188
JAMAICA.
alphabet class, which is a very numerous one. The proficiency of the children is below the average except in writing, in which they excelled. We had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of CHARLES HARVEY, of Spanish Town, one of the few members of the legal profession, who will undertake the causes of oppressed negros. He has largely sacri ficed his interests at the shrine of principle. We again attended a sitting of the House of Assem bly, and heard during the debate one of those violent attacks on Lord SLIGO, in which certain members of this notorious House, arc accustomed to indulge. The Marquis was described as the calamity of Jamaica, and threatened with impeachment. One of the members told us, that the annual militia bill was about to be intro duced, which he intended to oppose, though in a House composed of Colonels and Generals, he feared with little chance of success. The militia, he observed, was for merly necessary on account of the insecurity of slave property ; now it is not only useless, but burdensome, and discourages persons from settling in the colonies. Throughout the islands, every free man of suitable age, is compelled to serve in this mock military force, ex cept that a property qualification has been recently in troduced to exclude the emancipated classes. In the evening, we proceeded some distance into the interior. At the Rectory Tavern, in St. Thomas in the Vale, where we staid for the night, we unexpectedly met R. S. COOPER, S . M . to whom we had an intro duction. He had just received a challenge to fight a duel from a planter in the district, because he had yes terday refused to punish an apprentice, whom the for mer accused of striking his child, a charge which was not sustained by the evidence. We subsequently learn-