To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."
Sir: Will you allow me, in this informal manner, to express what I should have wished to express by signature of the memorial you publish to-day from Huddersfield[20] respecting the Jamaica insurrection, and to thank you for your excellent article of the 15th December on the same subject. I am compelled to make this request, because I see my friend Mr. Thomas Hughes has been abetting the Radical movement against Governor Eyre; and as I employed what little influence I have with the London workmen to aid the return of Mr. Hughes for Lambeth, I may perhaps be thought to concur with him in every line of action he may see fit subsequently to adopt. Permit me, then, once for all, through your widely-read columns, to say that I did what I could towards the return both of Mr. J. S. Mill and of Mr. Hughes,[21] not because I held with them in all their opinions, or even in the main principle of their opinions, but because I knew they had a principle of opinions; that they were honest, thoughtful, and benevolent men; and far worthier to be in Parliament (even though it might be in opposition to many causes I had at heart) than any other candidates I knew. They are my opponents in many things, though I thought better of them both than that they would countenance this fatuous outcry against Governor Eyre. But in most directions of thought and action they are for Liberty, and I am for Lordship; they are Mob's men and I am a King's man. Yes, sir, I am one of those almost forgotten creatures who shrivel under your daily scorn; I am a "Conservative," and hope forever to be a Conservative in the deepest sense—a Re-former, not a De-former. Not that I like slavery, or object to the emancipation of any kind or number of blacks in due place and time. But I understand something more by "slavery" than either Mr. J. S. Mill or Mr. Hughes; and believe that white emancipation not only ought to precede, but must by law of all fate precede, black emancipation. I much dislike the slavery, to man, of an African laborer, with a spade on his shoulder; but I more dislike the slavery, to the devil, of a Calabrian robber with a gun on his shoulder. I dislike the American serf-economy, which separates, occasionally, man and wife; but I more dislike the English serf-economy, which prevents men from being able to have wives at all. I dislike the slavery which obliges women (if it does) to carry their children over frozen rivers; but I more dislike the slavery which makes them throw their children into wells. I would willingly hinder the selling of girls on the Gold Coast; but primarily, if I might, would hinder the selling of them in Mayfair. And, finally, while I regret the need that may exist among savages in a distant island for their governor to do his work sharply and suddenly on them, I far more regret the need among men of race and capacity for the work of governors when they have no governor to give it them. Of all dishonorable and impious captivities of this age, the darkest was that of England to Russia, by which she was compelled to refuse to give Greece a King when Greece besought one from her, and to permit that there should be set on the Acropolis throne no Governor Eyre, nor anything like him, but such a shadow of King as the black fates cast upon a nation for a curse, saying, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child!"[22]
Let the men who would now deserve well of England reserve their impeachments, or turn them from those among us who have saved colonies to those who have destroyed nations.
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. Ruskin.[23]
Denmark Hill, Dec. 19.
[19] The outcry against Governor Eyre for the course he took in suppressing the negro insurrection at Morant Bay, Jamaica, in 1865, is still within the memory of the general public. Mr. Ruskin attended and spoke at the meetings of the Eyre Defence Fund, to which Mr. Carlyle (see note at the end of this letter) gave his warm support. Amongst those who most strongly deprecated the course taken by Governor Eyre were, as this letter implies, Mr. John Stuart Mill (Chairman of the Jamaica Committee) and Mr. Thomas Hughes.
[20] Signed by 273 persons resident in and near Huddersfield. (Daily Telegraph, December 19, 1865.)
[21] Mr. Mill had been recently returned for Westminster, and Mr. Hughes for Lambeth.
[22] The present king of Greece was only eighteen years of age when, after the protocol of England, Russia, and France on the preceding day, he accepted, June 6, 1863, the crown of Greece.
[23] It is of interest to remark that Mr. Carlyle, in a letter to Mr. Hamilton Hume, Hon. Sec. of the "Eyre Defence Fund" (published in the Daily Telegraph of September 12, 1866), expressed himself as follows: "The clamor raised against Governor Eyre appears to me to be disgraceful to the good sense of England; ... penalty and clamor are not the things this Governor merits from any of us, but honor and thanks, and wise imitation.... The whole weight of my conviction and good wishes is with you." Mr. Carlyle was, with Sir Roderick Murchison, one of the two vice-presidents of the Defence Committee. (See "The History of the Jamaica Case," by G. W. Finlason: London, 1869, p. 369.)