POLITICAL PARTIES. 



61 



illustration could not be desired, to show the utter impo- 

 tence of the Assembly, and the over-shadowing authority 

 of the Executive. 



The country party embraces most of the English plant- 

 ers ; the colored people generally support the govern- 

 ment. This surprised me at first, but I soon came to under- 

 stand it. In the first place, English proprietors somehow, 

 are always at war with the operative classes, all the world 

 over ; at least I never heard of either of the two classes 

 thinking that they had any community of interest. In the 

 next place, the government have felt the necessity of con- 

 ciliating the colored men in J amaica in every possible way, 

 and hence it is that this part of the population fill at least 

 nine-tenths of all the offices. I think there has been a 

 sincere desire felt by the heads of the government in Eng- 

 land to have the blacks prosper and vindicate the philan- 

 thropic purpose which secured their liberty. 



This desire has largely increased the proportion of poli- 

 tical appointments to be made from that class. But the 

 political and physical strength of -the blacks has become 

 formidable, and if those people were to become thoroughly 

 alienated from their allegiance, the island would very soon 

 become uninhabitable to English people, and its commerce 

 would be ruined. Bearing, however, as they do, but a 

 trifling portion of the burthen of taxation, sharing in very 

 liberal proportions the patronage which the taxation of 



