TRINIDAD : THEN AND NOW. 



63 



approve of his project. His petition was approved 

 of and a set of conditions and rules, called the 

 " Cedula," were framed by which this scheme could 

 be carried out. It received the sanction of the King 

 and court at Madrid and was embodied accordingly 

 in the laws of Trinidad. The apparent main feature 

 of this seemed to be that (immigrants from any 

 foreign country would be admitted free, but it con- 

 tained a proviso that ' ' all new settlers of foreign 

 nations must make it appear that they are Catholics, 99 

 —a very unwise proviso as looked upon by people of 

 the present day. 



While it admitted a number of French, Irish 

 and Scotch, who professed the Catholic religion, it 

 practically shut out the English labouring classes 

 that even then had become famous for the art of 

 colonising — except they would be inclined to take 

 the advice of some astute legal adviser who might 

 advise thus : — " You can easily avoid this proviso by 

 making it appear that you are a Catholic. 99 My 

 legal friends, — and I have many among you — don't 

 be offended at the suggestion, because you know as 

 well as I do that there are some who, if they lived in 

 those days, would not hesitate to make the suggestion. 



This act of St. Laurent, although it at first ap- 

 peared to work well, was not so well conceived as he 

 thought it to be, for it soon had the effect of bring- 

 ing to this colony a great number of good and bad, — 

 the bad predominating — which caused Trinidad to 

 cease, in all but name, to be a Spanish possession. 

 Although colonized by the permission of Spain in the 



