A BAHAMA GOVERXOK. 295 



and ordinary courtesy demanded of him for the proper entertain- 

 ment of his other guests. But as he has not then occupied his 

 exalted and honorable position for many years, having been so 

 recently as in 1873 simply " William Robinson, Esq.," and fervid 

 passions lurk in the warm air, while the ladies who received his 

 assiduous attentions were greatly pleased and flattered thereby, 

 we must not criticise him too closely or judge him with severity. 

 It is something to be a Governor of a British colony, even though 

 it is poor and sparsely populated, especially where one, in addi- 

 tion to the free use of a palatial residence with ample grounds, 

 has a salary of $10,000 a year. When we saw in the public library 

 of Nassau a little volume made up of his official report of the 

 exhibits of the British colonies in the Vienna Exposition, and 

 observed upon the first blank leaf, in his own hand-writing, this 

 entry: '' Presented to the Nassau Library by H. E. Gov. Robin- 

 son, the author," we were at first disposed to smile, for we knew 

 that certain of the able and very modest men of Connecticut, 

 whom it had been our privilege and good fortune to personally 

 know, while occupying the executive chair of a State that has 

 brains and wealth, and industry and enterprise, and population 

 sufficient m make a great many Bahamas, could never have been 

 induced to write "His Excellency the Governor" before their 

 honored names. But when we reflected that the Governor of 

 the Bahamas had been educated and trained under institutions 

 and a political system less democratic and radically different from 

 our own, and where rank and honors and high-sounding titles 

 are held in very high esteem, and when we further considered 

 that Her Majesty's most loyal subjects upon these little islands 

 had been trained and educated to treat with the most profound 

 and deferential respect the men whom the Queen from time to 

 time sends to them to represent her sovereign authority and 

 power, we thought perhaps His Excellency knew what his sub- 



