THE CASE OF GEORGE W. GORDON.

George W. Gordon, whose trial and execution excite so much interest in this country and in England, was a colored man, his father a Scotchman, overseer of an estate in the times of slavery, his mother a colored woman. Ile had a good education, considerable ability, but was a demagogue and reformer by nature. He was a Justice of the Peace and member of the vestry of St. Thomas. Two or three years ago he urged upon that body the amelioration of the condition of the poor and prisoners of the parish, but without success; his appeal to the Governor was rejected, and he himself removed from office. He then carried his complaint to the Colonial Secretary of England, where it was sustained, and the needed change ordered, but he was not reinstated in his offices.* He owned several estates, one in the Plantain Garden River District, but was insolvent for a very large amount, "his admitted liabilities being over £35,000." He was a member of the Assembly, and belonged to the Native Baptist Church; preached frequently in their meeting-houses, harangued the negroes on political subjects, and by this course rendered himself unpopular with the whites. His counting room was in Kingston, the only place in the county which was not under martial law. He was believed to have instigated the rebellion, but after he heard of this charge, though urged by his friends to escape, surrendered himself to Governor Eyre. On Friday, nine days after the massacre, and when the rebellion was entirely suppressed, he was sent to Morant Bay,-tried on Saturday and hung on

*The feelings that existed between Gordon and Governor Eyre may be understood by the following note from the Daily News of Sept. 8th:

"St. Andrews, Oct. 8th, 1864.

"On the last occasion, Mr. G. W. Gordon replied, declining the invitation of His Excellency, then Lieut. Governor. Mr. Gordon did not expect to be further troubled. The Governor must remember that he untruthfully charged Mr. G W. Gordon with being guilty of willful and deliberate misrepresentation, which charge has never been purged. Does His Excellency think Mr. Gordon is so mean spirited as ever to eat with a man who has thus acted towards him, without hav ng firs obtained an explanation. Mr. Gordon considers his invitation for dinner to be a breach of the conventional rules of good society, and he therefore declines it."

Monday. The Court Martial consisted of two second lieutenants in the navy, and an ensign of the army. His counsel was denied access to him, and a letter of advice, written by his counsel, was detained by the General in command. The evidence introduced was entirely insufficient to have convicted him before any civil or military tribunal-it was hardly sufficient to justify his apprehension for trial; but his death was deemed necessary to strike terror into the negro, and give confidence to the white man. It was shown on his trial that he had a lawsuit with the Custos, with whom he was not on friendly terms. That he invariably attended the vestry-meetings-the one at which the riot occurred being the only one from which he had been absent. Gordon excused his absence on the ground of sickness, and referred to his physician; but Dr. Major was "not at the time either in Court, nor on the Bay," and was not summoned. Conflicting evidence was offered as to his speeches made at public meetings called to petition the Queen for a redress of the wrongs of the negro, held several months before. The Commission have found "that the evidence, oral and documentary, was wholly insufficient to establish the charges upon which the prisoner took his trial," and that "there was not any sufficient proof either of his complicity in the outbreak at Morant Bay, or of his having been a party to a general conspiracy against the government." The Commission also find the evidence “decisive as to the existence of such a conspiracy." Governor Eyre, General O'Connor, and General Nelson knew and approved of the trial and execution. Notwithstanding this, however, the general belief in Jamaica, of both friends and enemies of Gordon, is that he was cognizant of an intended outbreak.

As soon as news of the insurrection was received in England, deputations from The Friends, and the Jamaica Committee, and a Royal Commmission appointed by the Queen were sent to Jamaica "to make full and impartial inquiry into the origin, nature, and circumstances of the disturbances, and with respect to the measures adopted in the course of their suppression."

They have returned and made their reports. The Ministry have mildly censured Governor Eyre and removed him from office. The Jamaica Committee have instituted legal proceed

ings against him for murder; large sums have been contributed both for the prosecution of the trial and the defense of Governor Eyre. On the one side are John Stuart Mill, Mr. Bright -and those who supported us in our struggle with slavery; on the other-Carlyle, Tennyson, Kingsley, Ruskin, and our opponents in the war. The Secretaries of the past and present English Ministry take no active part, though sympathizing strongly with the accused.

Governor Eyre stands charged with murder, but it must be confessed that he acted not on his own responsibility, but in his entire course followed the advice of the Executive Council of the Island, and the proceedings were known and approved, with very few exceptions, by both the white and colored population, and ratified by the Assembly. His acts were but the expression of the public feeling of the ruling class in Jamaicathe summing up of long years of injustice and cruelty, against which the blacks at last arose in rebellion and insurrection.

