to ascertain the amount of injury
inflicted upon the negro (whose head was dreadfully cut,) but
feeling that it was a case which required a greater penalty than
three pounds sterling, the amount of punishment to which he was
limited by the local acts, detained Maclean, and afterwards
committed him to jail, and wrote the next day to the chief justice
upon the subject. He was discharged as soon as a doctor's
certificate was procured of the state of the wounded man, and bail
was given for his appearance at the assizes. Maclean's trial came on
at the assizes, and he was found guilty by a Jamaica Jury; he was
severely reprimanded for his inhuman conduct and fined thirty
pounds. The poor apprentice however got no remuneration for the
severe injury inflicted upon him, and the special justice was
prosecuted for false imprisonment, dragged from court to court,
represented as an oppressor and a tyrant, subjected to four hundred
pounds expenses in defending himself, and actually had judgment
given against him for one hundred and fifty pounds damages.

Thus have the planters succeeded in pulling down every magistrate
who ventures to do more than fine them three pounds sterling for any
act of cruelty of which they may be guilty. On the other hand, there
were two magistrates who were lately dismissed, through, I believe,
the representation of Lord Sligo, for flagrant violations of the law
in inflicting punishment; and in order to evince their sympathy for
those men, the planters gave them a farewell dinner, and had
actually set on foot a subscription, as a tribute of gratitude for
their "Impartial" conduct in administering the laws, as special
justices. Thus were two men, notoriously guilty of violations of law
and humanity, publicly encouraged and protected, while Stephen
Bourne, who according to the testimony of the present and late
attorney-general had acted not only justly but _legally_, was
suffering every species of persecution and indignity for so doing."

Probably nothing could demonstrate the meanness of the artifices to
which the planters resort to get rid of troublesome magistrates better
than the following fact. When the present governor, in making his tour
of the island, came into St. Thomas in the East, some of the planters of
Manchioneal district hired a negro constable on one of the estates to go
t