506 HISTORY 



gave such promise of improved service that a termination of the prevailing 

 irregularities seemed almost in view. The change was accomplished within 

 three months after the arrival at Nassau of Colonel Colebrooke.'"^ The As- 

 sembly authorized the Lieutenant-Governor with the consent of his Council to 

 divert the funds, that had been applied to the local magistracies, to the support 

 of the circuits under the new system/"" The salaries of the local justices were 

 discontinued in April, 1835.""° In June, 1835, the Secretai-y of State for the 

 Colonies sent out an instruction, to the effect that the commissions of all 

 magistrates who were pecuniarily interested in apprenticed labor should be 

 revoked, and that the number of those who had been habitually resident in the 

 colonial society should be reduced as low as was consistent with the 

 due execution of tlie law, stating that it was inconsistent with the intentions of 

 Parliament that the powers of a special justice should long continue to be 

 exercised by any such person.""** Before December, 1835, eighteen of these 

 justices had resigned, or had been removed, fifteen of whom seemed to have been 

 removed under the order of the circular referred to.^" The Lieutenant-Governor 

 ordered the ordinary justices of the peace to make certain visits in their dis- 

 tricts and to quell disorders, though without power to enforce the abolition 

 laws."" The Secretary of State was unable in the fall of 1835 to obtain from 

 Parliament a grant for an additional number of magistrates for the Bahamas, 

 but he authorized the Marquis of Sligo at Jamaica to transfer one special 

 justice from that Colony to the Bahamas as soon as the service there would 

 permit.^"* In October, 1835, he did secure from Parliament provision whereby 

 he was able to send to the Bahamas two more special justices. These were 

 rendered necessary, as we have seen, by the revocation of the commissions of the 



="'' Colebrooke to Aberdeen, No. 22. All the settlements were not in such a 

 state of disorder as has been stated of some of them. At Eleuthera the magistrates' 

 constables had succeeded in keeping a certain measure of good order, loc. cit. 

 Two magistrates and a detachment of troops were sent to Exuma where the in- 

 subordinate laborers of Lord Rolle had refused to worlN, H. V., 1834-35, 184. Both 

 of these places had grown quiet by the latter part of August, 1835, Colebrooke to 

 Glenelg, No. 86. 



^"^ Colebrooke to Glenelg, No. 36. 



'^'^ Sess. P., 1836, 49, p. 514. Circular of Col. Secretary Nesbitt to the Local 

 Magistrates. 



^^ Circular instruction to the governors of the colonies, dating June 15, 1835. 

 See H. v., 1835-6, p. 29. 



'" Sess. P., 1836, 49, p. 539, end. 1, in Ds., No. 499. 



5« Colebrooke to Glenelg, No. 94. 



^«« Sess. P., 1836, 49, pp. 506-7, Ds. of May, 1835. 



