This called forth in a Colonial paper
the following, which certainly has the merit of being entirely
unambiguous:--
"We did and do declare the whip to be essential to West India
discipline, ay, as essential, my Lord Calthorpe, as the freedom of the
press and the trial by jury to the liberty of the subject in Britain,
and to be justified on equally legitimate ground. The comfort, welfare,
and happiness of our laboring classes cannot subsist without it."
These specimens of the fierceness of abuse with which the Government
was assailed may perhaps prepare the reader for that last resort of
indignant discontent on the part of the governed,--the threat of
secession! Yes; Jamaica will break away from the tyranny of which she is
the much abused object, she will free herself from the oppression of the
mother country, and then,--what next?--she will seek for friendship and
protection from the United States! How soon this threat, if persisted in
and carried out into action, would have been silenced by the thunder of
British cannon, we need not stay to consider.
To this clamor of the opposition the more timid of the Anti-Slavery
party were disposed to yield, at least for a season.
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