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inapplicable; and they were so in all cases, as soon as the danger became definitely one of time and of instant danger." So much for the principles on which, according to Mr. Ruskin, Mr. Eyre ought to be judged. The question now to be brought home to the English people was, not whether Mr. Eyre had erred in this act or the other, nor whether the circumstances required less than he did, or more. They might just as well bring any general who had won a decisive battle to trial, because it was alleged that he had lost five or six men unnecessarily in occupying a dangerous position, or had shot a peasant by mistake for a spy! The question put at issue by the adverse prosecution was in fact this, and nothing else than this, whether Mr. Eyre, under circumstances of instant public danger, did or did not do, to the best of his power and ability, what he believed to be his duty."

Mr. Ruskin is correct in alleging that there is a distinction between the duties of a governor and those of a judge. That a governor is bound to strike down murderous rebellion by the first weapon that comes to hand, can be questioned by no sane man. It has not, so far as we know, been questioned in this dispute. But neither judge nor governor is above law. The former reads the law; says what it is: the latter calls law into operation; says what there is for it to do. In open wars, civil law is suspended, but even then the governor or general must act by martial law. Anything beyond this is despotism-a thing unknown in the realm of England.

It is indisputable that Mr. Ruskin is incorrect in assuming that good intention and success are the sole tests by which the conduct of a governor is to be tried. A general who wins a decisive battle would hardly be called to account for the loss of five or six men more than was indispensable, or for the hanging of a peasant by mistake for a spy. But we trust that British commanders, however brilliant their success, will always be held responsible for reckless waste of life; and we have only

to mention the names of Clive and Hastings to recall to Mr. Ruskin that men, whose exertions secured to England the most lordly dominion under the sun, have been put upon trial for acting in a manner inconsistent with humanity. There is no man except the sovereign, and he only in theory, not in practice, holding any office in the empire of Great Britain, who is exempt from responsibility for his actions. The rules by which a governor is to be tried differ in essential respects from those which apply to a judge, but the former is just as responsible as the latter. The case may occur when his duty requires a governor to deprive a man of the shelter of law, and strike him down at once, a case, however, which, in any part of her Majesty's dominions, must be not only extreme, but in the last stage of extremity; for law in England professes to regulate the action of every branch of the executive, and prescribes to governors the form and manner in which they are to strike. Government throughout Queen Victoria's dominions, means government in accordance with statute. The urgent and absolute necessity of saving the life of the State, can alone justify a governor in departing from the methods of law. But the position which Mr. Ruskin offers to maintain, is that a governor, if he acts with good intentions and to the best of his ability, and if he succeeds in averting danger from the dependency over which he presides, cannot be justly visited with punishment on account of the manner in which he effected his object. Such a position is not tenable for a moment. In the darkest periods of the French Revolution, the ruffians who took part in the September massacres, or murdered wholesale in the provinces, under commission from the Convention, were never brought to justice; but not Robespierre, not Marat himself, ventured to affirm that the State had not a right to put them on their trial, or to dismiss them from their posts. Successful they had beyond question been, and the spasmodic energy into which their atrocities stung and terrified

the French people, was an indispensable, if not the chief, element of strength in that great national effort by which France flung back her invaders; but history has not found in their success an apology for their crimes, and we should insult our readers did we deem it necessary to adduce any proof of their guilt.

The fact, however, as might indeed have been surmised from the outset, is that it is not by reference to first principles, but by consideration of the circumstances of the case, that the justice or injustice, the expediency or inexpediency, of the treatment experienced by Mr. Eyre can be decided. It were an immense gain if public instructors would, as a rule, take so much as this for granted. Mr. Carlyle might have had the modesty and the politeness to assume that his countrymen are as favourable as he is to order, and as much alive as himself to the evils of anarchy. Mr. Ruskin was not required to extemporise the hypothesis that those who accuse Mr. Eyre see no distinction between the duties of a governor and those of a judge. What the public had a right to demand from Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Ruskin was a demonstration, based expressly on the facts of the case, that Mr. Eyre had not done more than was justified by the extraordinary circumstances which he was placed.

