self and the general revenue. He also left
an educational system that opened (to even the humblest) a free pathway
to knowledge, to [62] distinction, and, if the objects of its
beneficence were worthy of the boon, to serviceableness to their native
country. Above all, he left peace among the jarring interests which,
under the badge of Englishman and of Creole, under the badge of
Catholic and under the badge of Protestant, and so many other forms of
sectional divergence, had too long distracted Trinidad. This he had
effected, not by constituting himself a partisan of either section, but
by inquiring with statesmanlike appreciation, and allowing the
legitimate claims of each to a certain scope of influence in the
furtherance of the Colony's welfare. Hence the bitter rivalry of
jarring interests was transformed into harmonious co-operation on all
sides, in advancing the common good of the common country.

The Colonial Office, knowing little and caring less about that noble
jewel in the British Crown, sent out as successor to so brilliant and
successful an administrator--whom? One Sir James Robert Longden, a
gentleman without initiative, without courage, and, above all, with a
slavish adherence to red-tape and a clerk-like dread of compromising
his berth. Having served for a long series of years in subordinate
posts in [63] minor dependencies, the habit of being impressed and
influenced by colonial magnates grew and gathered strength within him.
Such a ruler, of course, the serpents that had only been "scotched, but
not killed," by the stern procedures of Governor Gordon, could wind
round, beguile, and finally cause to fall. Measure after measure of his
predecessor which he could in any way neutralize in the interests of
the colonial clique, was rendered of none effect. In fact, he was
subservient to the wishes of those who had all long objected to those
measures, but had not dared even to hint their objections to the
beneficent autocrat who had willed and given them effect for the
general welfare. After Governor Longden came Sir Henry Turner Irving,
a personage who brought to Trinidad a reputation for all the vulgar
colonial prejudices which, discreditable enough in ordinary folk, are,
in the Governor of a mixed community, nothing less than calamitous.
More than amply did he justify the evil reports with which rumour had
heralded his coming. Abler, more astute, more daring than Sir James
Longden, who was, on the wh