accused of riot. But they were
forcibly resisted, handcuffed with their own irons, and forced
ignominiously to take their way back. Some of the arrests, however, were
made quietly a little time after.

On the 11th of October dawned an eventful day. The magistrates were
assembled in the court-house at Morant Bay for the purpose of examining
the prisoners. The court-house was guarded by twenty armed volunteers, a
body apparently of local militia. Some four or five hundred excited
blacks surrounded the court-house, armed with bludgeons, grasping
stones. What led to a collision can never be known. Very probably
missiles were thrown at the guard. At any rate the officer in command
ordered them to fire upon the crowd, and fifteen of the rioters fell
dead or wounded. Then all restraint was at an end. The negroes threw
themselves with incredible fury upon the guard, drove them into the
court-house, summoned them to surrender at discretion, then set fire to
the building, and murdered, with many circumstances of atrocity, the
unhappy inmates, as they sought to flee. Sixteen were killed, and
eighteen wounded, while a few escaped unharmed, by the help of the
negroes themselves. This was the beginning and the end of the famous
armed insurrection, so far as it ever was armed insurrection. The
rioters dispersed. The spirit of insubordination spread to the
plantations. There was general confusion, some destruction of property,
some robbery. The whites were filled with alarm. Many left all and fled.
The most exaggerated reports obtained credence. But if we except a Mr.
Hine, who had rendered himself especially unpopular, and who was
murdered on his plantation, not one white man appears to have been
killed in cold blood, and not one white woman or child suffered from
violence of any sort. Facts to the contrary may yet come to light.
Official reports may reveal some secret chapter of bloodshed. But the
chances of such a revelation are small enough. Three months have elapsed
since the first tidings of the outbreak reached the mother country.
There has been a great excitement; investigation has been demanded;
facts have been called for; the defenders of the planters have been
defied to produce facts. Meanwhile the Governor of Jamaica has written
home repeated despatches; the commander of the military forces which
crushed the rebellion has visited England; the planters' journals have
come laden with vulgar abuse of the negro, and with all so