print it to forward the cause of truth, in compliance with the wish of the writer : Grange hill, Jamaica, Jan. 6, 1866. Dear Sir,-While deeply deploring the hideous massacre of the authorities in the Court house at Morant Bay, and the still more hideous massacres of the unarmed and helpless inhabitants, I cannot but rejoice that this event has brought about that change in the government for which I have been praying and waiting during many tedious years. I have lived in this island during the last eighteen years and have never had but one opinion about its government, which has been as corrupt, immoral, and oppressive as any which has ever existed on the face of the earth. I have no patience to read what the Times says about the advantages the negroes have enjoyed in Jamaica. They have never had the slightest voice, direct or indirect, in the legislation or government of the country; and the whole influence of the negrohating, slavery-loving oligarchy which has ruled us, has been openly and avowedly directed to the impoverishing of the negroes, in order that they might be able to compel them to work at their own rate of wages. This was the object of high import duties on the necessaries of life, and of coolie immigration, which, of my own knowledge, I affirm to be a most atrocious form of the slave trade and slavery, expressly designed to lower the wages of the free negroes. Governor Eyre prosecuted me in 1862 for a libel on the government, and on the planters as a body, for saying in the newspaper that the coolies were "cheated, starved, flogged, and murdered;" but before the trial came on he withdrew the prosecution, because "some of my charges had been already substantiated." In 1864 I was summoned to the bar of the House of Assembly for publicly accusing the Immigration Committee (before which I had been examined) of issuing a false report, and of corruption in taking the evidence. I travelled 150 miles in three days, which in this country is no small undertaking, in order to be there in time; but on arriving, I found that they had adjourned over the day for which I was summoned. I thereupon published a letter announcing my arrival, and my readiness to prove my charges at the bar of the House, and "chaffing" them with their want of good manners in "giving me a special invitation, and then not stopping at home to receive me;" but on their next meeting, when Dr. Bowerbank moved that I be brought to the bar, the house refused to let me appear, on the ground that the warrant was spent. I tell you this in order to show how contemptible, as well as corrupt, has been the government of this colony. I attribute the existing poverty and demoralisation among the people of my district in a great measure to the practice which the estates adopt of moving the negro villages periodically, in order to prevent the labourers from profiting by the bread-fruits, cocoa-nuts, and other trees of slow growth which they plant around their dwellings. Every village of the estates in this district, of 5,000 inhabitants, has been moved within the last ten years; and, as the people have to pull down and rebuild their cottages at their own expense, they have got into a way of erecting miserable little huts, in which the poor things are compelled to live, like pigs in a stye-old and young of both sexes sleeping altogether. Great numbers of them have left the estates altogether, and bought or rented land in the mountains; but as they are there out of the reach of all civilising influences, it is not likely they can advance either in wealth or morals. Two or three years ago, an overseer in this neighbourhood, being displeased with a woman in the cane field, who opposed his proposal for a reduction of wages, immediately took a team of oxen and a lot of men with axes, and went to her house, in which lay her husband, a feeble old man, and telling him to move out, he set the men to work at the posts with their axes, then fastened the oxen to the corner of the house, and pulled it down. It was one of the better kind of houses, and had been built entirely by the man himself, but on the estate's land. I consulted with the Rev. John Clarke, Baptist missionary of Savanna-la-Mar; and we decided, that as several outrages of this kind had recently occurred, we would try if we could put a stop to them by an appeal to the law. We, therefore, directed the man to summon the overseer and his associates before the magistrates, and we attended to watch the case. They were fined £3-being about four or five shillings each-but they at once appealed; and at the next circuit court the decision of the magistrates was reversed by the judge; on what grounds I do not know. So now every labourer living on a sugar estate is liable, according to this decision, to have his house pulled over his head without a moment's warning, at the will of the overseer. Is it surprising that, under such circumstances, neither the estates nor the labourers can prosper ? In my attempts to protect the coolies I have, on three several occa.. sions, had overseers summoned before the magistrates