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Both Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Carlyle assert that the accusers of Mr. Eyre are the flightier and noisier parts of the community. Let us enquire briefly whether this is correct. When the despatches from Jamaica announcing the disturbances and their suppression arrived, there was a remarkable similarity in the expressions of opinion concerning them. The atrocity of the murders committed by the blacks excited the liveliest indignation, and the necessity for prompt and decisive measures was universally felt. But it was gently suggested that the authorities were proceeding in a manner unusual with British officials; that the severity exercised towards the negroes was terrible; that it was reasonable to

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suppose that further intelligence would show the force of the insur-. gents to have been in nearer proportion to that of the whites than, for the present, appeared. There were a few who insisted that, apart from any consideration relative to facts still to be disclosed, there was evidence of a reckless indifference to the effusion of blood, a savage gloating over vengeance, which in no possible circumstances could befit English gentlemen. The all but unanimous verdict, however, was that ampler intelligence must be waited for, and it would be the deepest injustice to the British public to affirm that, during those weeks when it was supposed that the case of Mr. Eyre and his colleagues had not been fully stated, a scrupulous and delicate reticence was not observed upon the subject. Mail after mail arrived, and each accession of information appeared to tell against the authorities of Jamaica. But the public mind was not yet made up. The Home authorities still refused to act. Majesty's Government, with the full approbation of Parliament, appointed a Commission of Enquiry. The Commissioners commanded and deserved implicit confidence. They proceeded to Jamaica, examined numerous witnesses, reported upon the whole subject, and laid their report before Parliament and the public. If these steps were not deliberate, what additional precaution could have been taken? If the public had not now a right to make up its mind, when would it have been justified in so doing? All parties now formed an opinion on the subject. There was no substantial difference of view in any quarter as to what course should be adopted. The Liberal government dismissed Mr. Eyre from the office of Governor of Jamaica; the Conservative opposition tacitly approved, and a Conservative Cabinet has taken up, without modification, the Jamaica policy of their Liberal predecessors. That is to say, the unanimity of the British Parliament in reference to Mr. Eyre's dismissal was complete. The press, of course, now spoke freely; and the opinion even of

those journals which had most vehemently demanded delay on behalf of Mr. Eyre, was that Government had acted justly. It is possible that all these may have erred. Two British Governments, Parliament, press, public, may be perfectly wrong. But it is absurd to speak of these as the noisier and flightier portions of the English people. It was open to any man to pronounce the dismissal of Mr. Eyre "imbecility," but Mr. Ruskin will surely grant us that so extraordinary__an indictment, brought against the Parliament, the press, and the public of Great Britain, ought to have been supported by arguments more express and cogent than the more than questionable theory that a governor is a despot. Mr. Carlyle, for his part, rejoices in an extraordinary view of his countrymen. He believes that the legislature of England, the English press, the English public, are carried away by feverish sympathy with anarchy, and that only upon him,-seated on the pinnacle of the world's enlightenment, in his easy chair-has the astonishing truth dawned, that order is good, and that sedition and anarchy are bad. When sages condescend to tell us what o'clock it is, they should really remember that they are not the only people in the world who have watches in their possession.

