" And it
was, probably, from regarding it in this light that the planters (as the
owners of estates in the West Indies were generally called) selected
that provision as the object of their most vehement remonstrances. But,
though they were not so open in their remonstrances against the other
clauses of the order, they did worse, they disregarded them; and the
stories of the ill-treatment of the slaves were neither less frequent
nor less revolting than before.
Fresh Orders in Council, avowedly designed as the stepping-stones to
eventual emancipation, were issued; and one which reached the West
Indies at the end of 1831 was, unhappily, so misconstrued by the slaves
in Jamaica, who regarded it as recognizing their right to instant
liberation, that, when their masters refused to treat it as doing so,
they broke out into a formidable insurrection, which was not quelled
without great loss of life and destruction of property. The planters
were panic-stricken; many of them, indeed, were almost ruined. The
colonial Legislatures,[227] which had been established in the greater
part of the islands, addressed the ministers with strong protests
against the last Order in Council; and the mischief which had
confessedly been already done, and the farther mischief which was not
unreasonably dreaded, were so great that the cabinet consented to
suspend it for a while; and the House of Commons made a practical
confession that the planters were entitled to sympathy as well as the
slaves, by voting nearly a million of money to compensate those of
Jamaica for their recent losses.
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