that with the order of knights and of honorables, (as all the members of council are designated, like those of the American senates,) the minds of the community would be gradually biassed towards a form of government in which a nobility deriving their honors from great virtue, great talents, or eminent services done to the state, would serve as a bulwark between the supreme government and the populace, to guard the liberties of the country against the excesses of either; and at the same time serve as an example of imitation to the other classes in the state for the guidance of their conduct, seeing the honorable and permanent rewards that private worth and public merit could command.

In the West India islands, again, a sort of federal form of government, like that existing in the United States, seems most suitable to their wants. Can there be a greater absurdity indeed than that of a paltry island, scarcely exceeding in extent or population a good English parish, having its resources impoverished, and its energies borne down, by the supporting of government with a salary of several thousands a year, and a host of judges and other functionaries of many thousands more? Can a poor island possibly prosper with such a load of troubles on its back? In fact, the greater portion of these islands ought to be looked on simply in the light of corporate towns, each having its separate legislature for the passing of local acts: delegates from the council and assembly of each island meeting annually in some of the most centrical of them, to pass general laws and taxation bills, referable to the whole, under the sanction of the governor-general of the group, who would call together, prorogue and dissolve such bodies in the same manner as is done now. Steam-boats would admit of these voyages being readily accomplished, while judges, appointed too for the group, might go their circuits for the trial of criminal cases affecting life, and for hearing appeals from the respective island local courts. With our government, and our set of judges for the whole group, what a saving would here accrue; allowing the house of assembly of each island to fill up the vacancies in the council, one-third of which might go out in rotation every second year, but be eligible to re-election again, the council appointing its own president, who would be the local governor, and with the advice of two members of the council and two of the assembly, appointed by each body, exercise all the duties of the present governors; their measures, however, subject to the reversion of the governor in chief, by stating in writing his reasons of dissent.

The members of assembly in the West India islands are elected by the parishes, therefore county councils would be here generally unadvisable; but as the population in these islands are separated

by stronger distinctive lines than even those of England, and consequently the strength of each colony is greatly impaired thereby, it becomes a point of most manifest importance to devise a plan whereby the whole may be more intimately united, that not only the internal tranquillity of each colony, and consequently the property in it, may be rendered more secure, but that it may be rendered more powerful to resist its external enemies. These points might be in a great measure attained, by admitting gradually all individuals above the class of blacks to the same rights and privileges as white men; and permitting free men of every color and of mature age the privilege of voting for members of assembly in the country parishes. Such measures would require to be very slowly and cautiously introduced, so as not to do too much violence to the prejudices at present existing; but it is evident that such measures would unite the colored population, which is both numerous, active, industrious, and intelligent, to the white population, and thereby insure, in a great measure, the tranquillity of the colony. People in every country are fonder of uniting with a higher than a lower caste; and never was this more strikingly exemplified than in the West Indies. In St. Domingo the partiality of the colored population to the whites, and their dislike and distrust of the blacks, was most manifest throughout the struggles there; and had the whites but conceded equal privileges to their colored brethren at the commencement of the revolution, it would have been smothered at the very outset. Every one who has resided in the West Indies must have witnessed how much the colored people there look down on those even a shade darker than themselves, and how bitterly they will persecute one of their class who marries a black person.

By conferring equal privileges, therefore, on the colored population, an immense advance would be made towards the securing of internal tranquillity and property in our West India islands; while, by admitting free men of all castes to vote at the country elections, the landed proprietors would begin to give a preference to free laborers over slaves, in order to increase their political influence in the island, because the free laborers would naturally give their votes to those who employed them, which would tend to a gradual emancipation of the slaves, and to the substitution of free for slave labor. It has been remarked, that Africans are averse to steady labor, and that consequently the moment compulsion ceases they will cease to work; but we find all nations in an imperfect state of civilisation equally averse to steady labor, though doing as much at taskwork as the most industrious and regular laborers could accomplish. The more uncivilised portions of the Irish, who will not perform half the labor of an English

man when working from day to day, will generally far excel the latter at taskwork with which they are acquainted; and no class of people can work harder in this sort of way than many of the free blacks in the West Indies, or such as pay a certain weekly sum for liberty to labor for themselves. In several of the West India islands this plan of taskwork is getting into vogue, and no doubt the best results will attend it, as it is the best preparation to a system of steady labor. I spoke in recommendation of the free people of all classes in the country parishes only having a right to vote for members of the assembly; this is with the view of elevating the workmen on the estates in some measure above the workmen in towns, and turning the tide of popularity in favor of a country life among the lower classes there, which now tends in a contrary way: for when a town black has called a country black (equally black with himself) a "dain black plantation nigga," you may know that he has been terribly provoked, and has now ejected his last drop of gall in that most contemptuous epithet.

