d
cutlasses; a party of white volunteers went in consequence to watch
them, and to keep order if they showed signs of meaning insurrection.
Stones were thrown; the Riot Act was read, more stones followed, and
then the volunteers fired, and several persons were killed. Of course
there was fury. The black mob then actually did rise. They marched about
that particular district destroying plantations and burning houses. That
they did so little, and that the flame did not spread, was a proof that
there was no premeditation of rebellion, no prepared plan of action, no
previous communication between the different parts of the island with a
view to any common movement. There was no proof, and there was no
reason to suppose, that Gordon had intended an armed outbreak. He would
have been a fool if he had, when constitutional agitation and the weight
of numbers at his back would have secured him all that he wanted. When
inflammable materials are brought together, and sparks are flying, you
cannot equitably distribute the blame or the punishment. Eyre was
responsible for the safety of the island. He was not a Jamaican. The
rule in the colonial service is that a governor remains in any colony
only long enough to begin to understand it. He is then removed to
another of which he knows nothing. He is therefore absolutely dependent
in any difficulty upon local advice. When the riots began every white
man in Jamaica was of one opinion, that unless the fire was stamped out
promptly they would all be murdered. Being without experience himself,
it was very difficult for Mr. Eyre to disregard so complete a unanimity.
I suppose that a perfectly calm and determined man would have seen in
the unanimity itself the evidence of alarm and imagination. He ought
perhaps to have relied entirely on the police and the regular troops,
and to have called in the volunteers. But here again was a difficulty;
for the police were black, and the West India regiments were black, and
the Sepoy rebellion was fresh in everybody's memory. He had no time to
deliberate. He had to act, and to act promptly; and if, relying on his
own judgment, he had disregarded what everyone round him insisted upon,
and if mischief had afterwards come of it, the censure which would have
fallen upon him would have been as severe as it would have been
deserved. He assumed that the English colonists were right and that a
general rebellion had begun. They all armed. They formed into companie