3rd. The removal of the unjust and injurious operation of an exclusive State Church, which has discouraged and impaired the missionary efforts of the various bodies of Christian Dissenters, who are practically the main civilizers and evangelizers of the coloured race. Such a system is sufficiently oppressive in our own long-settled, wealthy, and aristocratic country, but it is wholly out of place in a comparatively new country, and a country moreover in which the bulk of the population, if it become Christian at all, must become so by the operation of kindness, justice, and religious impartiality.* 4th. The general establishment of free trade, and, as far as possible, of free ports. 5th. The raising of the standard of education for all classes, the labouring class more especially, as is effected in degree at least through the operations of the Committee of Council of Education in this country, and still more completely by the Government system of education in Canada. 6th. The making of grants of land of moderate extent to the coloured inhabitants on reasonable terms, as is now being done with such manifest advantage in several of the Southern States of North America. Lastly, in addition to all these reforms, and as promoting and assisting them all, vigorous endeavours must be used to awaken and keep alive in the Government and in the nation at large a just sense of what is due from the mother country to her colonies, and especially to the ignorant and degraded coloured inhabitants whom the iniquitous system of the slave trade and slavery introduced into those colonies. How much might a spirited and able press accomplish herein. May the FREED-MAN have its full share of the labour, the success, and the praise of this great work. THE REV. WILLIAM BROCK. The Rev. William Brock, D.D., of Bloomsbury Chapel, London, left England per the "Scotia," which sailed April 21st, for the United States of America. Dr. Brock has been an unwavering, earnest and eloquent advocate of the freedmen of America, and a staunch friend of the Union during the terrible civil war. He is warmly and affectionately commended to the friends of humanity and liberty on the other side of the Atlantic. Dr. Brock has been from the first a member of the Council of the British and Foreign Freed-men's Aid Society, and was also a member of the Committee of Correspondence on American Affairs, in connexion with which and the Emancipation Society, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher addressed the British public in the metropolis of our country. *We are anxious to keep clear of political and ecclesiastical questions on which our countrymen are conscientiously divided, and to stir up all parties to the work of christian phi. lanthropy. We have, however not felt at liberty to suppress any of Mr. Hodgkin's views.-ED. JAMAICA EVIDENCE. II. In all exaggeration there is weakness. The simplest statement is the most convincing. We felt a degree of uneasiness in the reperusal of the last number of the FREED-MAN that we should have given currency to the story that a British soldier sworn to maintain the honour of his country had ordered his men to hang a company of negroes in a place of christian worship. We felt sure that the report of an act so gratuitously infamous would find no credence with our readers who judge of the conduct of men in civilized life by an ordinary standard. The tale we find however is too true. The guilt of the negroes was made clear to the Colonel by a kind of intuition, and being so certain in his own mind, he dispensed with the formality of evidence. On one occasion he spared six men who were taken without arms, but he regretted the circumstance afterwards, and felt that it would have been better to follow his instinct for blood. He says, "After this act of clemency so many persons gave themselves up, and hung about the camp, that he was afraid they would expose his force to danger." The "splendid service" of Captain Hole, at Manchioneal, mentioned by Colonel Elkington, seems to have consisted to a considerable extent in the flogging of women. The negroes felt too much distrust to accuse themselves, he therefore ordered them to be scourged. "In all cases," he says, "the women were told that if they had hidden stolen property they would not be punished, but only in a very few instances did they avail themselves of this means of escape." COLONEL HOBBS has appeared before the Royal Cominissioners to explain the part he took in the recent military expedition. He said he had nine men who had been tried by court martial shot at Fonthill, and three bodies hanged to a beam in Maclaren's chapel. The reason was he had been told that treason had been hatched there, and thought to hang them there would make a great impression. We are not surprised that the Colonel should volunteer the statement that "the only people he did not pity were the