Mr, Froude's Negrophobia. 91 
reformers. Now, had he been a Statesman, instead 
of the mere pedlar in Politics that he is, Mr. Froude 
would have gone to the Meeting, not to assist at it, 
but, on his own account, to study the men themselves 
who were taking part in it, and to judge for himself 
as to the nature of the movement : but no, he was 
but a man of letters on his tour, and he was quite satis- 
fied to adopt the prejudiced views of others. Ignorant 
as he is in matters political, Mr. Froude says he could 
not help asking himself of what use such a possession as 
Trinidad could be either to England or the English 
Nation (p. 66). A simple enquiry at the Government 
Offices would have informed him that, in 1886, the year 
previous to his visit, of 1,196,076 tons of shipping 
entered and cleared at the ports of the colony, no less 
than 774,916 tons were British. Other people are well 
aware that besides its own value, agricultural and com- 
mercial, Trinidad is invaluable on account of its splen- 
did strategical and commercial situation at the very 
mouth of the Orinoco. In the result, Mr. Froude left 
Trinidad, taking in his pack not only his own prejudices 
which he had brought with him, but the prejudices of 
other prejudiced persons as well. 
At Barbados, Mr. Froude was a guest at Government 
House, and he does not omit to do justice to the re- 
nowned hospitality of Sir CHARLES and Lady Lees. At 
their numerous dinner-parties he no doubt met many of 
the leading men of the Island, but his Book offers no 
evidence that he made any study of the inhabitants or 
of their institutions. He wrongly describes the con- 
stitution of Barbados as consisting of an Assembly of 
thirty-three members, nine of whom the Crown nomi- 
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