itioners humbly and reverently approach Your
Imperial Throne with the prayer that, His Excellency the Governor
of Mauritius may be authorized to call to his council one or more
representatives of the people of colour in this island; or
otherwise to grant to the country the privilege of electing its
own representatives. Your Majesty's petitioners will only add the
sincere declaration of their loyal and patriotic attachment to
Your Majesty's person and Throne and Government; and your
petitioners will ever pray."

In 1843, the editor of _Le Cerneen_, the oldest newspaper in the
colony, was prosecuted, fined and imprisoned for publishing a
defamatory article against the magistrate of Port Louis. Ollier had
always advocated the freedom of the press, and he protested against
the law which suppressed free speech, and against the persecution of a
fellow-journalist, although the latter was his political enemy.
Ollier's biographer adds: "Ollier indeed was an ardent lover and a
good hater. This noble heart and comprehensive mind made him
understand his duty toward men. He forgot enmity when fundamental
principles were not adequately observed."

In 1844, there was established a rival newspaper, _l'Esprit Public_,
to combat the policies of Remy Ollier. It was edited by Mr. Bruils,
who had been educated in Europe as a lawyer. He began by finding fault
with the style and grammatical form of Ollier's writing, but it is
said that the subject-matter of his editorials could be rarely
attacked. Ollier's writings were always hasty and he rarely took the
time to polish them, while Bruil's style was more smooth and uniform.
Ollier's style, however, was easy and original. He replied
effectively to the invective of his enemies in prose and in verse. He
seems to have had no difficulty in the composition of his sentences
nor did he take the pains which would seem to be necessary for the
average man to acquire the finished journalistic style. His motto was
as he wrote a page "une feuille lue aujourd'hui, oubliee demain."
Therefore, he gave his copies to the compositors without rereading
them. Concerning the correctness of his writings, his biographer
writes: "Like Carlyle, Shelly, Bossuet, Mirabeau and Moliere, the
editor of _La Sentinelle_ perpetrated many a small sin against the
rules of grammar and certainly paid but a halting attention to the
nice distinctions of punctuation. He very often did not know