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NAVAL AND MILITARY FORCES.

nard, Mayo Short, and Henry Roberts, Esq., are especially efficient. A thorough reform of the magistracy is, however, imperatively required. So powerfully does prejudice still continue to operate against the poorer classes, so little effect has a change of circumstances effected in the dispositions of the local authorities, and so far is justice removed beyond the reach of the pecuniary means of the great mass of the people, that, with a very few exceptions, it may be said to be entirely denied them.

Each parish has a Custos Rotulorum, answering to the office of Lord Lieutenant of a county in England. He is designated Honourable, and has the custody of the parochial records. The affairs of each parish are managed by a vestry, over which the Custos presides. The vestry consists of the rector, churchwarden, and ten vestrymen. It has the prerogatives of assessing and appropriating local taxes; appointing waywardens for superintending the repair of public roads; and also of choosing the different parochial officers. Each parish has also its coroner and clerk of the peace, the duties and powers of which correspond with those of similar offices in England.

The business connected with forts and fortifications, of public works, and of public accounts, is managed by commissioners of which the council and assembly are members ex officio.

Port Royal Harbour is the rendezvous of the navy. In time of peace it consists of only one or two frigates and several smaller vessels, which are cruizing on the station. Here also are the store-houses, the dock-yard, and the necessary conveniences for careening ships.

REVENUE AND TAXES.

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The military force, including 200 artillery-men, is about 3000, comprising four European regiments of the line, and one of Africans from the west coast of Africa. The colonial militia lately numbered from 16,000 to 18,000 men at arms, comprising 20 troops of horse and 23 of infantry, with two field-pieces and a company of artillery to each regiment. The headquarters for the regiments of the line are Spanish Town, Kingston, and Maroon Town, in Trelawny. The principal fortifications are, Fort Charles on the east end of Port Royal, and the battery of the Twelve Apostles; and Fort Augusta, at the entrance of Port Royal and Kingston Harbours.

The annual revenue of Jamaica, including the local taxes of the different counties, and parish vestries, is estimated at 600,0007. It sustains its own government, and its ecclesiastical, naval and military establishments (the salaries of the bishop and archdeacon excepted), besides yielding an annual revenue to the Crown of 10,0007.

The taxes are numerous, and oppressive to the public generally, but especially to the small freeholders: the principal of them are the land-tax, the stamp-tax, a tax of 20s. on wheel-carriages not used in agriculture or for the conveyance of goods, a house-tax of 12 per cent. on the amount of rent, a tax on horses, mules, and horned stock; and a road-tax, recently enacted, which levies one dollar, or 4s. 1d., per annum on each male person from sixteen years of age to sixty. As they have been raised with little regard to justice and the pecuniary ability of the public, so have they

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OPPRESSIVE TAXATION.

been squandered with the most reckless extravagance. Thus, in addition to the 80,000l. absorbed by the national church, the cost of the police establishment amounts to 56,4007. per annum, and that of the immigration scheme, to not less than 30,0007. per annum.

From the report of the committee, showing the ways and means, the income of the island for 1842 was estimated at 427,000l., and the expenditure 363,0007., leaving an apparent overplus of 60,000l., thus, as was said officially by one of the members of the legislature, obviating the necessity that was supposed to exist for an income-tax.

The following extract from a letter lately received from a missionary in Jamaica, dated May 23, 1843, abundantly confirms the statements contained in this chapter :

"Our taxes are abominably high. The capitation tax of 4s. per head is felt as a burden, under which the people complain. A poor black man is charged his full amount of tax, sometimes more; is often refused the discount, though he pays within the specified time; is charged 1s. or 1s. 6d. for filling up the vestry form, and some of the magistrates demand 1s. 7d. for administering the required oath or receiving the necessary declaration; and now, by a most wily and unjust law, a man whose freehold is not worth 107. per year is exempted from militia duty, and exempted also from a vote; so that every voter is liable to serve in the militia, and then the smallest privilege is not to be enjoyed by our peasantry unless they purchase it at about 100 per cent. above its real value."

COMMERCE.

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CHAPTER VIII.

COMMERCE.

SHIPPING; Imports and Exports-Monetary System : Coins, Amount of Property, aggregate Value of Property.

FROM the transition which society has lately undergone, it was natural to expect that in the cultivation of the staple product of the country some temporary disadvantages would be experienced. It is, however, gratifying to find, as was confidently predicted by the friends of freedom, that they have been but temporary, as it is stated, on the authority of the authenticated table of exports for the year 1842, (see next page) that the exports exceed those of 1841 by 13,221 hogsheads of sugar, 3850 puncheons of rum, and 1233 tierces of coffee.

This statement is thus noticed and confirmed by the Editor of the Morning Journal in Dec. 1842 :

"We have been favoured with a view of the statements of exports from this island during the present year, and have been delighted at perceiving the increase which has taken place over those of 1841. The statement is incomplete, not including the exports from Port Maria, Lucea, and Savanna-la-mar. Notwithstanding these omissions, it appears that 13,221 hogsheads of sugar, 3850 puncheons of rum, 1233 tierces of coffee, have been shipped in 1842 over and above the shipments of the previous year. Our British as well as Jamaica readers will be gratified at the increased production of our staples, which this statement shows, and