ole, only a constitutionally timid man,
Governor Irving threw [64] himself heart and soul into the arms of the
Sugar Interest, by whom he had been helped into his high office, and
whose belief he evidently shared, that sugar-growers alone should be
possessors of the lands of the West Indies. It would be wearisome to
detail the methods by which every act of Sir Arthur Gordon's to benefit
the whole population was cynically and systematically undone by this
his native-hating successor. In short, the policy of reaction which
Sir James Longden began, found in Governor Irving not only a consistent
promoter, but, as it were, a sinister incarnation. It is true that he
could not, at the bidding and on the advice of his planter-friends,
shut up the Crown Lands of the Colony against purchasers of limited
means, because they happened to be mostly natives of colour, but he
could annul the provision by which every Warden in the rural districts,
on the receipt of the statutory fees, had to supply a Government title
on the spot to every one who purchased any acreage of Crown Lands.
Every intending purchaser, therefore, whether living at Toco,
Guayaguayare, Monos, or Icacos, the four extreme points of the Island
of Trinidad, was compelled to go to Port of [65] Spain, forty or fifty
miles distant, through an almost roadless country, to compete at the
Sub-Intendant's auction sales, with every probability of being outbid
in the end, and having his long-deposited money returned to him after
all his pains. Lieutenant-Governor Des Voeux told the Legislature of
Trinidad that the monstrous Excise imposts of the Colony were an
incentive to smuggling, and he thought that the duties, licenses, &c.,
should be lowered in the interest of good and equitable government.
Sir Henry Turner Irving, however, besides raising the duties on
spirituous liquors, also enacted that every distillery, however small,
must pay a salary to a Government official stationed within it to
supervise the manufacture of the spirits. This, of course, was the
death-blow to all the minor competition which had so long been
disturbing the peace of mind of the mighty possessors of the great
distilleries. Ahab was thus made glad with the vineyard of Naboth.

In the matter of official appointments, too, Governor Irving was
consistent in his ostentatious hostility to Creoles in general, and to
coloured Creoles in particular. Of the fifty-six appointments which
that model Governor [