342 TRINIDAD. 



CHAPTER X. 



PRESENT CONDITION. ADMINISTRATION. IMMIGRATION. SUGGESTIONS. 



WHAT are the prospects of Trinidad ? and who, under present 

 circumstances, will dare to give an opinion thereon ? Who, when 

 these colonies are nearly abandoned by the British government 

 as worthless possessions ; when, by gradual depression, even the 

 most favoured have nearly sunk to the lowest depths of misery 

 who, I repeat, can foretell whether they shall ever recover from 

 their present depressed condition, or whether they shall not sink 

 deeper into the abyss. I confess I know of none bold enough to 

 offer such opinion ; for the causes which have brought on the 

 present lamentable state of things are at work still. In the year 

 1848, His Excellency Lord Harris wrote to Lord Grey as follows : 

 "It is sad and painful to behold men expecting ruin quickly to 

 overtake them, it is, perhaps, sadder and more painful to see 

 them struggling and toiling against adversity, but with their 

 energies dulled and their arms palsied, from their knowledge that 

 their labours must be unremunerative, and that failure can be the 

 sole result ; it is most distressing to witness this, and, at the same 

 time, to be aware that much of the misery from which they are 

 suffering, and that which awaits them, is of a nature which they 

 are unable to avert by any acts of their own." The noble lord 

 had in view, at that period, the sugar planters mainly, for the fate 

 of the cacao planters was already sealed, but what he then said 

 has since become applicable to all classes from the highest 

 professions to the lowest grades of artisans ; all and each are 

 struggling against a misery " which they are unable to avert by any 

 acts of their own." The unconquerable vegetation of the tropics 

 has already overrun the cultivated fields of many localities, and 

 giant creepers are covering the crumbling dwellings of ruined pos- 

 sessions ; in both towns and villages, houses are left in a dilapidated 

 state, through want of means doors and windows hanging on one 

 hinge, with jalousies knocked out. Individuals who twenty years 

 ago could receive the weary traveller with all the comforts and 

 honours of patriarchal hospitality, who were, in former days, 