It is denied by no one that Mr. Eyre displayed promptitude and decision in the adoption of measures for suppressing the disturbance. What he is charged with is this;-that he failed to compute with even approximate correctness the nature and extent of the peril with which he had to deal; that he sanctioned the effusion of blood for weeks after danger was at an end; and that he permitted a man to be executed as a traitor who had been convicted on palpably insufficient evidence. The facts are now happily beyond dispute, and they are precise and explicit. On the 10th of October Mr. Eyre received intelligence that an outbreak was intended, and orders were at once given, and acted upon, for the despatch of troops. On the night of

the 11th, the murders were committed, and for two or three days subsequently estates were ravaged, one or two men, in addition to those slain on the 11th, being killed or wounded. On the 12th, the troops appeared on the scene of the atrocities, and no further attack was made by the insurgents in Morant Bay. On the 13th martial law was proclaimed. By the 15th the military had headed the rioters in all directions. Bogle and some others had intended to create a disturbance, and, in so far, the movement was an insurrection. But so powerless, so devoid of anything like military leadership, were the blacks, that they could not force the door of the powder and arms' magazine in Morant Bay. On the day subsequent to the rising, Paul Bogle, instead of organizing the revolt or heading the rebels, was thanking God in his chapel for the success of the riot. The insurgents never once looked the troops in the face. On the 15th of October all danger was at an end; eight days afterwards the very embers of the revolt had been trodden out, and all the so-called leaders were either dead or in custody. Governor Eyre, informed of all that took place, ought to have perceived at this time that the insurrection, though malignant, was quelled, and ought to have sheathed the sword, leaving civil law to do the rest. But the shootings, hangings, scourgings, house-burnings, went on until a score of blacks had fallen for every man they had killed. Women were flogged in great numbers; a witness positively swore that one woman flogged was heavy with child. Some men received one hundred lashes, and were then hanged. That is to say, they were put to death with terrific circumstances of torture. Nothing like this happened during the whole reign of terror in France. Not one woman ought to have been flogged. If nothing else could have been proved against Mr. Eyre than that, under his authority or without his stern reprimand one woman was flogged, the circumstance would be enough to justify his removal from his post. In the case of

Gordon he erred on all points. He deprived him of a civil trial at a time when the revolt had been thoroughly put down. He sanctioned his execution on evidence which no one now disputes to have been, even in a court-martial, inadequate. Let it not be said that he dreaded an insurrection throughout the island. If he did, it was from misapprehending the state of the case, and goes to prove his incompetence. The only danger to which Jamaica was exposed after the 20th of October, was that the blacks should have been driven by blind and reckless severity to despair, to madness, to universal rising. This peril may have been serious.

I have said nothing of the small yet motley crew, for the most part of obscure or eccentric, and in some instances, as would appear from their published correspondence, of positively insane persons, who agree with Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Ruskin in pleading the cause of Eyre. The mistakes of little men are slight importance, and when wild clerical novelists, pugnacious colonels, and two or three stray baronets vociferate that they are the only wise men in the United Kingdom, the fact is interesting mainly in a psychological point of view. But

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Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Carlyle are men whose reputation must last as long as the English language; men, who, in their respective spheres, have conferred inestimable benefit upon their countrymen; men whose splendid genius and high character have thrown lustre upon the profession of literature, and who have sensibly and permanently influenced the intellectual civilization of the world. That these men should have erred so grievously on this occasion, while very lamentable, is also very instructive. The cause of their aberration is not far to seek.

They have not looked with sufficient carefulness at the facts of the case. The very old but very wise apologue of the philosopher who, lifting his eyes to the sky, striking the stars with his sublime head, stumbled and fell, is illustrative of their mishap. What does this teach? It teaches-first, that the greatest men cannot safely dispense with those sympathies which throb in the hearts of multitudes, with those simple, heart-felt emotions whereby babes and sucklings praise God.

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The instincts of men"-the idea is Mr. Carlyle's-"are truer than their thoughts." Yes; and truer than the thoughts of sages. It teaches-in the second place, that, out of the depths of his moral consciousness, without minute painstaking regard to facts, the most brilliant and far-darting genius cannot evolve a correct interpretation of current history. The most gloriously gifted man must condescend to learn before he is able to teach, even though the one to be taught is intellectually a child. As for Mr. Ruskin, let him be quite sure of this-that the men who are most anxious that no stain should be left on the fame of England from approval of the Jamaica massacres are those who most earnestly wish and strive that England may not bow down to the golden calf, who do not lend their sanction to the opium traffic in the Eastern seas, who do not approve of England's abandonment of Denmark, who are foremost in all efforts at sanitary improvement, and who are best of all able to understand Mr. Ruskin's faith in kindness, and to appreciate, honour, love himself. Why should he, in haste and violence, scourge from him those whom God and nature have appointed for his friends and fellowworkers?