SLAVERY IN JAMAICA

The Jamaica slaves were overworked and cruelly treated. Statistics show that for many years prior to the abolition of the slave trade, in 1807, nine thousand slaves were annually imported to repair the waste of human life: while, since emancipation, the freedmen have rapidly increased. The laws prohibited the spiritual and mental education of the slaves. The Sabbath was the market day and a holiday. Marriage was forbidden. Each slave had his little patch of ground, for the cultivation of which he was allowed every other Saturday, and from which he was obliged to derive his entire support. He received two suits of clothes a year, and

medical attendance in sickness.

uring the time of slavery the English government, by a heavy differential duty imposed upon foreign sugars and coffee, protected the products of Jamaica, and gave them the monopoly of the English market; but, a few years after emancipation, finding that these could be raised at less cost by slave than by free labor, she changed her policy to one of free trade. The discriminating duty in favor of sugar, the product of free labor, was gradually reduced until all sugars paid the

same duty. The price was consequently reduced one-half to the English consumer, and the profits of the planter were greatly diminished. But even before this change Jamaica had begun to decline. The abolition of the slave trade had cut off her supply of laborers; her rich lands were exhausted; her exports steadily decreased; her laboring population was wasting away; many plantations were abandoned; and the whole Island was heavily mortgaged to English creditors.

Then came the act of emancipation with its apprenticeship system, intended as a preparation for freedom and the giving of full liberty to the apprentice.

In the act of emancipation the rights of the planter to property in his slave was recognized, and £6,000,000 were paid for three hundred and eleven thousand slaves, or nineteen pounds for each slave,-not half their market value. The greater part of this sum was retained in England in payment of debts, and the Jamaica planter was left without laborers, with impoverished lands, with diminished profits, and estates encumbered to their full value. The slaves were freed in opposition to the wishes of their masters, who strove by every means in their power to retain them in a state of bondage. By the act of emancipation the hours of labor were limited to eight a day; but the planters required of the freedmen the same amount of work as that exacted of the slave in fifteen hours, and offered him only half the price paid for a hired slave. Such a course produced great dissatisfaction, and the negroes refused to work. In order to force them to work on the planters' own terms, a series of laws was passed, many of them most severe and cruel. Among them was the Ejectment act. by which planters could eject the negroes at a weeks' notice from the homes in which they had been born, root up their provision grounds, and cut down their fruit trees, and a police law under which they might be arrested for trespass if they remained an hour after the expiration of the weeks' notice; a heavy stamp duty upon the transfer of small parcels of land; an import duty on corn food, largely used by the slaves, which was raised from three pence to three shillings a barrel; an increased duty upon shingles for their huts, while on staves and hoops for sugar hogsheads it was reduced; a discriminating tax imposed on sugar and coffee unfavorable to

the small negro grower and favorable to the large producer; a law requiring a license from the vestry to sell these articles at retail, while no license was required for selling at wholesale; and others of a similar character, some of which were so barbarous that they were disallowed by parliament.

Many of the freedmen returned for a while to work, but the ill-treatment received caused them again to leave the estates and squat upon abandoned plantations. The planters refused to sell or lease the land except at exorbitant prices, and it is only as estates have been thrown into market by creditors and sold in small parcels, that the negroes have been able to purchase the little plats which they now cultivate all over the Island.

RELIGION.

The established Church is maintained at a great expense, $160,000 a year being appropriated for its support. This is divided among Bishops, Arch-Deacons, Rectors, and Curates, the lowest salary amounting to $1,700 a year-and this while the daily wages of their congregations do not average over twenty cents! There are churches of other denominations throughout the Island; the Baptists predominating. For many years after emancipation, great efforts were made by the English Missionary Societies for the evangelization of the negroes. For a while the work seemed to prosper-churches were built and money contributed; as the societies became self-supporting, foreign help was withdrawn-but of late years the attendance has greatly fallen off and contributions have diminished. In many parts the Baptist Churches are under the care of native preachers, who are often men of bad immoral character, or, at best, but blind leaders of the blind. Revivals, as they are called, were of frequent occurrence, the negroes resorting in large numbers to some station and holding a series of gatherings somewhat of the nature of Camp Meetings. Good results apparently followed, and many were added to the church, but as the control of the Missionary was withdrawn, and his influence lessened, the charge of these meetings passed into lay hands. The negroes remained, at times for weeks together, listening to the preaching, and praying, singing, dancing,