Street informed Lord Elgin that it was disapproved,
and that nothing but an apprehension of the financial embarrassments that
must ensue prevented its being formally disallowed. In terms almost
amounting to a reprimand, it was intimated that the adoption of such
objectionable enactments might be prevented if the Governor would exercise
the legitimate influence of his office in opposing them; and it was added,
'If, unfortunately, your efforts should be unsuccessful, and if any such
bill should be presented for your acceptance, it is Her Majesty's pleasure
and command that you withhold your assent from it.'

Lord Elgin replied by a temperate representation, that it was but natural
that traces of a policy long sanctioned by the mother-country should
remain in the legislation of the colony; that the duties in question were
not found injuriously to check trade, while they were needed to meet the
expenditure: moreover, that the Assembly was, and always had been,
extremely jealous of any interference in the matter of self-taxation:
lastly, that 'while sensible that the services of a Governor must be
unprofitable if he failed to acquire and exercise a legitimate moral
influence in the general conduct of affairs, he was at the same time
convinced that a just appreciation of the difficulties with which the
legislature of the island had yet to contend, and of the sacrifices and
exertions already made under the pressure of no ordinary embarrassments,
was an indispensable condition to his usefulness.'

The Home Government felt the weight of these considerations, and the
correspondence closed with the revocation of the peremptory command above
quoted.

[Sidenote: Education.]

The object which Lord Elgin had most at heart was to improve the moral and
social condition of the Negroes, and to fit them, by education, for the
freedom which had been thrust upon them; but, with characteristic tact and
sagacity, he preferred to compass this end through the agency of the
planters themselves. By encouraging the application of mechanical
contrivances to agriculture, he sought to make it the interest not only of
the peasants to acquire, but of the planters to give them, the education
necessary for using machinery; while he lost no opportunity of impressing
on the land-owning class that, if they wished to secure a constant supply
of labour, they could not do so better than by creating in the labouring
class the wants which belong to educated b