After the adjournment of the court, we had some conversation with the presiding justice.  He informed us that whites were not unfrequently brought before him for trial, and, in spite of his color, sometimes even our own countrymen.  He mentioned several instances of the latter, in some of which American prejudice assumed very amusing and ludicrous forms.  In one case, he was obliged to threaten the party, a captain from one of our southern ports, with imprisonment for contempt, before he could induce him to behave himself with proper decorum.  The captain, unaccustomed to obey injunctions from men of such a complexion, curled his lip in scorn, and showed a spirit of defiance, but on the approach of two police officers, whom the court had ordered to arrest him, he submitted himself.  We were gratified with the spirit of good humor and pleasantry with which Mr. J. described the astonishment and gaping curiosity which Americans manifest on seeing colored men in offices of authority, particularly on the judicial bench, and their evident embarrassment and uneasiness whenever obliged to transact business with them as magistrates.  He seemed to regard it as a subject well worthy of ridicule; and we remarked, in our intercourse with the colored people, that they were generally more disposed to make themselves merry with American sensitiveness on this point, than to bring serious complaints against it, though they feel deeply the wrongs which they have suffered from it, and speak of them occasionally with solemnity and earnestness.  Still the feeling is so absurd and ludicrous in itself, and is exhibited in so many grotesque positions, even when oppressive, that the sufferer cannot help laughing at it.  Mr. Jordon has held his present office since 1832.  He has had an extensive opportunity, both as a justice of the police court, and as a member of the jail committee, and in other official stations, to become well acquainted with the state of crime in the island at different periods.  He informed us that the number of complaints brought before him had much diminished since 1834, and he had no hesitation in saying, that crime had decreased throughout the island generally more than one third.

During one of our excursions into the country, we witnessed another instance of the amicability with which the different colors associated in the civil affairs of the island.  It was a meeting of one of the parish vestries, a kind of local legislature, which possesses considerable power over its own territory.  There were fifteen members present, and nearly as many different shades of complexion.  There was the planter of aristocratic blood, and at his side was a deep mulatto, born in the same parish a slave.  There was the quadroon, and the unmitigated hue and unmodified features of the negro.  They sat together around a circular table, and conversed as freely as though they had been all of one color.  There was no restraint, no uneasiness, as though the parties felt themselves out of place, no assumption nor disrespect, but all the proceedings manifested the most perfect harmony, confidence, and good feeling.