the Crown is powerless and must remain
powerless, and therefore we are as we are, and our national existence is
made the shuttlecock of party contention.

Time passed so pleasantly with me in these concluding days that I could
have wished it to be the nothing which metaphysicians say that it is,
and that when one was happy it would leave one alone. We wandered in the
shade in the mornings, we made expeditions in the evenings, called at
friends' houses, and listened to the gossip of the island. It turned
usually on the one absorbing subject--black servants and the difficulty
of dealing with them. An American lady from Pennsylvania declared
emphatically as her opinion that emancipation had been a piece of folly,
and that things would never mend till they were slaves again.

One of my own chief hopes in going originally to Jamaica had been to see
and learn the views of the distinguished Governor there. Sir Henry
Norman had been one of the most eminent of the soldier civilians in
India. He had brought with him a brilliant reputation; he had won the
confidence in the West Indies of all classes and all colours. He, if
anyone, would understand the problem, and from the high vantage ground
of experience would know what could or could not be done to restore the
influence of England and the prosperity of the colonies. Unfortunately,
Sir Henry had been called to London, as I mentioned before, on a
question of the conduct of some official, and I was afraid that I should
miss him altogether. He returned, however, the day before I was to sail.
He was kind enough to ask me to spend an evening with him, and I was
again on my last night a guest at King's House.

A dinner party offers small opportunity for serious conversation, nor,
indeed, could I expect a great person in Sir Henry's position to enter
upon subjects of consequence with a stranger like myself. I could see,
however, that I had nothing to correct in the impression of his
character which his reputation had led me to form about him, and I
wished more than ever that the system of government of which he had been
so admirable a servant in India could be applied to his present
position, and that he or such as he could have the administration of it.
We had common friends in the Indian service to talk about; one
especially, Reynell Taylor, now dead, who had been the earliest of my
boy companions. Taylor had been one of the handful of English who held
the Punjaub in the first revo