ken up
his abode upon being appointed stipendiary magistrate. He occupied his
time with his daily official duties and literary work and seldom left
home except for change of air at the sea side, to visit some intimate
friend in Kingston, or perhaps to take the chair at some missionary
gathering, or to join in the deliberations of a committee meeting. In
1847 Hill acted as Agent General of Immigration, and in December of
that year he submitted an interesting report to the Assembly.

When the cholera swept over the island in 1851 Hill turned his
botanical studies to good account. The saline treatment was then in
high esteem; but by means of the bitter-bush, _Eupatorium nervosum_, a
shrub not unlike the wild sage in appearance, which grows freely on
waste lands, he is said to have alleviated much suffering and saved
many lives.

He was Vice-President from 1844 to 1849 of the Jamaica Society for the
encouragement of Agriculture and other Arts and Sciences, instituted
in 1825. In 1849 this Society ceased to exist and in its stead sprang
up the Colonial Literary and Heading Society, of which Hill was one of
the managing committee. He was one of the nominated members of the
then Board of Education. He was a member of the original council of
the Royal Agricultural Society of Jamaica, founded in 1843,
Vice-President as late as 1857 of the Royal Society of Arts of
Jamaica, established in 1854 as the Jamaica Society of Arts, and
Vice-President of the Royal Society of Arts and Agriculture, which was
the result of the amalgamation of these two societies in 1864. In 1861
he had undertaken to edit jointly with the Rev. James Watson, the
Secretary, the _Transactions of the Royal Society of Arts_, to which
he contributed various notes. But in the first number of the
_Transactions of the Incorporated Royal Society of Arts and
Agriculture_ (1867) is the record of a vote of sympathy and regret at
his inability to attend through ill-health; and although he
contributed articles to the journal he was not able to be present at
the meetings. His leisure was devoted to scientific study, especially
the ornithology, ichthyology, and anthropology of the West Indies. He
never let a single opportunity pass by, if he could possibly help it,
without trying to benefit his country with his ready pen, and he
always gave all the encouragement he could to those who seemed at all
anxious to study any subject with which he was in the least
acquainted. He r