ART. VIII.-1. Papers relating to the Affairs of Jamaica. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. February, 1866.

2. Papers relating to the Disturbances in Jamaica. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. Parts I., II., III. February, 1866.

3. Report of the Jamaica Royal Commission, 1866. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty. Parts I. and II.

IF

F any moralist or preacher desired to inculcate the lesson that the scenes on which acts of great injustice had once been committed were liable to repeated visitations of Divine retribution, he could not adduce a more appropriate instance than that of Jamaica. The most beautiful, and nearly the most fertile of the Antilles, this island has, from the days of its earliest settlement, witnessed the repetition of strife, jealousy, and tumult. It would seem as if the reckless cruelty of its Spanish masters had subjected their successors to the vengeance of Heaven for the extirpation of the people whom they first deprived of their possessions and then of their lives. The substitution of the Negro for the Carib population has caused most of the conflicts and disturbances by which Jamaica has been so pre-eminently distinguished. From the time that the negroes began to constitute any considerable portion of the inhabitants, they have, at recurring intervals, convulsed the colony with their actual or apprehended risings. When the depression of the West India interest and the development of other colonies diverted the attention of European observers from Jamaica, the relations of the white and black races still continued to impress their distinctive mark on the local politics of the island. Though they failed to attract observation in England, they were as important and as exciting as ever in their own sphere. Nor can any society offer more striking points for reflection than a community composed of Africans and Europeans, the former to the latter in the proportion of more than thirty to one. On one side are the few representatives of the dominant race, with the pride and prejudices natural to ancient masterdom; on the other side are the myriads of alien race and blood, the representatives of former bondsmen,-men without an ancestry, without a history, and almost without traditions-raised as it were in a moment to the dignity of freedom and the enjoyment of equal civil rights. To suppose that, without some controlling and constraining power the two peoples can live together in unbroken harmony and mutual good will, is to suppose a thing wholly inconsistent with experience.

experience. Whenever any two populations of different bloods are brought into close and enduring contact, the feeling of race is sure to be engendered in each. Jealousy, contempt, or resentment, or suspicion, in greater or less degrees, characterises their mutual intercourse. This feeling shows itself in those towns of England where English and Welsh dwell in close proximity; and more strongly in those suburbs which are inhabited by English and Irish families. It shows itself, too, where Neapolitans and Piedmontese or Walloons and Flemings live close together. In all these cases there are national peculiarities of character and sentiment which provoke conflict and collision. As time goes on, if the two nations are not fused by intermarriage, their respective peculiarities assume a more offensive aspect, and the mutual jealousy or repulsion gains strength with each successive generation.

If this condition of things exists amongst peoples which, although derived from different stocks, have yet for centuries lived under the same government and spoken the same tongue, it naturally exists in a fuller degree among peoples which belong, not only to different races, but to races widely different in type, and which, till within a brief period, have only been known to each other in the relation of proprietor and chattel. All the differences which separate the Englishman from the Irishman or the Frenchman, are as nothing to the differences which separate all Europeans from all Negroes. It is not only dissimilarity of type, but dissimilarity of type intensified and exaggerated by entire dissimilarity of colour ; and both these in their turn made more significant by the contrast between past slavery and present freedom. Let any one imagine two such populations, with such traditions, growing up together in one island: the Englishmen with their pride of country, their general contempt of all alien people, and a special contempt for people of colour; the Africans, with no recollection of the country of their sires, with no traditions beyond a few superstitious myths, with no civilisation brought from Africa, and only a semblance of civilisation picked up in Jamaica; with an ⚫ imperfect knowledge of the English tongue, and a more imperfect imitation of English manners; with a consciousness, too, of their own increasing numbers, and the decreasing numbers of those who were once their masters, and with a self-conceit which no amount of censure can rebuke, and no amount of ridicule shame down; let any one imagine these two classes living side by side, the one multiplying rapidly, the other stationary or diminishing; and but a slight knowledge of human nature is sufficient to demonstrate the general results of such a juxtaposition. Nor, in estimating these, should we omit to consider a third element,

which is the invariable consequence of this contiguity,-the mixed race which springs from the intercourse of whites and blacks and from their many-tinted progeny. Inheriting, as this does, some of the qualities of each ancestral stock, it plays an important part in the social and political history of every tropical colony. To the intelligence and often to the acquirements of the white race it unites the impulsive waywardness of the negro, and adds a sensitiveness of its own, which is a perpetual vexation to itself and every one else. Its peculiar characteristics qualify it to lead any movement of the disaffected negroes; for it participates in many of their sentiments, is affected by many of their prejudices, has an education superior to them, and regards itself as very ill-treated because it is not admitted to social equality with the white people. We are now speaking of the average mulatto class. There are a few others nominally belonging to it, and doubtless connected with it by blood, but whose complexion betrays hardly a vestige of colour, while their manners, acquirements, and general demeanour raise them to a level with the educated gentlemen of any country. Such men are not disposed to be the promoters or the leaders of negro disaffection. This work is left to the ordinary Mulatto, who undertakes it, not, generally, from any special liking for the negro, but from spite to the white man. A contiguity of these elements in an island, once subjected to the laws of slavery, is sure to bring about mischief sooner or later. It has done so in other islands, as, recently, in Antigua and St. Vincents, in both of which, however, the proportions of whites to blacks is greater than it is in Jamaica, and where other compensating influences mitigate the collision of the races. Such people as kept up any correspondence with Jamaica knew perfectly well that life was there disquieted by a want of amity and confidence between the different sections of the people, and that (except in certain localities blessed by a more genial and kindly spirit) the whites complained of the growing insolence and offensiveness of the negroes. But this was known only to a few. The vast majority of Englishmen have long been equally ignorant and indifferent about Jamaica; and, out of political or commercial circles, the only persons who took any interest in its history were the friends of the missionaries. England, therefore, was smitten with amazement when in the November of last year the West India Mail brought news of a negro rising, accompanied by great atrocities, and suppressed with considerable carnage. When sufficient time had been allowed to peruse and examine the successive accounts of this unexpected catastrophe,

