THE JAMAICA COMMISSION.

Grey River Argus, Issue 73, 30 June 1866, Page 3

THE JAMAICA COMMISSION.

(From the Times, March 20.) As the Jamaica Commission approaches the termination of its labors the manifold difficulties of the inquiry become more and more apparent. There is, first, the difficulty arising from the ignorance of negro witnesses, as well as their defective sense of veracity ; and this difficulty is aggravated by a latent belief, -which Sir W. Storks has striven to dispel, that compensation will be awarded to them by the Commissioners in proportion to | their losses and sufferings. There is, [next, the difficulty of finding honest and independent persons among the white population who can describe, at first hand, what actually occurred. Of those •whose testimony would otherwise be valuable some perished in the original massacre, others are implicated either as soldiers or as civilians, ijfcthe very transactions to be investigiped ; while the whole number of whites, in Jamaica who would be proof against a bias of prejudice jp. affecting the rights of negroes is probably very small. Over and above these difficulties, which are clearly described by our correspondent, there is that of eliciting from this vast and confused mass of materials any decisive results. Almost all questions are questions of more or less, but this question emphatically turns upon differences of degree. Few, we believe, would venture to deny^bhat such an event as the Morant* Bay massacre, coupled with previous symptoms of disaffection in the same district, and with the subsequent proceedings of the rioters, amply justified the proclamation of martial law, or that under martial law a certain amount of "injustice is inevitable.' The doubt is, whether it' was proclaimed over too large an area, whether it was continued too long, and whether it was not exercised with an indiscriminate and vindictive severity which is utterly indefensible. So, again, it is admitted pn all hands that a large amount of discretion must be intrusted by a Governor to the military authorities when he invokes their aid to put down an insurrection, and that a certain amount, though a smaller amount, i of discretion must be left by d. commanding officer to his subordinates^ Whether,' however, Eyre could divest himself of the responsibility for acts avowed by their authors in reports forwarded to himself, and whether General Nelson can properly be called to account for the: excesses of those under his command, cannot be determined without balancing against each other a great many considerations of time 7 place, and circ.unista.nces, , Still,

