Besides these, there is hardly a respectable house among the white merchants, in which some important office, oftentimes the head clerkship, is not filled by a person of color.

They are as much respected in business transactions, and their mercantile talents, their acquaintance with the generalities and details of commerce, and sagacity and judgment in making bargains, are as highly esteemed by the white merchants, as though they wore an European hue.
The commercial room is open to them, where they resort unrestrainedly to ascertain the news; and a visitor may not unfrequently see sitting together at a table of newspapers, or conversing together in the parlance of trade, persons as dissimilar in complexion as white and black can make them.

In the streets the same intercourse is seen.
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.