CHAP. I.] WEST INDIES. 183 
That such was the first intention in the forma¬ 
tion of all or most of the king’s governments in the 
plantations, (imperfect as the system confessedly is, 
from the instability of the council), appears from the 
instance of Barbadoes, where this arrangement still 
exists; the governor and council, in matters of le¬ 
gislation, constituting, not two separate and dis¬ 
tinct bodies, independent of each other, but one 
constituent branch only, sitting and deliberating to¬ 
gether.—And such too, for some years, was the prac¬ 
tice of Jamaica, and I believe of all or most of the 
rest of the royal governments; but as it sometimes 
became necessary to reject popular bills, the gover¬ 
nor, to divert the displeasure of the assembly from 
himself to the council, declined by degrees attend¬ 
ing on such occasions; leaving it with the board to 
settle matters with the assembly as they could, 
without his interference. The council concurred, 
readily enough, in the governor’s views, because 
his absence, removing a restraint, gave them the 
semblance of a distinct independent estate; and the 
crown, perceiving the utility and advantage of the 
measure, confirmed and established the practice, by 
degrees, in most of the royal governments through¬ 
out the British plantations. If the people’s repre¬ 
sentatives had considered this exclusive interposi¬ 
tion of the council as an innovation, then was their 
time to have opposed it; but it has not appeared 
to me that the assembly of any one colony, at any 
one period, denied a right in the council to negative 
bills in the first instance, without the governor’s con¬ 
sent or participation. Now the right in the council 
