in vice and
debasement. If a colored person had any business with a white gentleman,
and should call at his house, "he must take off his hat, and wait at the
door, and be _as polite as a dog_."

These insults and oppressions the colored people in Jamaica bore, until
they could bear them no longer. By secret correspondence they formed a
union throughout the island, for the purpose of resistance. This,
however, was not effected for a long time, and while in process, the
correspondence was detected, and the most vigorous means were used by
the whites to crush the growing conspiracy--for such it was virtually.
Persuasions and intimations were used privately, and when these failed,
public persecutions were resorted to, under the form of judicial
procedures. Among the milder means was the dismission of clerks, agents,
&c., from the employ of a white men. As soon as a merchant discovered
that his clerk was implicated in the correspondence, he first threatened
to discharge him unless he would promise to desert his brethren: if he
could not extort this promise, he immediately put his threat in
execution. Edward Jordon, Esq., the talented editor of the Watchman,
then first clerk in the store of a Mr. Briden, was prominently concerned
in the correspondence, and was summarily dismissed.

White men drove their colored sons from their houses, and subjected them
to every indignity and suffering, in order to deter them from
prosecuting an enterprise which was seen by the terrified oppressors to
be fraught with danger to themselves. Then followed more violent
measures. Persons suspected of being the projectors of the disaffection,
were dragged before incensed judges, and after mock trials, were
sentenced to imprisonment in the city jail. Messrs. Jordon and Osborne,
(after they had established the Watchman paper,) were both imprisoned;
the former twice, for five months each time. At the close of the second
term of imprisonment, Mr. Jordon was _tried for his life_, on the charge
of having published _seditious matter_ in the Watchman.

The paragraph which was denominated '_seditious matter_' was this--

"Now that the member for Westmoreland (Mr. Beaumont) has come over to
our side, we will, by a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether,
bring down the system by the run, knock off the fetters, and let the
oppressed go free."

On the day of Mr. J.'s trial, the court-room was thronged with colored
men, who had armed themselves, an