The Sun. — 1866-11-08 (London, England)

QUIET NEIGHBOURHOOD. By GEORG ill MAC DoIsIALD, M.A. " Mr. Man Don.ld is a true poet. ' l'he Anna's' are as fur. of mimic as was Prospero's island ; rich in e,trains th tt take the car captive when they are first heard, and alterwarku linger long udon ie.'•-Seturday Review. flurst and Blacked, 13, Great Marlborou;,h-street.  lion for days and weeks after all resistance had ceased.' 1 am not prepared to question the truth of these allegations ; 1 am not prepared to deny that the period of punishment was too long, or that its character was too severe. Now that the smoke of battle has cleared away, you perhaps see more truly the character of the field. But 1 would invite you to transport yourselves to that field while the smoke still hung upon it ; to remember that a former rebellion in Jamaica, which everybody supposed to be quelled in May, broke out ' with redoubled fury in June ;' to think of Governor Eyre with the blood of his slaughtered countrymen before his eyes—with the memories of St. Domingo in his mind—with the consciousness that the whole island round him was near its point of combustion, and with no possible means of estimating how near. In what way, gentlemen, some of your number would have acted under these circumstances God only knows. In all probability they would have acted kindly and calamitously, for philanthropists can unconsciously become shedders of-blood. How others of your number would have acted I believe I do know. They might have acted with more tact, and thus given less offence ; but their measure of mercy to the murderers would not, I am persuaded, have exceeded that of -Governor Eyre. It appears to me that you practically forget the circumstances which I am here endeavouring to bring before your minds. There seems a tendency on your part to tone 'down the cringes of the negro and to bring his punishments into relief. You speak, for example, of the massacre at Morant Bay as a local riot.' But looking at the historic antecedents what right had Governor Eyre to come to this conclusion ? Had he come to it, and acted on it, he might have earned for himself the execration of the English people, if not of mankind. To his knowledge the whole island was disaffected, and history. had informed him what a disaffected negro population can do. He knew how they could plot in secret, and spring like tigers on their victims the moment their plans were matured. Only think of his position, knowing that such things had occurred, and with a horrible practical intimation before him that they were about to occur again. The height and span of a bridge, gentlemen, must be regulated with reference to the larger floods, and the action of Governor Eyre had to be determined, not by the hypothesis of a local riot, but by the contemplation of the calamities which were certain to overwhelm the whole island if the insurrection were permitted to expand. No narrower assumption than this could, under the circumstances, be entertained. Had the local riot hypothesis been demonstrable at the time—could it have been proved that the insurrection was confined to a single parish, and that the culpilits at large would not spread the fire of rebellion throughout the colony, 1 would join you in condemning Governor Eyre. But no such thing was demonstrable. Had he had a force at his command sufficient to cope with insurrection, even though the whole island were engaged in it, 1 would let him answer for himself. But he had no such force. The'power opposed to him, if permitted to organise itself, was sufficient to swallow him and those for whose lives he was accountable. He was therefore obliged to augment his relative strength, by damping everywhere the spirit of rebellion, and this could only be done by making the name, power, and determination of England terrible throughout the island. That errors should be committed, that cruelties should be perpetrated, that wrong should be done is, I fear, under such circumstances, unavoidable; but the error, the cruelty, and the wrong, so far as they were committed, were for the most part beyond the control of Governor Eyre. You have directed my attention to the case of Mr. Gordon,• and I have looked into it again. I pass without comment the evidence of Lieutenant Edenborough,  " T . II E" S A U C E. (DR.