public mind. No one will argue that a Titus Oates could find credit only in England; or that the delusion of feigned plots might not, in certain circumstances, be found as strong in Jamaica as it ever was amongst ourselves. Alarm once excited, all calm consideration of the reasonableness of the alarm is at end. Fear is the natural passion of the tyrant, and cruelty the never-failing effect of its unrestrained operation. Rumours of the most extravagant kind gain instant belief. Suspicions light as air are converted into irrefragable proofs. The danger is assumed to be unquestionable; and he who affects to doubt it, runs the risk of being deemed a traitor to his caste and country. In such a state of things, the man who comes forward with details, however improbable, which are confirmatory of the prevailing apprehension, and which open a prospect of satiating the hatred and lust of vengeance generally felt towards the supposed conspirators, is hailed as a deliverer. No reward is thought too great for his deserts. Let him but reveal a plot, and name the plotters, and he is sure of universal credit and universal favour. To accuse, in such a case, is to condemn; and to the impatient alarmists, who feel as if the knife was at their own throats, even West-Indian Justice will seem tardy, and appear to limp in her progress to the gibbet-the only consummation which is thought of, for one moment, especially in the case of Black men who have dared to " imagine the death of a White." If these observations are kept in mind, they will sufficiently explain all the phenomena of the trials and executions which have disgraced this part of his Majesty's dominions during the period to which the Jamaica Report refers. To the details of those trials we will come hereafter.

2. Whether the conspiracies, of which the Report speaks, were real or not, it is obvious that they would be equally, and as a matter of course, referred by the planters to one cause, namely, the agitation of the question of slavery in the British Parliament. To bring the past efforts of the abolitionists into disrepute, and to prevent their being renewed, by representing them as productive of blood and devastation, had been the uniform policy of the holders of slaves from the year 1787 to the present hour. It had been long their grand weapon of

defence against the inroads of justice and humanity, and had so often proved successful, in thoroughly alarming the timid and the ignorant, and in relaxing the efforts of benevolence itself, that any one might have predicted, with absolute certainty, that it would have been resorted to on the renewed agitation of this great question. In one of the first publications of the Anti-slavery Society (the Appendix to the Debate of the 15th of May 1823, p. 227) allusion was distinctly made to the alarms, which would not fail to be sedulously created by means of rumours of apprehended or of actual insurrection-rumours quite familiar to all who lived during the slave-trade controversy. There was then a regular importation of them from time to time; so it was foretold it would be again. The prediction has been verified; and all the new plots which have been got up, have issued, like the old, in the destruction, not of any White life, but of Black lives in great abundance.

3. But, supposing the danger from such discussions to be as great as the planters represent them to be (a supposition which their own conduct altogether contradicts), what is their obvious policy, and the obvious policy of this country? Is it not to put a speedy end to a state of things so fearfully pregnant with alarm; which cannot even be approached without the risk of explosion; which cannot be spoken of, even in a whisper, without involving rebellion and massacre? The planters think differently. They make the very existence of such dangers the special ground for determining to perpetuate the abuses and evils which cause them. They will not ameliorate the condition of their slaves: they will not even take those steps which "prudence and humanity might suggest" to that end, lest they should give a triumph to the Negro mind. (A. p. 16.) But why, it may be asked, did they not of themselves take these steps, when, according to their own shewing, they might have been taken with safety? The fact is, the colonists never have taken, and they never will take, one step in the career of reform, but as they are driven to it by the dread of the interference of the supreme authority of the state; and even then what they do will be wholly inoperative. 4. The Assembly proposes that this country should reim

burse to them the cost of suppressing the disturbances that have taken place. It is to be hoped that they will bring this proposition regularly before Parliament. There will then be an opportunity of discussing the whole case on its merits; of ascertaining the grounds on which so many of our fellowcreatures have been put to death or transported; and of exposing to public view those outrages on all law and justice, denominated trials, which, in the name of the King, have been perpetrated in Jamaica.

5. It seems to be assumed by the Assembly of Jamaica as a maxim in jurisprudence, that the witnesses of plots are to be rewarded for their testimony*. All (with the exception of two) who have given evidence against the alleged conspirators, are to be rewarded-the slaves with freedom; the free with money. The practice of thus remunerating witnesses after they have given their testimony, is sufficiently objectionable; but if it shall appear that the principle has been acted upon of promising this remuneration beforehand, then it cannot be denied that justice has been corrupted at its very source. This point will be exemplified hereafter. With respect to the two individuals who, instead of being rewarded for the evidence they gave, according to the promise made to them, are to be transported for life as dangerous characters, it will probably be found that they are thus punished instead of being rewarded, because, by their subsequent prevarications and inconsistencies, they have completely damnified the evidence they had previously given, and on which so many individuals had been unjustly condemned and executed. Possibly, also, it may be discovered hereafter, that it was highly expedient to have these men removed out of the way, lest, in the case of an investigation, by Commission or otherwise, the whole of the alleged plots, a part of which they had been the instruments of fabricating, should be exposed in all their fraud and falsehood to the public reprobation.

