ST. HELENA 25 



abuses and disorders. To suppress the excessive use of 

 the wood, an impost was levied of twelve pence for every 

 hundredweight of wood appropriated to distillation, beside 

 fourpence for every gallon of liquor. 



The chaplains appointed by the East India Company of 

 this time seem by the following to have been of a most tur- 

 bulent disposition. 



Dr. Sault scurrilously insulted the Council, contemned 

 their authority, and by his disrespectful and insolent de- 

 meanour, to which the Governor too tamely submitted, 

 fostered a discontent productive of the most serious and 

 alarming mutiny that had hitherto disturbed the settle- 

 ment. The Company had spared neither expense, ordi- 

 nances nor exhortations to promote virtue and religion, 

 but their good endeavours were frustrated by the behaviour 

 of a succession of clergymen, whose principles and conduct 

 counteracted the tenets of their sacred profession. In the 

 official correspondence we find one mentioned as an en- 

 croaching avaricious person, threatened with dismissal, and 

 afterwards sent to England for refusing to marry a couple, 

 after the Governor had signed the licence. Comment from 

 the Company's letter : — 



And if it be true, as we have been informed, that he did refuse 

 to marry Mr. Smoult's daughter, upon the license of the Governor, 

 it is a great sign of his weakness as of his pride ; for if he under- 

 stands our constitution he must knowe that noe lawes are of force 

 in that island, till they are lawes made by us. And therefore, if 

 any Minister shall refuse to marry any couple upon our Governor's 

 license, we would have our Governor and Council immediately to 

 dismiss him from our service, and send him home. 



Dated ist Aug., 1683. 



In 1676 the island was visited by the celebrated Dr. 

 Halley for the observing — and for the completing of the 

 catalogue of fixed stars, by the addition of those near the 

 South Pole. 



From his observatory on the hill which has since borne 

 his name he had an opportunity of distinctly seeing a 

 transit of Mercury over the sun's disc, and the report of this 

 transit induced the astronomers of Europe to watch with 

 greater attention the memorable transit of Venus in 1761. 



Captain Kedgewin was now relieved by Captain Field as 

 Governor. The East India Company gave the slave 



