18 JUNE
REPORT FROM JAMAICA – GIBBETED SLAVES SURVIVE FOUR TO EIGHT DAYS
[ 18 June 1760 ]
A letter, dated the 18 June 1760, from the British Caribbean territory of Jamaica and subsequently published in newspapers across England, Scotland and Ireland, described, with a grudging respect, the resilience of slaves who ‘are gibbeted alive in terrorem (and) commonly live from four to eight days, which under the intense heat of this country, where thirst becomes so importunate, is amazing; for no one is suffered to give them any kind of liquid or sustenance.’1
CHURCHILL BACKS TOP GENERAL’S ATTACK ON CRITIC OF POISON GAS
[ 18 June 1920 ]
On 18 June 1920, the Secretary of State for War, Winston Churchill, circulated to Cabinet Ministers the comments of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson. He was highly critical of a memorandum which cautioned against the use of poison gas by the President of the Board of Education, Herbert Fisher.
FOOTNOTE
- ‘Extract of a letter from Jamaica 18 June,’ the Leeds Intelligencer, 9 September 1760 p. 2, ‘Foreign News (London Evening Post 2 September 1870) cited in the Aberdeen Press and Journal, 15 September 1760 p. 2 and ‘Extract of a Letter from Jamaica, 18 June,’ the Dublin Courier, 8 September 1760 p. 1.
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