THE COUNCIL. 



43 



torney General and the Bishop, are ex-officio members. 

 All bills originate with the lower house, but they must pass 

 the Council before they go to the Executive or can become 

 laws. Of course, nothing can pass this body, thus consti- 

 tuted and appointed, which is not perfectly satisfactory to 

 the Colonial minister, nor does anything ever pass it against 

 the wishes of the Governor. It is nominally a branch of 

 the legislature, but in fact is nothing but a cabinet or sort 

 of privy counsel, with which the Governor consults, and 

 which he uses as a sort of breakwater between himself and 

 the lower house. They are an independent legislative body 

 upon questions in which the Governor has no adverse in- 

 terest, but they are as incapable of making any resistance 

 to his will as his shadow would be.* 



* During- my stay in Jamaica, an information, was filed by the Attorney General 

 against William Girod, the editor of the Colonial Scandard, the organ of the 

 country party, for a libel upon the Council. It seems that the Council had re- 

 ceived a petition, signed by some members of Assemby, among others, imputing 

 corrupt motives to a portion of that body in their legislative proceedings Girod 

 was a member of the Assembly, and belonged to the party which this petition 

 assailed. He denounced the Council for receiving it, and, among other things 

 said : 



We are not skilled enough in parliamentary law, to be able to state the extent 

 to which the Council have sinned against that degree of etiquette, which custom 

 at least, if not mutual respect, has ever maintained between the two lower 

 branches of the legislature. But this we know, that the Council have now opened 

 the door to recrimination, and they need not be surprised, if at an early oppor- 

 tunity, the true opinion of the people of Jamaica, of those who are competent to 

 offer an opinion, the wealth, the education and the respectability of the country, 

 finds its way in the form of accumulated contempt of the Council, their selfish- 

 ness, their corruption and their avarice, upon the journals of the Assembly. 



Fortius he was prosecuted by .the government. He was successfully defended 

 by Mr. Moncrieff, who, by the by, is a brown man, and one of the most eloquent 

 advocates in Jamaica. The following extract from his speech, will be found to 

 confirm the view I have taken of its operation as a branch of the government : 



"Now, let me ask, if these opinions expressed in this publication before you, 

 are the opinions of yesterday ? — if they are noxious to society ? — if the object 

 was to subvert society, or if the object 'of William Girod was to sow sedition in 

 the minds of the inhabitants of this country 1 Gentlemen, as matter of history, 



