neration from the sources which once constituted the prosperity of
those now impoverished and oppressed possessions? The above observations
do not apply exclusively to Trinidad, but to the whole of the islands,
which scarcely differ in degree in the causes of ruin which seem
irremediable by any authority except the legislature of the parent
State. I am persuaded that the chief of the Colonial Department at home
would endeavour to counteract the causes of widely-spread and increasing
ruin, were he in possession of correct information; but popular
representations of grievances, often embodying misapprehensions as to
their true origin, and accompanied by suggestions of impracticable
remedies, are denied or disputed in counterstatements by interested
officials, so that the Colonial Minister is bewildered, and can form no
correct judgment from such conflicting statements. I hold it to be
impossible that the monstrous absurdities and violations of every
principle of good government which exist throughout these western
colonies could be tolerated an instant, were their consequences known
and believed by those in power, or were they laid before the British
public by any person on whose judgment and opinion they could rely. Can
it be credited that even in the island of Trinidad, not only multitudes
of valuable properties are brought to sale from the inability of their
owners to pay the fiscal demands, but that properties are consigned to
the Government auctioneer even for so small an assessment as
three-fourths of a dollar? This is, nevertheless, the fact. The
emancipation of the slaves was a glorious act, but the rescue of these
noble possessions from ruin, and the restoration of prosperity to an
integral part of the empire, would redound to the honour of any one who
would successfully advocate the cause of reason and justice, not only on
the principles of equity, but with the less noble view of gain to the
parent State, as it is certain that the consumption of British
manufactured articles has fallen off in these colonies to an extent
which has not been counterbalanced by the increase of exports
anticipated from the questionable policy of concession to Brazil, in
which I have reason to believe the supply of articles required for the
slave trade constitutes a large proportion."

Reflections of that sort occurred to Lord Dundonald again and again, as,
passing round from Trinidad, he visited all the principal British West
India I