370 TRINIDAD. 



the system : the government was then strongly urged to take a 

 share in the expenses ; and immigration thus became " a public 

 enterprise at the general expense." 



Labourers from the neighbouring colonies, attracted hither by 

 the prospects of higher wages, began to emigrate to the island at 

 their own cost, but they soon found that the planters were ready 

 to advance the passage-money, only provided they would engage 

 their services as a compensation. On the other hand, a bounty 

 was offered to those captains of small trading vessels who 

 should introduce them, on condition they would use their influence 

 to engage the services of the immigrants to the party paying the 

 bounty. Several planters, themselves owners of vessels, des- 

 patched them to Grenada, St. Christopher, or Nevis, to bring over 

 labourers for the crop season ; and on many occasions undertook 

 to send them back to their country after that term of service. 

 Moreover, money was invariably advanced to the immigrants, on 

 the pretext of their requiring articles of food or clothing ; but as 

 there was no legal provision specifying the conditions of contract, 

 or binding the immigrant and employer to their observance, many 

 of the immigrants actually left, or were enticed to leave the 

 estates whereon they had located ; the planter who had paid for 

 their passage and made advances, thus losing a part, or even the 

 whole of the money advanced. 



The Legislative Council having been induced to make the 

 introduction of labourers a public enterprise, a " regular trade in 

 immigrants " was established between Trinidad and the neigh- 

 bouring islands, but especially with Grenada, Montserrat, Nevis, 

 and St. Christopher. The captains who introduced them being 

 entitled to a bounty, managed to bring over as many as possible ; 

 and, in order to keep up the trade, they were really known to 

 take back the same people for whom they had received a premium 

 on some former voyage, in order to have an opportunity of re- 

 introducing them a second, or even a third or fourth time, thus 

 converting the same individual immigrants into an ad libitum 

 bounty. This infamous practice was carried on until, being 

 detected, the bounty system was discontinued. Thus terminated 

 the ill-contrived, and injudiciously managed inter-colonial immi- 

 gration. The demand for labour, however, was still pressing, and 

 our legislators concluded that the mere nominal increase of 

 labourers would meet the want. A vessel anchored in the har- 



