urnal examination, a vol d'oiseau, he has
written paragraph upon paragraph about the people's character [49] and
prospects in the island of Grenada. To read the patronizing terms in
which our historian-traveller has seen fit to comment on Grenada and
its people, one would believe that his account is of some
half-civilized, out-of-the-way region under British sway, and inhabited
chiefly by a horde of semi-barbarian ignoramuses of African descent.
If the world had not by this time thoroughly assessed the intrinsic
value of Mr. Froude's utterances, one who knows Grenada might have felt
inclined to resent his causeless depreciation of the intellectual
capacity of its inhabitants; but considering the estimate which has
been pretty generally formed of his historical judgment, Mr. Froude may
be dismissed, as regards Grenada and its people, with a certain degree
of scepticism. Such scepticism, though lost upon himself, is
unquestionably needful to protect his readers from the hallucination
which the author's singular contempt for accuracy is but too liable to
induce.

Those who know Grenada and its affairs are perfectly familiar with the
fact that all of its chief intellectual business, whether official
(even in the highest degree, such as temporary [50] administration of
the government), legal, commercial, municipal, educational, or
journalistic, has been for years upon years carried on by men of
colour. And what, as a consequence of this fact, has the world ever
heard in disparagement of Grenada throughout this long series of years?
Assuredly not a syllable. On the contrary, she has been the theme of
praise, not only for the admirable foresight with which she avoided the
sugar crisis, so disastrous to her sister islands, but also for the
pluck and persistence shown in sustaining herself through an
agricultural emergency brought about by commercial reverses, whereby
the steady march of her sons in self-advancement was only checked for a
time, but never definitively arrested. In fine, as regards every
branch of civilized employment pursued there, the good people of
Grenada hold their own so well and worthily that any show of patronage,
even from a source more entitled to confidence, would simply be a piece
of obtrusive kindness, not acceptable to any, seeing that it is
required by none.

BOOK II: TRINIDAD / TRINIDAD AND REFORM+

[53] Mr. Froude, crossing the ninety miles of the Caribbean Sea lying
between Grenada a