we are not without the means of forming an approximate .judgment upon mest of the points submitted to the Com missioners, and upon the most important — the allegations of atrocious and wholesale cruelty on the part of i some, at least, engaged in suppressing the rebellion — we have alreaded recorded an emphatic opinion. Such an ojrinidn should not be lightly formed, and ought to be amply supported. Let us now, therefore, examine; somewhat more Carefully the statements of an European witness, Mr Lake, who spoke to facts which he saw with his own eyes as a passive observer. Evidence of this kind is obviously more trustworthy than any which may have been given by injured parties or their relatives on the one hand, or, on the other, by officers themselves laboring under suspicion. Mr Lake arrived at Morant Bay on the 13th of October, two days after the massacre, as reporter to the " Colonial Standard." Governor Eyre, as we know from his own despatch, landed there on the same evening, with Genera] Nelson, Colonel Fyfe, the AttorneyGeneral (Mr Heslop), and some 50 soldiers. On the following day a Court-maitial was held, of which Col. Hunt was President and the AttorneyGeneral a member, and at which three riien and a woman were found guilty of being in the bay with arms in their hands. They -were all hanged before night, although the Court had recommended a commutation of the sentence on the woman ; not, as appears, from any doubt of her guilt, but solely out of a fear that the insurgents might retaliate upon the ladies in their power. From the 14th to the 31st prisoners were condemned and hanged almost daily, the aggregate of executions up to the 26th being 1 02, according to "the official returns of the Court-mar-tial," and 137 up to the end of the month. This detailed calculation is important, as affording, almost for the first time, a solid though imperfect basis for an estimate of the total number put to death after the outbreak. If we suppose the same daily average to be maintained until the termination of martial law, it follows that about 250 ■were hanged at Morant Bay alone. To these we must of course add those who ■were hanged at Golden Grove and elsewhere, those who were shot "for | running away" or without any form [ of law, and those who were shot by order of local Court Martial. Now, the letter of Captain Ford, to which we have before referred, mentions that one detachment "shot about 160 people on their march from Port Antonio to Manchioneal, hanged seven in Mancnioneal, and shot three on their way here" (Golden Grove), and he ,goes on to say'that eight were to be " hanged or shot" the next morning. If all these assertions were credible, we should be forced to conclude that the /whole amount of bloodshed was very large indeed. Happily, Captain Ford himself assm^ed the Commissioners' that " he knew nothing whatever" about the exploits of the Port Antonio party, " except from hearsay;" and we are not •without hope that Morant Bay may prove to have been the principal scene of executions. To return, however, to Mr Lake's story, we learn that flogging began on Wednesday, October 18, xxnder an order issued on the 15th, to the effect that all persons found abroad without passes between 5 p.m. and 5 a.m. would be dealt with in a summary manner. Mr Eyre, indeed, speaks of one man being flogged at Port Morant on the 13th, and another at Morant Bay on the 14th; but Mr Lake alludes specially to stragglers, because they were flogged without trial. It is shocking to hear that although " witnesses could not say that the ProvostMarshal did not make inquiry in any case," yet " no inquiry took place before a Magistrate or before any Court. Most of these prisoners seem to have received either 50 or 25 lashes, and some no more than 12. One of those flogged "by order of the Court" got 150 lashes, and another 100. "On the 30th, nine were flogged and committed for trial, receiving 25 lashes each," and on the 18th an incident occurred which? if accurately related by Mr Lake, bears out the worst charges brought against Mr Ramsay. Two men were brought in, named Frank Maclean and Joseph Mitchell. " They were reported to be murderers of Mr Herschell. The Pro-vost-Marshall ordered them to be tied to a post in the police-station and to . receive 50 lashes, and immediately afterwards ordered them to be hung." They were actually placed by sailors "on the barrels in the cart," and the ropes were already round their necks, when a naval officer interfered and nved their lives for the time being. It was on this day that George Marshall was flogged and afterwards hung ; but as Marshall's case is that upon which Mr Ramsay is to be tried for murder, we shall not dwell further upon it. For , a similar reason we should pass over , Mr Lakers deposition as to the treat- j ment of Gordon, which has been reserved for a separate investigation, but one part of it deserves notice on other grounds. Remg^ressed to reconcile his replies in Court with his letters to ' the "Colonial , Standaid," he did not ' scruple to repudiate the latter, and to ' plead duress, tarough bodily fear, as his excuse for misrepresentation. I The evidence of Mr Kirklancl, the ' only Magistrate in the Bath^district, is ' also material, though it .^annot be equally imprfftial. Mr Kffikland was deputed by ffeneral Nelson/to deal with minor offenders, especial!^ those found in possessicii of stolen property, sending on the reft 1 to Morcint Bay, He did

not deny haying ordered women to be flogged, but he explained that they generally received but 12 lashes/ with cats made of twine alone. As to the use of wire in cats intended fovj men, he denied that he had introduced it, but admitted that he. had allowed it, alleging that it was suggested by some of Ford's irregular cavalry. , It was this gentleman who deposed to Mr Ramsay having flogged, in person, 15 untried prisoners at Bath on;the same day that George Marshall was flogged and hung at Morant Bay* Mr Hague, the Collector of Customs '.tit Morant Bay, who gave it as his opinion that all the other officials were, only too humane, declared that he had once seen Mr Ramsay dragging Mr Kirkland himself by the throat across the street, and had summoned General Kelson to the rescue of the Magistrate. Perhaps this little incident enables us to realise the excitement and anarchy which must have priTdilcd as well as,any that could be selected. Terror is proverbially the parent^of cruelty, and terror intensified ta the pitch of frenzy appears to have reigned supreme in Jamaica for more than a fortnight after the massacre. It was far, indeed, from/ being a groundless panic, but unless new revelations have yet to be made, it was out of proportion to the real danger, and it certainly produced a state of feeling which is fparful to contemplate, stifling the voice of rei'son, quenching the emotions of pity, and converting martial law into a ready instrument for the wild injustice of revenge.