HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY. 



35 



mially ; a very pretty sum for a plain in an, but not much 

 for a nobleman, they say. 



Opposite to the Governor's residence, is the House of 

 Assembly or Parliament House, where I was impatient to 

 meet the assembled legislative wisdom of the island, and 

 whither I bent my steps as soon after my arrival as cir- 

 cumstances would permit. 



When I entered, the House was " in Committee of th • 

 Whole on the State of the Island," Mr. Jordan, a brown 

 man, and one of the editors of the Morning Journal, in 

 the chair. Mr. Osborne, another brown man, his associate 

 in the editorship of the Journal, was speaking. About 

 twenty-five members were present. The room was a plain, 

 indeed homely sort of an apartment, competent to hold 

 three or four hundred people, and divided in two by a bar, 

 within which sat the members. The room was entirely 

 without ornament of any kind, and resembled a country 

 court room in the United States. Mr. Jordan, who occu- 

 pied the chair, is a clear headed, deliberate, and sagacious 

 man, and is perhaps as much as any one, the leader of 

 what is called the King's House or administration party. 



Osborne, who was speaking when I entered, was origin- 

 ally a slave ; I afterwards had occasion to observe that he 

 talked more than any other man in the house, though I 

 did not perceive that he had any particular vocation as an 

 orator. He is not educated ; he is, however, rather illiter- 



