y labour; and noting, too, the additional delay caused
through my unacquaintance with English publishing usages, I must,
notwithstanding, plead guilty to a lurking hope that some small
fraction of Mr. Froude's readers will yet be found, [21] whose interest
in the West Indies will be temporarily revived on behalf of this essay,
owing to its direct bearing on Mr. Froude and his statements relative
to these Islands, contained in his recent book of travels in them.
This I am led to hope will be more particularly the case when it is
borne in mind that the rejoinder has been attempted by a member of that
very same race which he has, with such eloquent recklessness of all
moral considerations, held up to public contempt and disfavour. In
short, I can scarcely permit myself to believe it possible that concern
regarding a popular author, on his being questioned by an adverse
critic of however restricted powers, can be so utterly dead within a
twelvemonth as to be incapable of rekindling. Mr. Froude's "Oceana,"
which had been published long before its author voyaged to the West
Indies, in order to treat the Queen's subjects there in the same more
than questionable fashion as that in which he had treated those of the
Southern Hemisphere, had what was in the main a formal rejoinder to its
misrepresentations published only three months ago in this city. I
venture to believe that no serious work in defence of an [22] important
cause or community can lose much, if anything, of its intrinsic value
through some delay in its issue; especially when written in the
vindication of Truth, whose eternal principles are beyond and above the
influence of time and its changes.

At any rate, this attempt to answer some of Mr. Froude's main
allegations against the people of the West Indies cannot fail to be of
grave importance and lively interest to the inhabitants of those
Colonies. In this opinion I am happy in being able to record the full
concurrence of a numerous and influential body of my fellow-West
Indians, men of various races, but united in detestation of falsehood
and injustice.

J.J.T.

LONDON, June, 1889.

BOOK I: INTRODUCTION

[27] Like the ancient hero, one of whose warlike equipments furnishes
the complementary title of his book, the author of "The English in the
West Indies; or, The Bow of Ulysses," sallied forth from his home to
study, if not cities, at least men (especially black men), and their
manners in the Briti