Several special magistrates have been suspended because of the faithful discharge of their duties.  Among these was Dr. Palmer, an independent and courageous man.  Repeated complaints were urged against him by the planters, until finally Sir Lionel Smith appointed a commission to inquire into the grounds of the difficulty.

“This commission consisted of two local magistrates, both of them planters or managers of estates, and two stipendiary magistrates, the bias of one of whom, at least, was believed to be against Dr. Palmer.  At the conclusion of their inquiry they summed up their report by saying that Dr. Palmer had administered the abolition law in the spirit of the English abolition act, and in his administration of the law he had adapted it more to the comprehension of freemen than to the understandings of apprenticed laborers.  Not only did Sir Lionel Smith suspend Dr. Palmer on this report, but the colonial office at home have dismissed him from his situation.”

The following facts respecting the persecution of Special Justice Bourne, illustrate the same thing.

“A book-keeper of the name of Maclean, on the estate of the Rev. M. Hamilton, an Irish clergyman, committed a brutal assault upon an old African.  The attorney on the property refused to hear the complaint of the negro, who went to Stephen Bourne, a special magistrate.  When Maclean was brought before him, he did not deny the fact; but said as the old man was not a Christian, his oath could not be taken!  The magistrate not being able to ascertain the amount of injury inflicted upon the negro (whose head was dreadfully cut,) but feeling that it was a case which required a greater penalty than three pounds sterling, the amount of punishment to which he was limited by the local acts, detained Maclean, and afterwards committed him to jail, and wrote the next day to the chief justice upon the subject.  He was discharged as soon as a doctor’s certificate was procured of the state of the wounded man, and bail was given for his appearance at the assizes.  Maclean’s trial came on at the assizes, and he was found guilty by a Jamaica Jury; he was severely reprimanded for his inhuman conduct and fined thirty pounds.  The poor apprentice however got no remuneration for the severe injury inflicted upon him, and the special justice was prosecuted for false imprisonment, dragged from court to court, represented as an oppressor and a tyrant, subjected to four hundred pounds expenses in defending himself, and actually had judgment given against him for one hundred and fifty pounds damages.

Thus have the planters succeeded in pulling down every magistrate who ventures to do more than fine them three pounds sterling for any act of cruelty of which they may be guilty.  On the other hand, there were two magistrates who were lately dismissed, through, I believe, the representation of Lord Sligo, for flagrant violations of the law in inflicting punishment; and in order