The Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1865-12-16 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

THE EXECUTIONS AT MORANT BAY.  The Manehexter Examiner publishes the followavz letter from a youth serving as an engineer on board one of her :Majesty s ships on the West India station:— Port Royal. Nov. 9, 1865. My dear parents,—The mail has just come in, but brings me no news from you. I hear that two bags of letters have been left behind at the island of St. Thomas, BO I expect that some of your letters are there, and I shall have them by next maiL I had not an opportunity of writing to you last mail, for I was sent to do duty in one of our gunboats against the rebellion. I suppose you will hear before this of the rising throughout the island of the negrocs against the white people. Our first trip was about thirty miles to Morant Bay, the place where they first broke out, and burned down the Court-house, and murdered nearly all the inmates. We saw the blackened walls looking sadly down upon the quiet but beautiful landscape. I went ashore, and found the prisoners under tents, guarded by soldiers, and waiting to be tried by the dram-head court-martial. Soldiers and volunteers were scouring the country, and bringing the prisoners by the dozen. Two courts were sitting and trying the prisoners. Very few words were required—such as, Do you know the prisoner ?—Yes. Where did you see him ?—Amongst the mob with a stick and a bayonet. Death. Others were found with stolen property—death. Some foretelling the outbreak and sharpening their cutlasses— death ; others for entering houses and demanding powder—death ; and so they went on sending them off with a few minutes' trial, all pinioned and strongly guarded till sunset, when they were marched out and hanged in dozens together on the place of the late murders. I went ashore on the 20th October, and saw eighteen of them hanging to ;ether. I will try and give you as near as I can what I saw. At the back of the Court-house there was a large space, such as you would see at the front of a market house or town hall. The soldiers were drawn up in two rows, with the supposed leader, George William Gordon, standing in the centre with his arms pinioned; on the left were the prisoners, all pinioned, and liea4led by the Provost-Marshal, who held a bundle of papers in his hand—the death warrants. In the centre of the ruins of the Courthouse a long tree was put horizontally and resting on trestles. There were twelve ropes hung dangling ready for their victims. On each side of this were two small archways and over each hung three more ropes. When all had been arranged, the general gave the order to commence; the Provost-Marshal called over the names oneby one, followed by the dreadfulominous word "Death." His assistants led each to the fatal rope a prisoner, and pinioned their hands behind their backs. l'hey stood on a rough plank, supported on wooden blocks. Two carts were run under each archway, and three more victims were tied up there on each side, one of them a fine young woman, who had been found battering the head of a man after he was dead. The fatal nooses were all arranged, and silence was called for. About a minute and all the blocks and carts were drawn out, and eighteen distorted corpses hung dangling on the blackened walls of the build.