religious leaders." Colonel Hobbs has not entirely lost the he assumed "that the whole population of St. sense of shame. Though he expresses no Thomas-in-the-East were rebels till they regret for his atrocities, he has virtually tried proved their loyalty." It was under his to extenuate his acts by quoting the follow- orders that tried and untried prisoners were ing extract from a despatch of Colonel Elk- led out to witness the executions at Morant ington, dated 11 a.m., 18th October : Bay. "Dear Colonel-I send you an order to push on at once to Stoney Gut, but I trust you are there already. Hole is doing splendid service with his men about Manchioneal, and shooting every black man who cannot give an account of himself. Nelson, at Port Antonio, is hanging like fun, by court-martial. I hope you will not send us any prisoners. Civil law can do nothing. Do punish the blackguards well. "Yours in haste, GENERAL NELSON, whose activity as military hangsman gave such jubilant satisfaction to Colonel Elkington, explained the principle on which he acted in this indiscriminate slaughter. "Under martial law," he says, It will be remembered that Governor Eyre said of General Nelson-"We never had a difference of opinion even upon the propriety or policy of a single act or movement, and the public service was consequently conducted not only satisfactorily, but pleasantly. Every movement has been made by Brigadier Nelson under my own personal instruction and approval; the whole responsibility of what has been done, therefore, rests upon me.' LIEUTENANT OXLEY says he took Paul Bogle's daughter for a guide, promising her £100 and the life of her husband if she would betray her father. "JOHN ELKINGTON, D.A.G." Colonel Hobbs, stimulated by this despatch from his superior officer, prevented all inconvenience arising from the charge of prisoners, by putting them instantly to death. These military gentlemen claim to be the "Finding their case clear, and being unable saviours of Jamaica, and have received in to take or leave them, I had them all shot." consequence the tribute of the admiration 1 and gratitude of the leading people in Kings- that he had noticed in the demeanour of the town. It will be remembered that when their services were first brought under notice by the press, some of them made a hasty visit to this country. It was anticipated that they would receive some special mark of the Royal favour. Dr. Bowerbank worked incessantly to exhibit their claims to the consideration of their countrymen. The peril of Jamaica was represented as extreme. We heard of terrible carnage, "Eight miles of dead," and were left under the impression that these heroes of Morant Bay, Manchioneal, Stoney Gut, had displayed courage and fortitude equal to that of Leonidas, or of Williams of Kars. It now appears that the actual fighting was all on one side, and that the rebels made no more resistance than a covey of partridges. We have no need to dwell on the particular instances of sickening inhumanity that are related by the officers in the burning of houses without regard to age, sickness, destitution, or the maternal sorrows which for a moment might have suspended conflict in the crisis of extremest danger. We look in vain for any trait of the noble or generous feeling that accompanies all true courage. It is a peculiar feature in this Jamaica struggle that there is a disposition to make all responsible for the dangerous state of the coloured population who plead either for justice or humanity. The censure received originally by Dr. Underhill and Mr. Gordon is now transferred to Her Majesty the Queen and the Commissioners sent out in her name to make an impartial and careful inquiry. Men who pride themselves on their superior intelligence maintain that Governor Eyre had not "lost his head." All the good he had accomplished by the burning of chapels and houses, the shooting and hanging of men without trial, and the flogging of women, has been lost already by the intervention of Sir H. Storks, Mr. Gurney, and Mr. Maule. MR. MILES, a planter and a magistrate of St. Andrew's, said that as soon as the people heard of the appointment of the commission, they refused to work, though previously they had been peaceable and industrious. The REV. W. FORBES spoke to the alteration native population since the news arrived that a royal commissioner was to be appointed and that Govenor Eyre was to be suspended. Other witnesses stated that they had observed the same thing. Immediately before the news the native population had been remarkably peaceful. Many of the Jamaica witnesses seem to be afflicted with a strange loss of memory and contradict themselves most flatly. Colonel Hobbs in particular disproved the statements given in his own despatches. All the witnesses are agreed that the coloured population have been left to sink into a condition that if unchanged may