ital, yet His Excellency was the very man who, in
the very next year, 1884, not only sanctioned the shooting down of
Indian immigrants at their festival, but actually directed the use of
buck-shot for that purpose! Evidently, if these two foregoing
statements are true, Mr. Froude must join us in thinking that a man
whose mind could be warped by external influences from the softest
commiseration for the sufferings of his kind, one year, into being the
cold-blooded deviser of the readiest method for slaughtering unarmed
holiday-makers, the very next year, is not the kind of ruler whom he
and we so cordially desiderate. We have already mentioned above how
ignominious Governor Freeling's failure was in attempting to meddle
with the colossal abuses of the Public Works Department.

Sir Arthur Elibank Havelock next had the privilege of enjoying the
paradisaic sojourn at Queen's House, St. Ann's, as well as the four
thousand pounds a year attached to the [71] right of occupying that
princely residence. Save as a dandy, however, and the harrier of
subordinate officials, the writer of the annals of Trinidad may well
pass him by. So then it may be seen what, by mere freaks of
Chance--the ruling deity at Downing Street--the administrative
experience of Trinidad had been from the departure of that true king in
Israel,--Sir Arthur Gordon, up to the visit of Mr. Froude. First, a
slave to red-tape, procrastination, and the caprices of pretentious
colonialists; next, a daring schemer, confident of the support of the
then dominant Sugar Interest, and regarding and treating the resources
of the Island as free booty for his friends, sycophants, and
favourites; then, an old woman, garbed in male attire, having an
infirmity of purpose only too prone to be blown about by every wind of
doctrine, alternating helplessly between tenderness and truculence, the
charity of a Fry and the tragic atrocity of Medea. After this dismal
ruler, Trinidad, by the grace of the Colonial Office, was subjected to
the manipulation of an unctuous dandy. This successor of Gordon, of
Elliot, and of Cairns, durst not oppose high-placed official
malfeasants, but [72] was inexorable with regard to minor delinquents.
In the above retrospect we have purposely omitted mentioning such
transient rulers as Mr. Rennie, Sir G. W. Des Voeux, and last, but by
no means least, Sir F. Barlee, a high-minded Governor, whom death so
suddenly and inscrutably snatched away from the