By such a course of measures the tranquillity of these colonies would be so firmly established, that not a single white soldier would be required in them, excepting probably Jamaica; and an immense saving of not only money, but of human life, result therefrom: for if regiments of colored people and free blacks inured to the climate were raised to garrison them, officered by whites and people of color, all the security resulting from white troops would be attained without the immense waste of life that ensues from the garrisoning them with European troops. But this is not all, it is from America that the greatest danger arises to our West India colonies; but were equal rights with the whites conceded to the people of color, and the blacks elevated again above the same class in America, both parties would unite heart and hand in opposing the aggressions of a people who kept their whole body in such a state of degradation, and by a submission to whom they must expect to be reduced to the same debased level.

The whole of the colonial appointments ought to rest with the governor-general, acting under the advice of the executive council, or of the president and executive council of each respective island, giving a preference, as far as possible, to natives of the colonies, as being the best entitled thereto, inasmuch as the salaries of their offices being liquidated by the respective colonies, those borne therein have the best title to enjoy the like. The bringing up of the colonial youth to fill government situations is strongly recommended for the Cape colony by Commissioner Bigge, and is already in the course of being acted on in New South Wales by its excellent archdeacon, for filling all the church livings there. This course will doubtless prove at first very unpalatable to the

home government, from depriving it of the lucrative patronage of these places, but getting thus rid of the importunities of the crowds of clamorous applicants for the like (the curses from the numerous disappointed groups of whom must be ten times more annoying than the blessings of the lucky few can possibly atone for); therefore it will eventually prove as pleasant to the home government to get quit of this patronage, as it will be beneficial to the colonies for their own governments to acquire it. Time has now shown that the business of the nation can be carried perfectly well on without all that influence of patronage which was formerly deemed essential to it; for government acts only require to be made manifestly conducive to the general interests of the country to meet the general support of both parliament and the nation, as we have seen the government party and opposition go hand in hand in these measures for several sessions back. Many able and worthy individuals have certainly been sent out to fill colonial appointments, but the reverse has been also but too often the case; and indeed otherwise than this cannot be expected, considering how the government has had hitherto to humble to influential individuals connected with parliament, and that it must often provide for those recommended by them however unworthy they might be. If the relative of influential individuals got into debt, became a sot, or was so idle, so stupid, or so worthless that nothing could be done with him at home, it was then, "Oh, let us get a colonial appointment for him :" while the colonies have also been made alike the asylum for the libellers and the puffers of the government to be pensioned off in, as well as for the spies made use of in times of political agitation, whose safety would have been compromised by a residence at home. However useful the latter class of individuals may be in periods like those already past, it is more consonant with justice that they ought to be pensioned off by the mother country, instead of being fastened on the colonies. It is quite impossible for the character of any person to remain long unknown in a colony for curiosity in small communities is so great, that if an individual does not frankly make known his former course of life, it is immediately set down as one that he is ashamed to acknowlege, and every effort is consequently made to find it out, which by slips of the tongue from him, inquiries from those who may come from the same part of the country, or even by queries sent home. In this way his character is soon fished out; and on finding the scum of the mother country thus dispatched to lord it over the most respectable individuals in the colony, who are placed in high situations, can it be otherwise than that the breasts of the colonists should often be fired with the most deadly

hatred against the mother country, for the contempt she has thus displayed towards them. The governors also unfortunately seem but too often to conduct themselves as if the governments of the colonies were instituted solely for their sole individual benefit, instead of for the sole benefit of the colonies. It cannot be expected that strangers should take so much interest in the welfare of a colony as an individual possessing property therein: neither can it be expected that the description of governors sent out, from the despotic nature and narrow views of their military education, should give much satisfaction either from the urbanity of their manners or political wisdom, with which the measures of their administration are concocted; but if a code of general instructions was but furnished them before their departure as to the tenor of their behavior, and a well-timed recal of an offending one was occasionally had recourse to, much future annoyance would be saved to the government at home, and much good result therefrom to the colonies at large. If, also, all the governors were directed to publish an annual exposé of the state of their government, the income and expenditure, list of officers, and their incomes from fixed salaries and otherwise, as also a full detail of all the improvements made in the colony during the preceding twelvemonths, and of proposed ones also, a spirit of honorable rivalry would be excited among the various governors, who to signalise himself most in the path of useful improvement, while the administration and the public at home would be enabled to judge as to the fitness of these individuals for a continuance in office. The sources of nearly all the quarrels between the governors and the colonists originate in the former being practised on immediately on arrival by the usual knot of loyalists subsisting in every colony, who represent their antagonists in the most hostile light to the yet raw and unsuspecting governor, in order to exasperate him against them, and thus secure all the good things at his disposal to themselves and their friends; but chiefly, however, from the governors receiving their salaries from England, and consequently, being independent of the colony, care little whether their conduct give pleasure or pain. In most of the West India islands the colonial legislatures very knowingly allow the governor a salary, which being voted from year to year, he is consequently bribed into good behavior, thereby knowing that it will be instantly withdrawn in case of giving dissatisfaction; and in one of the colonies so situated, where the governor was frequently quarrelling with the legislature, the wags would jocosely remark, "Oh, his Excellency will make friends again before the supply-day comes round:" and it was most amusing to observe what a foreknowlege of coming events these prophetic humorists displayed