involve all the inhabitants in common ruin. Many of the white people from whom we might have expected help in the work of restoration unconsciously betray a spirit that will rather enhance the difficulty of the task. We find an undercurrent of lingering regret for the abolition of slavery. Freedom, according to the journalists inspired by Dr. Bowerbank, has done all the mischief. Hence the disposition to creep back stealthily to a state of slavery without the name. Mr. Harvey explains the process of re-enslavement in part. Writing from Kingstown, February 12, 1866, he calls attention to an Act passed by the Jamaica legislature for apprenticing to planters and other employers of labour, young persons of sixteen or there. abouts convicted of theft of ground provisions, canes, fruit (whether growing in en. closed or open land). Mr. Harvey says: "I need not point out to you and your readers the extreme danger of apprenticing young offenders to the very parties who are interested in the procuring their conviction, and who, as a class, including legislators, magistrates, and employers, have borne heavily and hardly on the labouring population of the island. "Does it not seem perfectly obvious that if a compulsory term of restraint and servi. tude be inflicted on young offenders, it should be only for serious offences, implying the danger of lapsing into a criminal life, and that the sentence should be to reformatories, such as exist in our own country, and also, I believe, in this island? It will be dangerous, more need to work. When a foolish tremor of this kind comes over a London editor, he ought to lay down his pen and go out into the fresh air. indeed, to liberty, to ally the self-interest of in Jamaica will imagine they will have no the planter and the employer-the class which both defines offences, fixes the punish ments, and administers the law-to this novel scheme of negro apprenticeship. I trust the danger needs only to be pointed out to be averted. "I hope to have other opportunities of inquiry into this subject. In company with my friend, Wm. Brewin, I visited the gaol at Spanish Town this morning. We found nine or ten women, the majority of whom were undergoing sentences of three months' imprisonment for larcenies of the kind above referred to several of them with children in arms-for taking a sugar cane and eating it, or giving it to the child to suck while in the field at work. The total number of prisoners was about 60, including seven boys. A large proportion of the offences were of the above character, many of the commitments being signed by a few overseers holding the commission of the peace. The change in the law I have described, and its harsh administration in various places, have filled the gaols with 600 or 700 prisoners. The plantation watchmen are often constables, and are entitled to 2s. 6d. for each conviction." There will be no moral protection for these people but in the presence and influence of teachers and advisers like those whose selfdenying philanthropy has constrained them to occupy the stations in the Southern States of America. They have no party spirit nor inveterate prejudices. Kind, judicious, and disinterested, they disarm the resentment of the dominant class and win the confidence of those who are weak, and inexperienced. A sound mind goes with a kind heart. The "field is the world." Christianity makes us debtor even to the barbarian. Those who use the telescope to explore the most distant regions, use the naked eye in seeking out the abodes of wretchedness at home. At any rate, we can assure our editorial censor that the old and worn-out epithets that were used so freely against Clarkson, Wilberforce and Buxton, will not deter us from the attempt to remove in some degree the mass of ignorance, destitution and misery in Jamaica. We shall do something, if it should only be to preserve us from sinking into the callousness which, if it were to become universal, would make our country the scorn of mankind.-W. MINISTERING CHILDREN. We want to educate the heart of every child in the families who read the FREED. MAN. It will be a blessing to the youngest to take an interest in saving the "children of the needy." The work is beginning. A young lady, the daughter of a minister, opens the correspondence in the following note:-"To the Editor of the FREED-MAN. He "Colchester, April 2, 1866. "Sir-Being very interested in the Freedmen's cause, I wrote to Dr. Holbrook last week about prompting the children here in England towards helping the children yonder in America. He kindly answered my letter, and said he would forward it to you. also sent me a copy of the FREED-MAN, in which I read the piece about "Our Children." As you seem to wish for suggestions to help on this project, I take the liberty to send you some which I trust will shortly be carried out in this my native town. We observe that an