The Sun. — 1865-11-29 (London, England)

POTTER, M.P., laid great stress upon the honour of England, but surely that honour is never more concerned than when outrages occur, and when peaceful citizens are cruelly tortured and murdered without any provocation. Can anything be more preposterous than for any one to talk after this fashion. "It seemed as if Governor EYRE had lost his head and been pain-stricken in the recent disturbances, outbreaks they could scarcely be called." It is insulting to the common sense of the community to use such language, when we have received the fullest and most authentic accounts of the great wrongs committed in Jamaica. What is an outbreak if the confusion that occurred in Jamaica was not fit to be designated by that term ? Why were the lives of the blacks who committed murder more sacred than those of the white people who were massacred. When people shut their eyes to everything but just what concerns their own view of the question they are not very likely to do justice to their subject, or to represent things and persons in a correct form. When Mr. PorrErt speaks of the " ignorance and bigotry of the upper classes" of this country, he had better look at home and weigh well his own words and insinuations. Mr. JACOB BRIGHT followed in the wake of the first speaker, and worked himself up to a pitch of great excitement when he pourtrayed the wrongs of GORDON and his accomplices, and concluded by declaring that if it were proved that a British Governor had committed the great injustice of giving up a man to the " malignant hatrel of his enemies the public would never be satisfied until he were put upon his trial, and received the due reward of his great crime." In the first place, who were the enemies of GonnoN ? And next, was not " malignant hatred" shown to a greater extent by the blacks than the whites ? It is perfectly unreasonable for a man to use such words at a public meeting, and it is disgraceful to that meeting to find that his remarks agreed with theirs. Such conduct is unworthy of an assemblage of Englishmen, and the citizens of Manchester are very much mistaken if they think they can influence the Government and impress the country by upholding such sentiments. Dr. WATTS seconded the resolution, and sounded the praises of GORDON in a remarkable manner. He said that not "an atom of evidence" had come to hand concerning a rebellion being planned. Such language from an isolated individual would be best left alone, and treated with the contempt that it deserves ; but under the circumstances of the case it is expedient to denounce it, and to demand if the inflated speakers consider that all the news from Jamaica is a tissue of falsehaods from beginning to end. If so, how is it that they put such implicit faith in all that is related of the cruelties practised on the rioters? Dr. WELLS paid a poor compliment to Manchester when he said that GORDON was a man who had learnt his Radicalism in their own city. Far distant be the day when the political tenets of any English city upholds rioting and rebellion, and sanctions murder in revenge for any wrongs, real or imaginary, as the case may be. We are coolly informed that Mr. GORDON appears to have been a very temperate man. If the recent course of events in Jamaica be characterised by temperance, what would intemperance be, in the name of wonder ? Prejudice and infatuation could hardly go further than they do in this passage : " Mr. GORDON had endeavoured to do the best possible for the people, to whom he was connected by blood and whom he saw oppressed, and he had become a martyr for their benefit." Really it is time for a change to come over the spirit of the dream of some of our politicians when would-be murderers are exalted into martyrs, and those who put down their deeds of violence are threatened and'reviled.