the case, that these things are transacted on a little
island of the sea, and not on a continent,--or that the skin of the
sufferer is black instead of white?

* * * * *

The use men seek to make of events reveals often the motives which they
carried into the transaction of these events. Never was this more true
of any body of people than of the planters of Jamaica. The Kingston
Journal, an opposition, but not radical paper, boldly asserts, that the
press has been gagged because it urged upon government the necessity of
reform; that it has not dared to comment upon current facts, lest it
should come under grave suspicion; that "now, when the greatest order
prevails, and there is not the remotest probability of another outbreak,
we _dare_ not comment upon events, which, for the good of all classes,
ought to be calmly and fully discussed." A significant commentary upon
these statements is the fact that Mr. Levien, the editor of a Jamaica
paper, was arrested, because in an editorial he boldly condemned the
trial and execution of Mr. Gordon. And it is probable that he escaped
paying dearly for his courage, only because the Chief Justice of Jamaica
declared the whole law under which he was arrested unconstitutional, and
dismissed the case. A still more significant commentary upon these
statements is that other fact, that, in the midst of what they averred
were the throes of a great rebellion, the members of the Assembly
proceeded to destroy the very foundations of civil and religious
liberty and of the freedom of the press. They proposed to give the
Governor almost despotic authority, by surrendering the franchise of the
Assembly, and vesting its power in a council of twenty-four, half of
whom should be appointed by the Governor himself, and half elected by
the people from the list only of those who had estates worth more than
fifteen hundred dollars a year, or a salary of more than twenty-five
hundred dollars. All social worship, all conference and prayer meetings,
and even family prayers, if more than two strangers were present, were
to be interdicted, unless, indeed, they were conducted by a minister of
a favored sect. The denominations who had chiefly ministered to the
blacks were to be placed under such disabilities as should greatly
limit, or else destroy, their usefulness. And to round out and complete
the circle of despotism, this proposition, was introduced,--"that if
anything is con