10 OCTOBER 1835, Page 2

Intelligence of a disagreeable complexion has been received from Jamaica.

The Marquis of SLIGO was offended by the address of the House of Assembly in reply to his speech on opening the session, and dissolved the Colonial Parliament on the 10th of August. It will be recollected that his Lordship bad expressed satisfaction at the general working of the Emancipation Act, and the willingness with which the apprentices had laboured in get- ting in the sugar crop, so as to prevent any material deficiency in that crop. He also recommended several measures to the imme- diate attention of the Assembly, and said that he had delayed its meeting as long as he could do so with propriety and safety to the interests of the colony. We give a few passages from the address of the Assembly, in order to show the kind of spirit pre- valent among its members.

" As your Excellency has considered it impossible further to delay the calling together of the Legislature, we acknowledge the expediency of postponing our meeting to the latest moment. This being the season hitherto devoted to our private affairs, we are willing to submit to any personal inconvenience, when- ever the public good may require the sacrifice. " We admit the absolute necessity of maintaining an efficient police ; but as the present act does not expire till the end of the yeas, we think the considera- tion of.tiast subject may be deferred until the amedatecting, without any im- mediate iillury to the public interest. Yeurifsrawiiksiry may rely, when that period arrives, that we shall give the subject' thew ememleration which is de- manded by a measure on which the continuatina et cultivation and the tran- quillity of the country depend. " We do not perceive the expediency of a Legislative union of the Cansaynaa with Jamaica. It is no fault of ours that the two classes of his Majesty's sub- jects resident there have been placed in their present relative position towards each other. Having always protested against external interference with our own legislation, we are not disposed to interfere with that of others, and must therefore leave those who have occasioned the absence of a legally constituted Government at the Camaynas, to organize the elements of society in that de- pendency of his Majesty. " Your Excellency's right of access to the correspondence between the Com- missioners here and the island Agent in England, is defined and limited by laws and it belongs to the Commissioners appointed by the law to interpret its pro- visions. When the Act comes again under the consideration of the Legisla- ture, the House will perform its duty in making the law so clear as not to be misunderstood.

" As guardians of the public purse, we have ever, to the utmost extent of the resources of the colony, most liberally contributed to the support of the Govern- meat ; but we will freely say to your Excellency, that we consider the solemn engagement which we came under in former times, and in a different state of society, for the support of a limited military garrison, to have been annulled along with the far more solemn engagements of.the English Government, under which our property in slaves was acquired, and to protect which we agreed to aid in paying the troops."

They utterly deny that the apprentices have generally worked well under the new system-

" On all estates not strongly handed, it is a notorious fact, that, from the limited time of labour and slow working of the people, the whole strength of the plantations had been employed during the last six or seven months in taking off the canes upon the ground, without being able to do any thing whatever to their fields, in preparing for next crop, by putting in plants, or cleaning either canes or pastures. It is quite unnecessary to say what must be the ruinous effect of this neglect of cultivation upon the next and every succeeding crop.

" As every cane cut for the crop just finished was planted under the old system, the result cannot of course be taken as a criterion of the working of the apprenticeship system. When more perfect returns shall have been obtained, the deficiensy of the present crop, as compared with that of former years, will be correctly ascertained; and we apprehend, will be found greater than that anticipated by your Excellency.

" Your Excellency ascribes this deficiency to the weather; but in reality never was there a finer season, or a more promising appearance of canes,—which your Excellency has acknowledged, in stating to the Colonial Secretary in your despatch of the 13th of December last, ' that the crop was never better in ap- pearance than this year, and therefore, if there is any little deficiency in the Negroes' work this crop, it will, I hope, be made up by the extra quantity which the ground produces this year.' We are sorry to say it has not been made up; the crop is greatly deficient ; and many British ships have, in consequence, re- turned to England with half cargoes, and some with none at all."

They complain of the conduct of the Stipendiary Magistrates; and conclude with saying-

" We deeply regret our inability to join in the favourable anticipations en- tertained by your Excellency of the success of the new system. Knowing, as we do, the prevailing reluctance evinced by the people to labour, the thefts, ne- gligences, and outrages of every description that are becoming of such fre- quent occurrence—seeing large portions of our neglected cane-fields overrun with weeds, and a still larger extent of our pasture lands returning to a state of nature—seeing, in fact, desolation already overspreatling the very face of the land, it is impossible for us, without abandoning the evidence of our own senses, to entertain favourable anticipations, or to divest ourselves of the painful Conviction, that the progressive and rapid deterioration of property will conti- nue to keep pace with the apprenticeship, and that the termination thereof must (unless strong preventive measures are applied) complete the ruin of the colony."

Lord SLIGO took little pains to conceal his anger whilst the Speaker of the Assembly was reading this address ; and as soon as it was finished, he said-

" Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Assembly—The unusual style of your addr, as prevents my doing more on the present occasion than simply to acknowledge its delivery."

The members had scarcely time to resume their seats in their own House, and the brief reply of the Governor had actually not been read, before they were summoned by the Provost Marshal General, who waived the usual ceremony of introduction, to at- tend his Excellency again. Lord SLIGO immediately dissolved the Assembly in the following speech-

" Gentlemen of the Council, Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the House of Assembly—The address which has this day been presented to me by the House of Assembly being of such a nature as to render it impossible for me to give it any reply, I have considered it necessary to call you together to inform you of the determination at which, in consequence, I have most reluctantly been forced to arrive. " The very offensive and uncalled-for tone which pervades the whole of the address, one so totally deficient in the respect due to the representative of the ' Sovereign renders it imperative on me to withhold all further communications with this Assembly. The positive refusal by the members of that branch of the Legislature to entertain at this period measures for the consideration of which they had been specially Limn aim!, withmt even having waited to'receive the information and documents which I had promised to lay before them, and without which it is impossible that they could arrive at a correct conclusion, compels me to withdraw from them the confidence I otherwise must have felt in their decisions. This hasty "ejection, on grounds so insufficient, of measures of such vital importance to are wellbeing and tranquillity of the island, has compelled me to come to the resolution of sending the members back to their constituents, in order that another body may be selected for carrying on the public business.

" It is my opinion that the interests they wera sent to protect would have been best consulted by a calm and anxious deliberation of the measures I pro- posed to them ; and if, after a temperate consideration, it had been found expe- dient to amend or reject them, such decision would have been entitled to the weight and respect due to a legislative body. " Such a course, however, not having been pursued, it is my duty to let it be clearly understood, that on the House of Assembly rests the whole respon- sibility of the consequences which may ensue, and that to their conduct must be attributed any resolution which the British Government may be compelled to adopt.

" I do now, in his Majesty's name, &poke this General Assembly ; and it i

hereby dissolved accordingly." •

This seems rather a hasty proceeding. In mitigation of the indecorous tone of the Assembly, it should be stated, theist the time when Lord Sem° opened the session, the anima return of exports had not been completed; and that it now appt ars the ex- ports of sugar in the year ending 1st August 1835 are less than those of 1834 by 205,923 hundredweights, that the deficiency of rum is 529,262 gallons, and of coffee 7,369,985 pounds. It is rather irritating to be told, under such circumstances, that all is going on as prosperously as can be expected.