240
JAMAICA.
panic spread among tlie whites, and the estates were abandoned to the insurgents, by whom property was destroyed to an immense extent. Very few of the free inhabitants lost their lives ; but, at the courts' martial, which immediately succeeded the insurrection, hun dreds of negros were sacrificed to the guilt, cowardice, and terror of the whites. Many were executed in parts of the island to which the disturbance never extended, and among the victims were some whose sole or prin cipal offence, was that of their being Baptists or Methodists. The rebellion was charged upon the mis sionaries, and was made the pretext of that violent persecution in which many were driven from the island, and their chapels destroyed by men who held, and still retain, the King's Commission as Justices of the Peace. The sequel to these memorable events was transacted in England. Some of the accused missionaries have published a " Narrative" of the events connected with their mission during the progress of the rebellion, and of the proceedings which immediately followed it. Their statement was extensively circulated, and though it contains an exposure of the disgraceful means adopted to procure their crimination, and a great quantity of facts and evidence which fix the insurrection upon its real authors, yet the parties implicated, and their organs the island newspapers, have observed the most discreet silence respecting it, and still continue to de signate the rebellion as " the Baptist war." The in vestigation of this subject is a matter of no slight interest at the present moment. Since the introduction of the present system, some leading persons in a cer tain district of the island, made representations through a high legal functionary to the Governor, that their parishes were in a disturbed state, and requested that