found a way by which to drive live-stock
overland from New South Wales to the
new settlement at Adelaide. From this
original and more practical purpose he was
diverted by the absorbing attraction of
exploring vast unknown regions. The
most memorable of his journeys was that
on which he, with white and native companions, started from Adelaide on 20 June
1840, and, all but one of his companions
dropping off by the way, forced his own
way, with a dogged tenacity of purpose and
readiness of resource probably unsurpassed
in history, round the head of the Great
Australian Bight, through a region so
utterly desolate and torrid as almost to
preclude the passage of man, and with
but a single companion, a native, reached
King George's Sound on 13 July 1841.
He proved himself a great explorer.
In 1843 he received the founder's medal
from the Royal Geographical Society. He
described his journeys in 'Expeditions
into Central Australia and Overland from
Adelaide to King George's Sound, 1840-1'
(2 vols. 1845), which were supplemented
by papers on 'Expeditions Overland,
Adelaide to Perth ' in the 'Journal
Roy. Geog. Soc.' (xiii. 161), 'Lower Course
of the Darling' (xv. 327), and 'Considerations against an Interior Sea in Australia'
(xvi. 200). Perhaps the most noticeable
thing in Eyre's career in Australia was his
exceptional kindliness, combined with firmness, toward the aborigines.
Eyre revisited England in 1845, and in 1846, chiefly because of his success in handling natives, was appointed lieutenant-governor of New Zealand, Sir George Grey being governor. He held the office till 1853. From 1854 to 1860 he was governor of St. Vincent, and in 1860-1 he acted temporarily as governor of the Leeward Islands. In 1861 he went to Jamaica to act as captain-general and commander-in-chief during the absence on other duty of Sir Charles Darling [q. v.]. In 1864 Darling definitely relinquished the appointment, and Eyre was confirmed as governor of Jamaica. There his experiences gave him a terrible notoriety.
The negro peasantry of Jamaica, which had not long been emancipated from slavery, outnumbered the white population by something like twenty-seven to one. The negroes were mostly quite uneducated and were seething with discontent, stirred by agitators, mostly of their own race, against the few European residents. The American war, moreover, had raised the price of the necessaries of life ; and the example set by the neighbouring negroes in Haiti and St. Domingo, in setting up ' black republics' had made the situation with which Eyre had to deal very difficult.
On 7 Oct. 1865, in the planting district of Morant Bay in the county of Surrey, about five-and-twenty miles east of the capital, Kingston, some negroes successfully resisted the lawful capture of a negro criminal. On the 9th the police were forcibly prevented from arresting the chief rioters. On the llth the ' Morant Bay rebellion ' broke out, the court house of the district was burned, and at least twenty Europeans were killed and others wounded. The riot, which is believed to have been premeditated and organised, spread rapidly, and between 13 and 15 Oct. many atrocities were committed on the whites in outlying districts. Eyre, always prompt and self- reliant, called to his assistance all available naval and military officers, militia, European civilians, loyal negroes, and maroons. On 13 Oct., relying on a local statute, he held a council of war and proclaimed martial law throughout the county of Surrey except in Kingston. During the next eleven days he broke the back of the riot. Meanwhile George William Gordon, a coloured member of the legislature, who was long notorious for violence of speech and was believed to have instigated the rebellion, had been forcibly taken from Kingston (where martial law was not in force) into the zone of martial law at Morant Bay. There on 21 Oct. Gordon was tried by a court-martial presided over by Lieutenant Herbert Charles Alexander Brand, R.N. [q. v. Suppl. II], and being convicted he was sentenced to death. The next day being Sunday, the execution was deferred till Monday. Eyre, who was away at Kingston, was informed of the facts; and he though not required to do so in the case of a sentence by court-martial confirmed the sentence. Gordon was hanged on the morning of the 23rd. He had friends, and apart from the question of his guilt or innocence of a capital offence, these at once denounced the legality of Eyre's act in allowing the man to be taken within the zone of martial law for trial and punishment. Till the expiration of martial law, on 13 November, 608 persons were killed or executed, 34 were wounded, 600, including some women, were flogged, and a thousand dwellings, mostly flimsy leaf-built huts, were destroyed. Afterwards other culprits were tried and punished under the ordinary law of the colony in some cases even by death.
The vast majority of the Europeans
