A BAHAMA GOVERNOR. 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 hia 
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 to 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- 