6. The merited compliment paid to the People of Colour will be adverted to when we come to that part of these papers which respects the unjust arrest and deportation of Lecesne and Escoffery.

* This maxim, as we have seen, is law in Barbadoes. (supra, p. 23.)

We e come now to the trials which took place in Jamaica of slaves accused of insurrection. The first occurred in St. Mary's, in the month of December 1823 (see E. pp. 37–45). On the evening of the 16th, about eight o'clock, a Mr. Roberts, residing in Port Maria, was told, by a Negro boy of the name of William who waited upon him, that he had learnt from his father, James Sterling-a slave on Frontier estate, belonging to Archibald Sterling, Esq.-that "they would have a bad Christmas," as the Negroes were going to rise and murder the Whites. In consequence of this information, James Sterling and seven other slaves were apprehended and put upon their trial, which took place at the court-house of the parish on the 19th. "I thought it my duty," observes the Hon. Henry Cox, one of the magistrates, who acted as a judge on the occasion, in a letter to the Governor's secretary, dated the 20th December-" I thought it my duty to insist on the magistrates trying the Negroes that had been taken, immedi ately, and to send their trial and sentence express ; as it will, in my opinion, be highly important for the safety of the parish, and probably of the island, that they should be executed before the holidays, as an example to the other Negroes, and to prevent the danger of an escape, or an attempt to release them." "I have taken up and issued orders for the capture of every Negro against whom there is the least suspicion, and shall try all, or any of them, as soon as I think I have sufficient evidence to convict them. Some Negro-houses have been searched; but as no arms of any kind have been found in them, it appeared that the Negroes had taken the alarm, and it would be harassing the men to no purpose to continue the search*."

But, to come to the trials. The following is the account given of the trial of James Sterling, the Negro already named,

* Such was the state of feeling, not merely in the White community at large, or in the jury impanelled to try the prisoners, but in a Judge, who was bound to see impartial justice done in a case so likely to excite an unduly adverse leaning in the public mind. The charge brought against the prisoners was rebellion and rebellious conspiracy. No counsel was assigned to them—no time was allowed them to prepare their defence. They were arrested on the 17th; on the 19th they were tried for their lives and con

the father of William the informant. There does not appear to have been any regular indictment drawn up on the occasion. He was charged "with being concerned in rebellious conspiracies, and committing other crimes, to the ruin and destruction of the White people and others in this island; and for causing, exciting, and promoting others to aid and assist therein;" and with entering into and being concerned "in rebellion, or rebellious conspiracy to commit murder, felony, burglary, robbery, and to set fire to certain houses and outhouses, and to compass and imagine the death of the White people of the parish of St. Mary's."

To these charges the prisoner pleaded not guilty. The following is the evidence, verbatim, as it appears in the papers transmitted from Jamaica.

"Ned, to James Walker, Esq., being admonished to speak the truth"-(not sworn)—" says he knows the prisoner; his former name was Joe. Last Saturday week" (6th Dec.), "about eight o'clock in the evening, was going to Frontier" (the estate to which the prisoner belonged) "for water; just between the bridge and the spring saw prisoner and five others as he came up they were talking: he heard what they said; they were going to rise at Christmas. Witness said they were talking bad words, and asked if they did not hear that guard was to be kept at Christmas. They then said they would change the day to Wednesday or Thursday this week" (the 17th or 18th), “ being full moon. They said they would set fire to Frontier trash-house, and kill all White people; and then come in the bay, and rise on the

demned to die; and on the 24th they are executed; it being "highly important," in the opinion of their Judge, “that they should be executed before the holidays, as an example to the other Negroes." The news of the plot too, he might have added, would just be in time for the meeting of Parliament. But, amid all the alarm which prevails for the safety of the parish, and even of the island, not a single stand of arms is to be found. This circumstance, however, instead of raising a suspicion in the mind of the worthy magistrate that there had been in fact no rebellious conspiracy whatever, seems to have led him to the conclusion that the Negroes had taken the alarm and hid them; and this, too, without the very slightest shadow of proof.