JOTTINGS AT THE MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION IN NOTTINGHAM, 1866.

NOTTINGHAM, seated on its noble hills beside the winding Trent, is one of the fairest towns in the centre of England. By dint of devotion

through many years to the manufacture of lace and stockings, it has achieved a wealth and distinction which render it the pride of the

Midland counties, and well entitle it to the honour of entertaining the British Association. On its highest point towers the ruin of its ancient castle, famous in English history during several of its epochs, and commanding a magnificent view of the red-brick habitations and rich champaign country around. And if the fine old town had brought something of a slur on its good name through the frisky behaviour of some of its "lambs" at the late elections, right nobly has it redeemed its honour in the sight of the nation by its recent splendid entertainment of the magnates of science, and by the evident delight of its population in rendering homage to all that raises mankind in the scale of civilization and progress. The many commodious and handsome public buildings which it possesses enabled Nottingham to afford full space for all the developments of the Association; and the whole business of hospitality was carried through with that which may fairly be called the perfection of organization. The Corn Exchange, a large hall lighted from the roof, was turned into a general reception room. Thither the members wended their way early every morning, to provide themselves with programmes of the day's proceedings, and to greet each other as in a forum devoted to the interests of science. The Guildhall, the new Theatre, the School of Science and Art in the environs of the Arboretum, the Mechanics' Hall, the People's Hall, and several public school-rooms, were placed at the disposal of the committee; while the Exhibition building, belonging to the working men, was fitted up for the soirée in a style which might have drawn the envy of the wealthiest towns of the empire. A public subscription was set on foot to defray the expenses of the meeting. The wealthy citizens kept open house, and entertained hundreds of guests during the whole week, while the county families vied with each other in contributing their richest botanical treasures to the flower show, which might be said almost to eclipse the annual displays of the

Regent's Park and the Sydenham Palace.

The proceedings were opened by the President's address in the theatre. The new theatre of Nottingham is a building of very large dimensions. and it may be readily imagined that a spirit-stirring sight was presented when Mr. Grove rose to deliver his new celebrated discourse. The stage to the back, which was ornamented by one of the scene paintings, was filled with the leading scientific men of England. Beside the president sat on either hand the personages whose names are household words throughout the civilized world: Sir Roderick Murchison, Professor Wheatstone, Professor Huxley, Professor Tynedale, Mr. Glaisher, Professor Ramsay, and a hundred lesser lights of the intellectual firmament. Before him extended a long array of benches, on the floor of the pit. thronged with the members and, amateur visitors of the Association, and their lady friends; and the three tiers of richly-ornamented boxes all around were crowded to the ceiling with the county families and the native worth of Nottingham, all “in evening dress." It was a very grand spectacle, and not the less was it a striking evidence of the extent of popular culture, that so vast and mixed an audience listened without any visible signs of weariness for more than two hours to an address which severely taxed the powers both of attention and understanding. while the orator unfolded before them the doctrine of Continuity. Whether the generality of the audience quite perceived all the bearings of the discourse is more than we will undertake to affirm; but they were not in the humour to be dis pleased, nor disposed to be critical on the side of theological orthodoxy.

Do our readers comprehend what is intended by this term CONTINUITY, and what was the drift of Mr. Groves' inaugural discourse thereon? If not, we shall try to explain it, for it is a matter affecting in no slight degree the religious belief of England. It is proper, then. to premise that the president for 1866 represents a school of scientific

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