The general trade of the island is gradually and quietly passing into the hands of the colored people.  Before emancipation, they seldom reached a higher grade in mercantile life than a clerkship, or, if they commenced business for themselves, they were shackled and confined in their operations by the overgrown and monopolizing establishments which slavery had built up.  Though the civil and political rights of one class of them were acknowledged three years previous, yet they found they could not, even if they desired it, disconnect themselves from the slaves.  They could not transact business—­form credits and agencies, and receive the confidence of the commercial public—­like free men.  Strange or not, their fate was inseparably linked with that of the bondman, their interests were considered as involved with his.  However honest they might be, it was not safe to trust them; and any attempt to rise above a clerkship, to become the employer instead of the employed, was regarded as a kind of insurrection, and strongly disapproved and opposed.  Since emancipation, they have been unshackling them selves from white domination in matters of trade; extending their connections, and becoming every day more and more independent.  They have formed credits with commercial houses abroad, and now import directly for themselves, at wholesale prices, what they were formerly obliged to receive from white importers, or rather speculators, at such prices as they, in their tender mercies, saw fit to impose.

Trade is now equalizing itself among all classes.  A spirit of competition is awakened, banks have been established, steam navigation introduced, railroads projected, old highways repaired, and new ones opened.  The descendants of the slaves are rapidly supplying the places which were formerly filled by whites from abroad.

We had the pleasure of being present one day at the sitting of the police court of Kingston.  Mr. Jordon, the editor of the Watchman, in his turn as a member of the common council, was presiding justice, with an alderman of the city, a black man, as his associate.  At a table below them sat the superintendent of police, a white man, and two white attorneys, with their huge law books and green bags before them.  The bar was surrounded by a motley assemblage of black, colored, and white faces, intermingled without any regard to hue in the order of superiority and precedence.  There were about a dozen cases adjudged while we were present.  The court was conducted with order and dignity, and the justices were treated with great respect and deference both by white and black.