where to
end a paragraph and begin another. On the whole, he is happily not
obscure." His main effort was to state his idea and when he had made
his statement, he was not as careful as he should have been regarding
the construction of the statement. He consoled himself with the words,
"Grammar is of man; the idea is of God."

His enemies, however, could not say that he was trying to overthrow
the empire, for he was merely struggling for the liberty guaranteed by
the empire. "In all the British Empire," said he, "there are no
subjects more loyal than we. We are English today, we are not a
conquered people, we are English people." He was convinced that if
England would give the rights of Englishmen to the Mauritians, she
would find them "as devoted as any children she could count in her
bosom." He added, however, "We belong to England. Why do we not
possess the institutions of England? If she wishes to make us love our
nationality, to endow our island with that which makes for the glory
of our mother-country; this, we shall not be able to know or
appreciate if we are strangers to all that which makes it cherish its
children and respect its people! At the sight of our institutions, in
the presence of the happenings in Mauritius, advancements ruined,
individual liberty violated, human life despised, one cannot believe
that we belong to an English administration, and that we are a part
of the most democratic people in the world."

It was agitation of this type which brought about what may be
considered the definite contributions of Remy Ollier to Mauritian
life: the creation of the Municipality, the Chambers of Commerce and
Agriculture, the opening of credits to the Negroes by the Mauritian
Commercial Bank, the reforms at the Royal College respecting the
English Scholarships, and the employment of men of color in the
departments of the government. His attacks upon capital punishment and
barbarous prison treatment resulted in laws which mitigated the former
harsh conditions, and his criticism of the banking institutions in the
crisis of 1843 led to considerable reform in that quarter. His bitter
attacks on political and social conditions made many enemies. One
evening, he was waylaid by several assailants and given a whipping. He
was imprisoned, but he wrote in prison as well as elsewhere.

His political activity was short, for in the early part of 1845, about
two years after his appearance in journalism, he died at the e