of Mr. Eyre. To this the opposite party answered that in fact the insurrection, supposing it to have been an insurrection, was all over before the floggings, the hangings, and the burnings set in. Not. merely were the troops masters of the field, but there was no armed enemy anywhere to be seen in the field or out of it. They contended that men are not warranted in inflicting wholesale and hideous punishments merely in order to strike such terror as may prevent the possibility of any future disturbance. As an illustration of the curious ethical principles which the hour called forth, it may be mentioned that one of the best-instructed and ablest of the London journals distinctly contended that excess of punishment would be fully justified as a means of preventing further outbreaks. Consider,' such was the argument, 'what the horrors of a successful outbreak in Jamaica might be, or even of an outbreak successful for a few days; consider what blood its repression would cost even to the negroes themselves; and then say whether anyone ought to shrink from inflicting a few superfluous floggings and hangings if these would help to strike terror, and make new rebellion impossible? Even the flogging of women-disagreeable work, no doubt, for English soldiers to have to do—if it struck terror into their husbands and brothers, and thus discouraged rebellion, would it too not be justified?' One cannot better deal with this argument than by pushing it just a little further. Suppose the burning alive of a few women and children seemed likely to have a deterrent effect on dis

1866.

THE REPORT OF THE COMMISSION.

47

loyal husbands and fathers generally, would it not be well to light the pile? What would the torture and death of a score or so of women and children be when compared with the bloodshed which such a timely example might avert? Yet any sane man would answer that rather than that he would brave any risk; and so we get to the end of the argument at once. We have only arrived at an acknowledgment of the fact that the repression of insurrection, like everything on earth, has its restraining moral code, which custom and civilisation, if there were nothing else, must be allowed to establish. The right of Englishmen to rule in Jamaica is a right which has to be exercised with, and not without, regard for human feelings and Christian laws. Not a few persons endeavoured to satisfy their own and the public conscience by praising the virtues of Governor Eyre's career, and casting aspersions on the character of the unfortunate Gordon. Professor Huxley disposed once for all of that sort of argument by the quiet remark that he knew of no law authorising virtuous persons as such to put to death less virtuous persons as such.

The Report of the Commissioners was made in April, 1866. It declared in substance that the disturbances had their immediate origin in a planned resistance to authority, arising partly out of a desire to obtain the land free of rent, and partly out of the want of confidence felt by the labouring class in the tribunals by which most of the disputes affecting their interests were decided; that the disturbance

spread rapidly, and that Mr. Eyre deserved praise for the skill and vigour with which he had stopped it in the beginning; but that martial law was kept in force too long; that the punishments inflicted were excessive; that the punishment of death was unnecessarily frequent; that the floggings were barbarous, and the burnings wanton and cruel; that although it was probable that Gordon, by his writings and speeches, had done much to bring about excitement and discontent, and thus rendered insurrection possible, yet there was no sufficient proof of his complicity in the outbreak, or in any organised conspiracy against the Government; and, indeed, that there was no widespread conspiracy of any kind. Of course this finished Mr. Eyre's career as a Colonial Governor. A new Governor, Sir J. P. Grant, was sent out to Jamaica, and a new Constitution was given to the island. The Jamaica Committee, however, did not let the matter drop there. They first called upon the AttorneyGeneral to take proceedings against Mr. Eyre and some of his subordinates. The Government had, meanwhile, passed into Conservative hands, in consequence of events which have yet to be told; and the Attorney-General declined to prosecute. Probably a Liberal Attorney-General would have done just the same thing. Then the Jamaica Committee decided on prosecuting Mr. Eyre and his subordinates themselves. They took various proceedings, but in every case with the same result. We need not go into the history of these proceedings, and the many controversies, legal and otherwise, which they occa

1867. MR. CARLYLE'S 'UNWRITTEN' MARTIAL-LAW. 49 sioned. The bills of indictment never got beyond the grand jury stage. The grand jury always threw them out. On one memorable occasion the attempt gave the Lord Chief Justice of England an opportu nity of delivering the charge to the grand jury from which we have already cited some passages: a charge entitled to the rank of an historical declaration of the law of England, and the limits of the military power even in cases of insurrection. Mr. Carlyle found great fault with the Chief Justice for having merely laid down the law of England. 'Lordship,' he wrote, 'if you were to speak for six hundred years, instead of six hours, you would only prove the more to us that, unwritten if you will, but real and fundamental, anterior to all written laws and first making written laws possible, there must have been, and is, and will be, coeval with human society from its first beginnings to its ultimate end, an actual martial-law of more validity than any other law whatever.' The business of the Lord Chief Justice, however, was not to go in philosophical quest of those higher laws of which Mr. Carlyle assumed to be the interpreter. His was the humbler but more practical part to expound the laws of England, and he did his duty.

The prosecutions can hardly be said to have been without use which gave opportunity for this most important exposition from such high authority. But they had no effect as against Mr. Eyre. Even the Chief Justice, who exposed with such just severity the monstrous misuse of power which had been seen

in Jamaica, still left it to the grand jury to say whether after all-considering the state of things that prevailed in the island, the sudden danger, the consternation, and the confusion-the proceedings of the authorities, however mistaken, were not done honestly and faithfully in what was believed to be the proper administration of justice. After many discussions in Parliament, the Government in 1872-once again a Liberal Government-decided on paying Mr. Eyre the expenses to which he had been put in defending himself against the various prosecutions; and the House of Commons, after a long debate, agreed to the vote by a large majority. The Jamaica Committee were denounced by many voices, and in very unmeasured language, for what they had done. Yet no public body ever were urged on to an unpopular course by purer motives than those which influenced Mr. Mill and his associates. They were filled with the same spirit of generous humanity which animated Burke when he pressed the impeachment against Warren Hastings. They were sustained by a desire to secure the rights of British subjects for a despised and maltreated negro population. They were inspired with a longing to cleanse the name of England from the stain of a share in the abominations of that unexampled repression. Yet we do not think on the whole that there was any failure of justice. A career full of bright promise was cut short for Mr. Eyre, and for some of his subordinates as well; and no one accused Mr. Eyre personally of anything worse than a fury of mistaken zeal. The deeds which were done