ST. CROIX,
Christiansted 10th August 1848.
The Spanish Armed Steamer Baton, that arrived the 7th instant, left us yesterday for Porto Rico, accompanied by the Scooner Vigilant, conveying hence a part of the Spanish Troops so kindly and liberally sent us by the Count de REUS; to aid, if necessary, in quelling the spirit of arson and pillage, which followed the outbreak ot the 3d ultimo, among our rural population, after they had been declared and made free.
We cannot withhold our testimony to the order and discipline observed by these troops during their stay among us; and the lovers of order and good government are sensibly alive to the good results, occasioned by their presence. They merit our warmest thanks and good wishes.
(St. Croix Avis 10. august 1848).
Peter Anton Seidelin (1814-1872): Udsigt over Christiansted. Det kongelige Bibliotek. Fri af ophavsret.
Front the St. Thomas Times, Aug. 5, 1848.
To the Editor of the St. Thomas 'limes.
Sir,
I have noticed with a good deal of disgust in several of the British Colonial newspapers various bitter strictures on the conduct of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company's officers in permitting the Eagle to run down to Porto Rico to take in troops and land them in St. Croix, for the purpose, some of those journals alledge, of " exterminating a harmless population struggling for their liberty against oppression."
The writers of those articles were evidently unacquainted with their subject, and they would have shown more good sense and discretion had they waited for better information before alluding to it in terms which would lead the world to believe that slavery in the Danish islands had been characterized by the very extreme of oppression and censuring an act of timely assistance rendered to the colony of a friendly nation -- a colony too that not a great many years ago afforded the protection of a Danish ship of war to a neighbouring British island when its inhabitants dreaded an insurrection of their apprenticed labourers.
Cruelty, I am convinced, has never been a characteristic of slavery in the Danish islands, and it is notorious to all who have had an opportunity of judging, that for many years track a system of amelioration has been going on which had brought the slave to the very verge of freedom. In July Iast year it was decreed by his Danish Majesty that after a period of 12 years, slavery in these islands should cease, so that excepting in the difference of the term of apprenticeship the labouring population of Saint Croix at the time of their late revolt, were in a similar situation with the apprentices of the British colonies after 1834. The owners of slaves however were differently situated from the British planters inasmuch as no compensation was promised to them for the alienation of their property, and they were naturally desirous of retaining the services of their people at least for the term of 12 years which by some strange perversion of ideas, was to be considered as paying them in full for the spoliation that was to ensue. It was under these circumstances that the outbreak of the 2d of July took place. I have no intention of giving a detail of the affair nor of criticising the conduct ol any one concerned in it, that I leave to the estate owner who is more nearly interested, and while I sympathize with him in the loss he sustains, I cannot but rejoice that the system of slavery is abolished and only deplore the unhappy means by which us abolition has been accomplished. Almost on the fist demand it appears emancipation was granted to the people, but partly from the excitement of intoxication uud perhaps more especially at the instigation of evil disposed persons among them whose object was more plunder than liberty, the misguided blacks proceeded in the most tumultuous manner to burn and destroy property in every direction. An account, possibly an exaggerated one, of the danger came over here with a demand for assistance, and as assistance had been lately offered in anticipation by the Captain General of Porto Rico at a time when we little thought it would be needed, the Agent of the Royal Mail Company was requested, and consented to allow the Eagle to run down to Porto Rico for troops and to land them on her way to Windward at St. Croix, not to exterminate an inoffensive people struggling for their liberty but to reduce to order a rebellious and infuriated mob, and to prevent by a more imposing display of force than the island could command, the commission of crimes which would lead to severe but unavoidable punishment.
The mails by the Eagle could not have been detained more than 30 hours beyond their usual time by this deviation, and taking into account the very great consideration with which the Company has been treated by the Danish authorities since the establishment ol its agency here, and the facilities afforded to it so different from its reception in some other foreign ports, it was at least not a misplaced act of kindness but rather an act of ordinary courtesy and humanity that has been so inconsiderately censured.
I am sir,
Your obedt. servant,
INGLES.
(St. Croix Avis 10. august 1848).
De spanske tropper fra Puerto Rico kostede øen ½ million dollars. De blev erstattet af 400 danske infanterister og 50 kavallerister.
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