114 TlMEHRI. 
African of pure blood/ reflects as to the Chief Justice's 
chances, had he been a citizen of Hayti or Dahomey. 
It would hardly suit Mr. FROUDE'S book to recognise that 
Mr. REEVES had risen to eminence as a politician 
rather than as a lawyer. In such a case, there would be 
the inconvenient admission of political capacity in the 
people of colour. What are the facts, however ? Some 
years ago some political pick-pockets attempted to steal 
from the Barbadians their old, and cherished constitution. 
The whites, and the coloured people, strenuously resisted. 
Mr. Reeves, then Solicitor General, resigned his office, 
joined the opposition and became its leader. The Islan- 
ders gained the day. In gratitude to Mr. REEVES, they 
made him a handsome present, and, not thinking that 
sufficient, they wanted him to be their Chief Justice, when 
this appointment became vacant. Desiring to gratify 
the Colonists, the Secretary of State of the day appointed 
Mr. REEVES to be Chief Justice of Barbados. It is not 
in Mr. REEVES that Mr. Froude has found a phenomenon. 
It was the conduct of the whites of Barbados that was 
phenomenal. The fact is that, able lawyer as Mr. 
REEVES undoubtedly is, he had not been Chief Justice 
of his Colony to-day but for the political crisis of 1876, 
on the top of which he rose, and has since further risen in 
the esteem of his fellow-colonists. But, here again, 
Mr. REEVES was only a representative man, and not a 
phenomenon. The coloured people of Barbados, of 
intelligence and of property, were, almost to a man, on 
the same side as the whites in 1876. Mr. REEVES would 
himself be but a mean-spirited churl if he did not recog- 
nise and assert that there were many other able and 
honourable men of colour in the West Indies. His own 