the

the following circumstances gradually impressed themselves on the popular mind.

It appeared that, in the month of January, 1865, Mr. (or, as he is named in the Parliamentary papers, Dr.) Underhill, an official of the Baptist connexion, addressed a letter to the Secretary of State, in which he took advantage of the distress caused by a long drought in certain districts of Jamaica, to infer the existence of a general poverty and depression, and to attribute these to certain political grievances, which he specially described. We shall examine the details of this letter later. At present, we content ourselves with remarking that many of his assertions are highly exaggerated, some utterly untrue, while his conclusions are often illogical, and his suggestions impracticable. But at the same time we are bound to admit that even had the letter been originally published in Jamaica, and addressed to the colonists, instead of being addressed to the Secretary of State, it could not, consistently with the precedents of English law, have been brought within the provisions of any Act directed against treasonable or seditious publications. It was a foolish letter, inconsiderate and mischievous, calculated to foment discontent and disaffection amongst an unreflecting and untaught race; but it was not, technically speaking, a seditious letter. That it did lead to much mischief is true. That it should not be published or made known was desirable enough. But the difficulty of dealing rightly with such effusions is only a part of the general difficulty which besets the adaptation of English principles and modes of thought to nations and tribes which have an entirely different standard of ethics, and take an entirely different view of human affairs. Perhaps nothing in modern history so strongly illustrates the one-sidedness and imperfection of English legislation as the make-shifty and hap-hazard looseness with which some 800,000 black semi-barbarians were at one bound-without commensurate training or preparation-admitted to the full civil rights of English citizens, and subjected to the ordinary routine of English administration. They were, in the first instance, wisely subjected, by the Emancipation Act prepared by Lord Derby, then Secretary for the Colonies, to a seven years' apprenticeship; but the impatience of the philanthropists, represented by the late Sir E. Wilmot, vexed the Government with motions which led to their complete Emancipation from control ere four of the seven years had expired. Whatever difficulties or annoyances we may hereafter have with our tropical colonies, will be mainly due to the want of a governmental machinery adapted to the gradual transition

of

of African slaves to the condition of jurymen, municipal electors, voters for a colonial Parliament, and members of a colonial Parliament. The French have done very differently in their sugar colonies, where the newly enfranchised negro is hemmed in with restrictions that effectually prevent him from doing any harm to himself or others. But this is a wide subject, and we forbear to pursue it further. The letter of Mr. Underhill which gave rise to this digression was addressed to Mr. Secretary Cardwell in the month of January, 1865. Mr. Cardwell, in the same month, transmitted a copy of it to Governor Eyre. Governor Eyre then referred it for report to the Custodes of the different parishes— officers who are somewhat in the position of Lord Lieutenants of English counties-to the Judges, to the Bishop of Kingston, and to the heads or superintendents of the various religious denominations in the colony. In taking this course he acted perfectly in accordance with the dictates both of common sense and of prescription. There was no other course, equally frank and sensible, which the Governor could have taken. That a letter thus submitted for criticism and examination should long remain a secret, was wholly impossible. To suppose that a document officially addressed to the Secretary of State about the constitution of a colony, and animadverting strongly on the policy of its government, should be sent out to its governor, should be circulated among a dozen or two dozen persons in the colony, should be criticised and reported on by them, and then that these reports should be sent back to the Governor, without the knowledge or privity of any other persons, is a supposition inconsistent with the natural condition not only of any colony, but of any human society. That happened which might have been expected to happen. The whole affair got wind, and Mr. Underhill's letter found its way into the colonial papers. To accuse the Governor of breach of confidence or want of discretion is childish in the extreme. He could not have prevented the publication of the ill-omened letter, except at the risk of greater mischiefs than, in fact, it eventually did produce. Garbled portions, filled out with significant inuendoes, would have done more harm than the unmutilated whole. As it was, its effects were soon enough perceptible. A petition, evidently based upon its contents, was sent to England. The signers of this petition described themselves as poor labourers, and complained generally of the cost of subsistence, and the smallness of their earnings. Meanwhile the references made by Mr. Eyre to the local authori ties had elicited numerous replies, the general tenor of which was to deny the truth of Mr. Underhill's allegations. These were forwarded to the Secretary of State, who, in July, directed Vol. 120.-No. 239. Q

Mr.