evening journalist whilst referring to the susceptibility of the negroes and other inhabitants of Jamaica, to hope and fear, betrays himself an apprehension that really amounts to hallucination. Hundreds are stripped of their all-their houses are burned to the ground-their husbands, sons, or brothers are killed, and it is too evident that locally there are none to befriend them. This writer deprecates the interposition of what he calls "telescopic" philanthropists, from the apprehension that if we send either "1. Shall some gentleman, who is well food or clothing, the 450,000 coloured people versed in the history of the Freed-man, be "Could not a committee be formed of several ladies, with a treasurer to call the different members together at certain times, and to put to the question such suggestions as the following: asked to address the children of all denomin. were living on plantations in this vicinity. ations in this town-telling them pleasing little anecdotes of the poor and suffering little ones over the other side of the water ? "2. Could not small boxes be at hand, so that after the lecture, any child who might wish to have one could come forward and receive one? "3. Could not working parties be organized for the girls, to make children's clothing? These parents were either obliged to leave plantations on which they were residing, or the children were too young to be of valuable service to the planters, and were therefore turned adrift or thrown upon the Bureau, after their parents' death. "The Bureau has no home in which to place them; consequently, they live about as they can. Some have found refuge in freed-men's families; some are staying with parties who cannot feed them: most are knocking about, starving and naked, becoming street children. 4. Could not some boys either collect, buy, or make toys or writing books, pencils, or pens, slates, or such like? And, as one needs a small capital to set such Some of these orphans are very young, and things on foot, "5. Would it not be worth the while of the Freed-men's Aid Society to furnish such committees with a little money to buy materials to work with, just at the beginning, and to buy boxes with ? “Trusting you will excuse my thus writing, and let me know what you think of these suggestions, "I remain, "Yours truly devoted to this work, "MARY H. DAVIDS." Our reply is this: MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND-We think the suggestions are all good and practical. It is natural and kind that an English girl should think that a negro child ought to have toys; but if these are sent they must be put into the box quietly and with no expense to the Society. The rule of the Saviour is that we should do to others as we would they should do unto us. Now, my dear young friend, here is AN EXTRACT FROM A LETTER dated Wilmington N. C., March 8, 1866: "You are aware that last spring General Sherman sent into this city and vicinity about 12,000 refuge freed-men. Full onethird of them died before summer was past. Very many of the deceased were parents. Some were the guardians and protectors of children whose parents had perished on the way. Consequently, crowds of orphan children were left to be provided for by charity. Most of these orphans are now in the city. In addition to these orphans of refugees, there are many whose parents are perishing through sheer want. Take a single instance, and it is only one of a score. Last sabbath afternoon, as I was returning home from meeting, a coloured man met me, and said he wished to call my attention to a case of suffering. Just across the river there were a father, mother and four children. The children were all small, the oldest not above ten years. The parents sickened and died a few weeks since. The children were left alone and lived alone. They were attacked with small-pox. Two days ago one of them died, and the other is still lying by the side of the corpse, sick with the small-pox; the other two are ailing, and will soon be down. There they are, the dead and the living; the dead unburied, the living starving, naked, sick, and none to care for them. "Men and women are almost daily enquir. ing of me as to what they shall do with certain orphan children that have come under their hands. It seems to me that these children should be gathered up and cared for until suitable homes can be found for them. They should be taken from the streets and placed under instruction." WHAT WOULD YOU DO FOR THESE CHILDREN IF YOU WERE AT WILMINGTON ?—What will you do for them here ?-Begin to work-we will help you with a little money-and let your native town be made an example to all the towns in Great Britain. We have a striking photograph of a little refuge negro boy just as he came into the camp in his shreds of clothing-We want to have a wood engraving made from it which would cost three pounds or sixty shillings. A gentleman |