. Domingo, End the
wanton waste Of all the fertile fields Of Ja-
maica, another example is now added in
Martinique. We clip this account from
Free Soil paper, the New York Epening
Post, whose editor takes the "poetic
license of unlimited abuse Of slavery, and
laudations Of liberty leading to perpetual
recurrence of such scenes as those describ-
ed below.
The blessings Of such freedom are great
indeed, to both races-and it must gladden.
all philanthropic hearts to find such con-
frmaton of "the harmony and unanimty"
in which the two races can dwell on a plat
form of perfect equality.
The decress of Omnipotence can never
be violated, or rudely interfered with, ex-
cept under penalties as stern, and suferings
as great, as those which have attended West
Indian Emancipation.
Important from .Ma,tinque--Insmrsction of negroes,
Burning Of 81. Pierre.
Capt Currie, Of the brig w. ]. Watson, which
arrived this morning from Ponce, Porto Rico, in
forms us that while he was at that place he saw
letters, which were dated at St. Pierre, Mar
Unique, the Goth of May, and which were written
by well known merchants, stating that the negroes
of the Island had risen upon the whites and set
fire to the town. The confagration Of the town,
it was supposed, the signal for a general
nsurrection of the colored people throughout the
whole Island. 1t was set on fire at three different
places, and the fire consumed some one hundred
buildings, before it could be suppressed. All the
white citizens Of the place who were able to bear
arms, were enrolled in the militia, and martial law
was declared, while large bodies of negroes, from
the surrounding districts, had collected about the
city. ..n
AT the last advices, some Of the negroes had
been captured, and were then undergoing trial,
previous to their being shot. But their depreda-
tions had not yet ceased, and the greatest alarm
and excitement prevailed.
ST. Pierre is the largest and chief commercial
towns Of the Island of Martinique, situate at the
extreme north of the Island, and contains a popu-
la,on Of some forty or fifty thousand persons.
The Island ITSELF one of the southernmost of the
Windward Islands, in the Caribbean Sea, has
population of nearly one hundred thousand, Of
which eighty-siN thousand, or more than nine
tenths, were blacks. This disproportion Of num-
Der between the whites and blacks is so great,
that if any serious nsurrection Of one race
against another, has been attempted, it must lead
to frghtful carnage and disaster.
An odious form ofsavery prevailed on the Island
for many years, but it was gradually meliorated
by the French authorities, from time to time, and
in lS48 wholly abolished by the Provisional Gov
ernment Of February Since then the whole pop
ulation has been allowed representative in the
Legislative Assembly at Paris, but deep and bit
ter prejudices are still cherished by the different
races on the Isand.-Nep York Post.