intentions. The more educated and intelligent of the brown party
listen with disapprobation to the tone in which the Baptist ministers
and their adherents arrogate to themselves exclusively the title of
friends and leaders of the black population. Many persons of this
class have already embarked in public life; some, as members of
Assembly, have taken part in those transactions which are the object
of the bitterest denunciations of the Anti-Church party. A few are
Churchmen, others Wesleyans. The prospect of a Baptist oligarchy
ruling in undivided sway disquiets them. They have their doubts as to
whether, in the present stage of our civilisation, the peasantry of
this Island would evince much discrimination in their selection of a
religion if left in that matter entirely to themselves. In the
chequered array of colours which our religious world even now
presents, comprising every shade, from Roman Catholicism and Judaism,
to Myalism, and providing spiritual gratification for every eye, they
still think it, on the whole, desirable that predominance should be
given to some one over the rest. Many have experienced the bounty of
the legislature, which has been most liberal in affording aid to all
sects who have applied for it. They are not, therefore, as yet ready
for the overthrow of the Church Establishment. But I will not take
upon myself to affirm that, as a body, they are prepared to incur
political martyrdom in its defence.

But apart from the difficulties--social, moral, and religious--at which we
have glanced, there was enough in the political aspect of affairs to fill
the Governor of Jamaica with anxiety. The franchise being within the reach
of every one who chose to stretch out a hand and grasp it, might at any
time be claimed by vast numbers of persons who had recently been slaves,
and were still generally illiterate. And the Assembly for which this
constituency had to provide members exercised great authority within its