ke good their hold,
and Dominica has remained since undisturbed in British possession. Its
later history presents few features not common to the other British West
Indian islands.

Since 1872 Dominica has formed part of the colony of the Leeward
Islands, but local affairs are in the hands of an administrator, aided
by an executive council of ten members. In 1898 the local legislature,
in consideration of pecuniary assistance from Great Britain, passed an
act abrogating the semi-elective constitution and providing for a
legislative council of twelve nominated members, six of whom sit _ex
officio_.

DOMINICANS, otherwise called Friars Preachers, and in England Black
Friars, from the black mantle worn over a white habit, an order of
friars founded by St Dominic (q.v.). Their first house was in Toulouse,
where the bishop established them at the church of St Romain, 1215.
Dominic at once went to Rome to obtain permission to found an order of
preachers whose sphere of activity should be the whole world, but
Innocent III. said they must adopt one of the existing rules. Dominic
returned to Toulouse and it was resolved to take the Rule of St
Augustine, Dominic himself having been an Augustinian canon at Osma (see
AUGUSTINIAN CANONS). Dominic went again to Rome, and during the year
1216 he obtained from Honorius III. a series of confirmations of the
community at Toulouse as a congregation of Canons Regular of St
Augustine with a special mission to preach. Early in 1218 an encyclical
bull was issued to the bishops of the whole Catholic world recommending
to them the "Order of Friars Preachers," followed in 1221 by another
ordering them to give to the friars faculties to preach and hear
confessions in their dioceses. Already in 1217 Dominic had scattered the
little band of seventeen over the world--to Paris, into Spain, and one
he took with himself to Rome. Within a few months there were forty
friars in Rome, at Santa Sabina on the Aventine, and thirty in Paris;
and before Dominic's death in 1221 friaries had been established at
Lyons, Limoges, Reims, Metz, Poitiers and Orleans; at Bologna, Milan,
Florence, Verona, Piacenza and Venice; at Madrid, Palencia, Barcelona
and Seville; at Friesach in Carinthia; at Cracow and Prague; and friars
were on their way to Hungary and England.

The order took definite shape at the two general chapters held at
Bologna in 1220 and 1221. At first it had been but a congregation of
canons reg