try was still looked upon as a stepmother, and of genuine loyalty
there was, according to him, little or nothing. If the West Indies were
ever to become prosperous again, it could only be when they were annexed
to the United States. For the present, at least, he admitted that
annexation was impossible. Not on account of any possible objection on
the part of the British Government; for it seems to be assumed by every
one that the British Government cares nothing what they do; nor wholly
on account of the objections of the Americans, though he admitted that
the Americans were unwilling to receive them; but because in the
existing state of feeling such a change could not be carried out without
civil war. In Jamaica, at least, the blacks and mulattoes would resist.
There were nearly 700,000 of them, while of the whites there were but
15,000, and the relative numbers were every year becoming more
unfavourable. The blacks knew that under England they had nothing to
fear. They would have everything more and more their own way, and in a
short time they expected to have the island to themselves. They might
collect arms; they might do what they pleased, and no English officer
dared to use rough measures with them; while, if they belonged to the
Union, the whites would recover authority one way or another. The
Americans were ready with their rifles on occasions of disorder, and
their own countrymen did not call them to account for it as we did. The
blacks, therefore, preferred the liberty which they had and the
prospects to which they looked forward, and they and the mulattoes also
would fight, and fight desperately, before they would allow themselves
to be made American citizens.

The prospect which Mr. ---- laid before me was not a beautiful one, and
was coming a step nearer at each advance that was made in the direction
of constitutional self-government; for, like every other person with
whom I spoke on the subject, he said emphatically that Europeans would
not remain to be ruled under a black representative system; nor would
they take any part in it when they would be so overwhelmingly outvoted
and outnumbered. They would sooner forfeit all that they had in the
world and go away. An effective and economical administration on the
Indian pattern might have saved all a few years ago. It was too late
now, and Jamaica was past recovery. At this rate it was a sadly altered
Jamaica since Tom Cringle's time, though his friend Aaron eve