Political parties. 



45 



$re iiever elaborate. Though the assembly contains many 

 gentlemen of talent and prominence in their respective 

 callings, they never find occasion to display it here. Their 

 debates are quite as informal and colloquial as those of 

 the New York Municipal Council, and their legislation 

 disposes of far less considerable interests in the course of a 

 year. 



It is difficult to convey any satisfactory idea of the state 

 of political parties here, for they can hardly be said to 

 have any state. They are not arrayed upon any of the 

 issues which classify the inhabitants of the mother country. 

 Upon the questions agitated in the British parliament in 

 which they have any interest, they are for the most part 

 agreed. Colonial assistance of any kind all desire, and all 

 desire protection for colonial produce. The appointees of 

 the present government have prudence enough not to pro- 

 claim their sentiments upon the house-tops, but even they, 

 do not disguise them at the fire-side. It is to free trade 

 they ascribe their ruin, not to the abolition of slavery. I did 

 not find a man upon the island, and I made very extensive 

 inquiry, who regretted the Emancipation Act, or who, if I 

 may take their own professions, would have restored 

 slavery had it been in their power. They say that if they 

 only had the protection on the staples of the island which 

 they enjoyed with slavery, they would prosper. It was 

 the removal of that protection, added to the advanced price 



