e restored."
Never in the history of the British West Indies--must we again
state--was there any law or usage establishing superiority in
privileges for any section of the community on account of colour. This
statement of fact is also and again an answer to, and refutation of,
the succeeding allegation [192] that, "While slavery continued, the
whites ruled effectively and economically." It will be yet more
clearly shown in a later part of this essay that during slavery, in
fact for upwards of two centuries after its introduction, the West
Indies were ruled by slave-owners, who happened to be of all colours,
the means of purchasing slaves and having a plantation being the one
exclusive consideration in the case. It is, therefore, contrary to
fact to represent the Whites exclusively as ruling, and the Blacks
indiscriminately as subject.

He goes on to say, "There are two classes in the community; their
interests are opposite as they are now understood." As regards the
above, Mr. Froude's attention may be called to the fact that
classification in no department of science has ever been based on
colour, but on relative affinity in certain salient qualities. To use
his own figure, no horse or dog is more or less a horse or dog because
it happens to be white or black. No teacher marshals his pupils into
classes according to any outward physical distinction, but according to
intellectual approximation. In like manner there has been wealth for
hundreds of men of Ethiopic origin, [193] and poverty for hundreds of
men of Caucasian origin, and the reverse in both cases. We have,
therefore, had hundreds of black as well as white men who, under
providential dispensation, belonged to the class, rich men; while, on
the other hand, we have had hundreds of white men who, under
providential dispensation, belonged to the class, poor men. Similarly,
in the composition of a free mixed community, we have hundreds of both
races belonging to the class, competent and eligible; and hundreds of
both races belonging to the class, incompetent and ineligible: to both
of which classes all possible colours might belong. It is from the
first mentioned that are selected those who are to bear the rule, to
which the latter class is, in the very nature of things, bound to be
subject. There is no government by reason merely of skins. The
diversity of individual intelligence and circumstances is large enough
to embrace the possibility of even chi