170
HIGHER CLASSES.
ference of rank, but, in their obtruded remarks, forget their plebeian origin. This is more apparent in their behaviour to the higher classes of their own colour, whom they approach with the utmost familiarity, and unless they are speedily and properly discountenanced, prove as troublesome as the impertinent little gad-flies do to a quiet herd of cattle, when standing musing in some marshy pool.* The higher class of coloured persons, which embraces a large portion of the community, I have already slightly glanced at ; but still my work would indeed be incomplete did I not more fully endeavour to portray their worth and superiority. These are men, who, if not educated in England, have received the best instruction the West Indies could afford, aided by their own strenuous endeavours for information. Hospitable in the highest degree, with a hand ever Open to grasp in friendship that of the strangers whom fate or the winds may lead to their pretty little island ; living in an easy elegance of style—the possessors of warm and generous thoughts—the doers of high and noble actions— patriots in the full sense of the term, their services ever at the command of their country ; of agreeable conversation and polished manners ; these are the characteristics of many of our Antiguan coloured gentlemen. Their wives and daughters are, in several instances, as unexceptionable as themselves, and perform their social duties in the same pleasing manner. Within the last few years, the young people have been more generally educated in England, and many of them exhibit superior talents, and have attained to no mean proficiency in the fine arts. Their manners, too, are, with but few exceptions, very graceful ; their voices soft and mellifluous ; * A great portion of this class of persons are the offspring of those illicit alliances already alluded to in the times of slavery, and who did not receive their freedom until after the general emancipation in 1834, or within a short time previous to that event, when they became so depreciated in value, that their owners were satisfied to dispose of them at a trifling remuneration.