DEDICATION 



TO THE NATIVES OF TRINIDAD. 



In dedicating this production to you, my countrymen, I can truly 

 say with Montaigne — " C'est icy un livre de bonne f oy, lecteur/' 

 I am, therefore, anxious that you should find it truthful, if not 

 as interesting or valuable as it might, under other auspices, have 

 been. And yet, it cannot be reasonably expected that, in 

 treating so many and such various subjects, no errors should have 

 crept in ; this much, however, I can say — they are not wilful 

 errors. 



With all the drawbacks, however — for which I crave your 

 indulgence — I am confident you will find in the work itself 

 material evidences of the great importance of Trinidad in an 

 agricultural as well as a commercial point of view. Numberless, 

 varied, and more than competent are its resources, but they 

 remain undeveloped still ; and it assuredly, in a great measure, 

 depends on you to render them available, by cheerfully and un- 

 hesitatingly throwing off the lethargy of inaction, by resolutely 

 girding yourselves for the arduous enterprise, and by putting forth, 

 in unity of faith and purpose, the collected might, the energy, 

 the perseverance, of a people resolved to yield to no obstacles, and 

 to halt at no issue short of complete and triumphant success. 



That many obstacles naturally exist, that not a few have 

 been cast in the way, I have admitted and shown; I have 



