Unfortunately
for Mr. Froude, we can point him to page 56 of this his very book,
where, speaking of Grenada and deprecating the notion of its official
abandonment, our author says:--

"Otherwise they [Negroes] were quiet fellows, and if the politicians
would only let them alone, they would be perfectly contented, and might
eventually, if wisely managed, come to some good.... Black the island
was, and black it would remain. The conditions were never likely to
arise which would bring back a European population; but a governor who
was a sensible man, who would reside and use his natural influence,
could manage it with perfect ease."

Here, then, we see that the governor of an entirely black population
may be a sensible man, and yet hold the post. Our author, indeed,
gives the Blacks over whom this sensible governor would hold rule as
being in number [184] just 40,000 souls; and we are therefore bound to
accept the implied suggestion that the dishonour of holding supremacy
over persons of the odious colour begins just as their number begins to
count onward from 40,000! There is quite enough in the above verbal
vagaries of our philosopher to provoke a volume of comment. But we
must pass on to further clauses of this precious paragraph. Mr.
Froude's talent for eating his own words never had a more striking
illustration than here, in his denial of the utility of native
experience as the safest guide a governor could have in the
administration of Colonial affairs. At page 91 he says:--"Among the
public servants of Great Britain there are persons always to be found
fit and willing for posts of honour and difficulty, if a sincere effort
be made to find them."

A post of honour and difficulty, we and all other persons in the
British dominions had all along understood was regarded as such in the
case of functionaries called upon to contend with adverse forces in the
accomplishment of great ends conceived by their superiors. But we find
that, according to Mr. Froude, all the credit that has hitherto
redounded to those [185] who had succeeded in such tasks has been in
reality nothing more than a gilding over of disgrace, whenever the
exertions of such officials had been put forth amongst persons not
wearing a European epidermis. The extension of British influence and
dominion over regions inhabited by races not white is therefore, on the
part of those who promote it, a perverse opening of arenas for the
humiliation and di