OBITUARY NOTICES. 
67 
Mr. GujDpy enjoyed the friendship rand esteem of Sir 
Henry McLeod by whom he was appointed a Justice of the 
Peace and Road Commissioner in the year 1840 ; and in the 
year 1844 he was sent by him under the instructions of the 
Colonial Minister on a mission to Sierra Leone in the barque 
Senator (then employed in bringing African Immigrants to 
Trinidad) to inquire into the prospects of obtaining a sufficient 
supply of labourers from that settlement. And his report 
and advice had a great share in promoting the introduction 
of coolies from India : the first importation of whom took 
place by the ship Fatel Rosak in 1846 under the administration 
of Sir Henry McLeod. Upon his return from Africa Mr. 
Guppy was appointed by Sir Henry McLeod as acting Stipen- 
diary Justice for the Naparimas and Savana Grande, to which 
the Couva district was added upon the death of Mr. David. 
The duties of that immense district, throughout which there 
was not then a load of gravel upon any road and no bridge 
over any river except the Couva river, were performed with- 
out a single day’s absence and to the complete satisfaction 
of the authorities. 
This acting appointment continued for fifteen months, 
at the expiration of which Mr. GupjDy was appointed first 
Town Clerk of San Fernando under the Ordinance just then 
passed under the auspices of Sir Henry McLeod for constituting 
a Municipal Corporation in that town. 
Soon after the arrival of Sir Charles Elliott and, upon 
the remodelling of the Territorial Ordinance (first enacted 
under Lord Harris), Mr. Guppy was appointed Warden of 
North Naparima Ward Union. And having had ample 
experience of the necessity of better means of communication 
(whilst the attempts made in Lord Harris’s time to obtain 
a general System of Railways had utterly broken down) with 
the cordial assistance of Mr. William Eccles, Mr. Richard 
Darling, Dr. Philip and other eminent local proprietors of that 