for cruelly flogging them; but in each instance justice failed. The last case occurred about six months ago, and I wrote an account of it to Governor Eyre, through his secretary, finishing my letter in these words:" Mr. Garcia (the sub-agent of immigration) then told the coolie that he must go back to the estate and work as usual. The man said he could not go back, as the overseer, after flogging him, throwing all his things out of doors, and keeping him locked up a whole day without food or water, had threatened that if he came to the estate again he would bring him up at the St. Paul's Court, and have him sent to Lucea Gaol. But under the laws of this free and Christian country that poor stranger is liable to imprisonment for not being on that estate, and no other person can give him employment under a heavy penalty; indeed, the mere fact of his having complained to me against an overseer is a complete bar to his being employed on any other estate." "So, now, as far as the humane laws of this country are concerned, that poor man and his wife and two children must be added to the large number of cheated, starved, flogged, and murdered coolies, whose blood cries to heaven for vengeance, on all who had any hand in bringing them here. Mr. Garcia says he shall still make the overseer appear; but I do not intend to take further steps in the matter, as my interferences only makes it worse for the poor sufferers." "A long experience has taught me that it is impossible to get justice in this country for the poor, either native or foreign, against an overseer. I myself have tried on several occasions, and have always failed. I do not attach any blame to the governor on this account, because I know that so long as that accursed tyranny, the House of Assembly, is suffered to exist, his excellency is as powerless to protect the oppressed as I am. I shall henceforth confine my appeal to the Supreme Governor, who I know, has both the power and the will to avenge the poor." I now humbly thank God that I have not appealed to Him in vain, and that He has stretched forth His hand and scattered, as in a moment, that detestable obligarchy, which, for full 200 years, has bought, sold, flogged, robbed, maimed, tortured, and debauched the poor black people of Jamaica. When the Times editor describes the blacks as a blood-thirsty race, filled with hatred of the white man, he not only betrays his entire ignorance of them, but he wickedly ignores the whole history of Jamaica, both past and present. For every act of lust or cruelty committed by blacks on whites, a thousand such have been committed by whites on blacks. I never heard of an indecent assault by a black man on a white woman even in times of insurrection; but can anyone in Jamaica say the same of white men and black women? The licentiousness of white men in Jamaica has been, and in many parts is still, as boundless as it is unblushing. Every attempt to get a bastardy bill through the House of Assembly has failed, simply because honourable members were unwilling to cut a stick which they knew would be used to flog their own backs. The laws as well as the records of Jamaica are such as should make every honest Englishman blush with shame for the savage barbarities his countrymen are capable of when left to the exercise of their natural propensities, unrestrained by any fear of public opinion or the law. If the Times editor will consult a little book called "Lights and Shadows of Jamaica," published by the Hon. Richard Hill, of Spanish Town, he will there find authenticated cases of torture and mutilations perpetrated by whites on blacks-not on the dead but on the living-not in the heat of warfare, but in cold blood, and under the sanction of law, such as make those which, "it is said," were perpetrated at Morant Bay sink into insignificance by comparison. Nor are such things only memories of the past. The torture and murders committed during the last four or five years, on the poor coolies, by the ill-usage and neglect of the governing class of this colony, are as a mountain to a mole-hill compared with those at Morant Bay on the 11th of October. The negroes are as loyal and peaceable, and would be as industrious and virtuous as any people in the world if they were wisely and honestly governed. I have lived seven years in my present residence; I have a wife and eight little children; there is not another white man within four miles of us. We are surrounded by thousands of those people whom Mr. Radcliffe in his infamous letter describes as "panthers," most of them in deep poverty, and yet I often lie down at night without remembering to look whether my doors are shut, which is more than the editor of the Times would venture to do even in civilized England; and I have never had anything stolen off my premises except on one occasion, and afterwards found out that the culprit was a gaol-bird from a neighbouring parish. Petty larcenies of growing produce have been very frequent of late, but this will be the case in any country where the bulk of the population are at starvation point. I have had a sick club in operation among the negroes for the last eleven years, and two days ago we held our annual meeting; and, on examining our accounts we found that in the first ten years the contributions of the members had amounted to £1,027, that we had spent £740 in medical attendance and money relief for the sick members, and had the balance in the savings bank applicable to the payment of burial fees. We found, too, that our death-rate for ten years had been just one per cent. per annum a fact for those insurance companies who fancy the climate of Jamaica is unhealthy. After the meeting we all-that is, I and about 150 "panthers"-sat down to a substantial meal, very tastefully spread; after which we had music and singing, and altother a rather jovial afternoon, considering the gloomy times. (although I know the Times would not believe it) I felt no more fear of being devoured than did Van Amburgh in the tiger cage, or Daniel in the den of lions. And Not only have the negroes no antipathy to the white race, but they have a natural respect and liking for them; and although they have known white men chiefly as their oppressors, I believe they would regard the departure of "bukra" from the island as a calamity. They have a personal love for the Queen, whom they regard as the giver of their freedom, and their defender from their oppressors. I saw one very touching instance of this at the time of the arrival of the sad intelligence of the death of the Prince Consort. Now that her Majesty has assumed the government of this island, I believe that peace and prosperity will prevail in it; but the change must be complete if it is to be effective, and there must be a clean sweep of Jamaica magistrates as well as Jamaica legislators. There is something in slavery which gives so thorough a shock to the moral system of all who can bring their minds to approve its abominations, that they are ever after incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, or of exercising any other than despotic power where black people are concerned. It was a great mistake to leave a country of free blacks in the hands of a pro slavery government; any reasoning person could have foretold the evils which have followed. If the Assembly had been abolished in 1834 instead of 1865, the advantages of freedom over slavery, even in the financial aspect, would have been long since patent to the world. No Jamaica man must have NO. 9.-VOL. XXXV. 3 P anything to do with the government until all traces of slavery have been obliterated. I would not be understood to mean that negroes are better than English labourers would be under like conditions, but they certainly are not worse. All men are alike bad; it is only early training and the grace of God which makes the difference in any of us. I think, however, that the lowest class in Jamaica, in some respects, contrasts favourably with the lowest class in England; and now that the era of freedom is about to be inaugurated in this island, I fully expect that its people will rapidly advance in wealth and civilisation.-I am, &c. HENRY CLARKE, Island Curate of Trinity, Westmoreland. To L. A. Chamerovzow, Esq., SUCCESSFUL DEPOSIT OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE. The great work is completed that joins England and America in friendly converse. Once more, and more securely than before, has the great fact been achieved of placing this country within speaking distance of our friends of the United States of that country. Let us record the important fact in the words of the telegraph itself from Newfoundland: "Our shore end has just been laid, and a most perfect cable, under God's blessing, completes telegraphic communication between England and the continent of America. I cannot find words to express my deep sense of the untiring zeal, and the earnest and cheerful manner in which every one on board the Great Eastern, from the highest to the lowest, has performed the anxious and arduous duties, they in their several departments have had to perform. Their untiring energy and watchful care night and day for the period of two weeks required to complete this work, can only be fully understood and appreciated by one who like myself has seen it. All have faithfully done their duty and glory in their success, and join with me in hearty congratulations to our friends in England who have in various ways laboured in carrying out this great work." Such was the message by which the final success of the great enterprize of laying down the electric cable across the bed of the Atlantic ocean was announced, from the cove* called Heart's Content, in Newfoundland, on the 27th of July last. When the various difficulties of the work are considered, the accidents to which it is liable from so many sources, the failure already taken place, and the uncertainty of the weather always, the completion of it may well be considered a source of congratulation not only to all concerned, but generally speaking to the countries which are thus tied * In our volume for last year is a plan of this cove. |