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tokens of insolent

years consumed, first of all in the accumulation, and then in the diffusion, of valuable knowledge! A reward of £25. a year, or £2. 1s. 8d. a month, or 9s. 7d. a week, or, as we have said, just 1s. 44d. a day for ingenious and laborious research among the treasures of chronology-for sedulous, and earnest, and devoted application to the interests of literature-for very appreciable though not casily calculable service to the cause of popular instruction, the great and good cause of national education, abandoned for the most part to the spontaneous self-sacrifices of such men as Mr. Haydn by the negligence, or incompetence, or procrastination of the Imperial Government! When shall we have an end of these paltry tokens of the insolent depreciation Paltry by the State of the stoniest of all the stony dates, we take it, that might be chronicled by Mr. Haydn, is the day upon which depreciahis prolonged and valuable intellectual labours were rewarded State. by a munificent pension of £25. a year bestowed upon him, we are pained to think, in the name of his gracious Sovereign!" A correspondent of the Times, referring to the pecuniary distress of Mr. Haydn, says :-" Lord Palmerston, the moment he heard of it, enrolled himself among that noble band who do good by stealth and blush to find it fame,' by sending him £100., while Mr. Disraeli and a few others added to this sum enough to purchase, for Mrs. Haydn and family, a shop for the sale of stationery and newspapers (No. 13, Crawley-street, Oakleysquare). In this house the pious, learned, and resigned paralytic now lingers, on a bare subsistence."-Examiner, 12th January, 1856.

tion by the

COLONIAL JOBBERY AND ABUSE OF PATRONAGE.

IN our West India Summary, for the present month, there will be found a brief notice of the demise of Mr. George Fraser, The editor the Provost-Marshal of Grenada, and of the nomination to his office of Mr. Henry Sharpe; a nomination which has excited considerable dissatisfaction in the island.

According to the Grenada Chronicle of the 22d of Sept. ult., it would appear that Mr. Henry Sharpe is a very young man, whose sole claim to such powerful patronage as he seems to have secured, rests upon the fact of his being a personal friend

of the

Grenada

Chronicle's

account of A shameful

abuse of

patronago

by Lieutenant

Governor

Keate.

The youthful Provost

Marshal of

Grenada.

A most unpopular act of Lieutenant

Governor Keate.

Valuable services of a public officer treat

ed with contumely.

of the Lieutenant-Governor's. The youth is the manager, for his father, (Mr. Justice Sharpe) of the Corinth Estate, and made his début as a public officer in December 1854, when he was called upon to perform the duties of Stipendiary Magistrate, in the place of Captain Hutcheson, who had obtained a nine months' leave of absence. The bestowal of further patronage on Mr. Sharpe, by removing him from the office of Acting Stipendiary Magistrate to that of Acting Provost-Marshal, is regarded and condemned as a most injudicious act, and as the most unpopular one of Lieutenant-Governor Keate's administration, because it has been carried out to the prejudice of the public service, and to that of other parties whose claims upon the Government ought not to have been overlooked: least of all in favour of one who is quite a novice in the public service. It appears there were more than a score of candidates for the vacant office; but from amongst these, public opinion in Grenada had singled out Mr. Samuel Cockburn, a coloured gentleman, whose capability and fitness are undeniable, and gave him paramount claims to consideration. We append a brief notice of Mr. Cockburn's services, and the comments of the journal above referred to, on the appointment of Mr. Sharpe:

"He was, in his early days, clerk at the Secretary and Registrar's Office; served six or seven years under two ProvostMarshals, Messrs. Boucher and Douglas; was at the head of that very department when Lieutenant-Governor Keate came to the island, and continued to hold it until the appointment by the Queen of the late Mr. Samuel Fraser to succeed Mr. Jackson, whose locum tenens Mr. Cockburn was. For the last seven years Mr. Cockburn has been in the performance of the unpaid duties of Inspector of Prisons, an important office, for which he was selected by Governor Hamilton; and the late Judge Sanderson, who appreciated his knowledge of languages, especially named him under a Rule of Court to be InterpreterGeneral of the Supreme Court of Judicature. A valuable Appendix, prepared by him to accompany the Census Returns of 1851, has been the subject of strong encomium at head-quarters, and is also to be found mentioned by Mr. Davy and other writers on West Indian affairs, as a work of merit worthy to be consulted. Nor is it known that Mr. Cockburn, in consequence of the sudden rupture of his contract for army severe loss. supplies, when Her Majesty's troops were some time back withdrawn from this island, suffered considerable loss, for which he

Govern

ment permits a valuable

public ser

vant to sustain a

of Lien

Keate.

has had no kind of compensation. It is true, that on being superseded by Mr. Fraser in the Marshal's office, Mr. Cockburn was appointed to the only situation then at the Lientenant- Generosity Governor's disposal, namely, that of Acting Stipendiary Magis- tenanttrate for Carriacou; but that office lapsed soon after with the Governor death of Captain Gurley, in whose place Mr. Cockburn had been acting. Under all these circumstances, people cannot help expressing dissatisfaction at the way in which this appointment has been made; and the least that can be said is, that less regard scems to have been in the matter to the claims of faithful servitude and established merit on the one hand, and the interest of the public on the other, than to considerations of individual friendship. Besides the offices mentioned above of Inspector of Prisons and Interpreter-General, Mr. Cockburn valuable is also a Director of the Colony Hospital, a Justice of the paid ser Peace, and Secretary to the Society for the Education of the Poor; all of them situations requiring a considerable application of time and talent, but to not one of which is there attached the least emolument. One good turn deserves another. If a man of energy and ability is found at all times willing to assist the Government in houorary though arduous employments like these, surely he ought not to be neglected when there come the loaves and fishes to be distributed! It is in this view of the matter that the community, to a man, feels disappointed and dissatisfied at the recent arrangement."

vices of a

public

officer dis

carded.

Honourable

The disappointment and dissatisfaction of the community will The Right not be diminished when it becomes known that the Right Hon. H. Labou H. Labouchere, the new Colonial Secretary, has confirmed the chere an accomplice appointment of Mr. Sharpe, on the very strong recommendation in abu e of of the Lieutenant-Governor. We are induced to believe, how- patronage. ever, that had the Colonial Minister been aware of the facts above quoted, he would have felt it to be his duty rather to yield to the wishes of the community in Grenada, and to have taken advantage of this very favourable opportunity of striking another blow at that system of nepotism and favouritism which has so seriously interfered with the efficiency of all the departments of the public service, and the evil consequences of which have been in none more glaring and disastrous than in the government of our colonies.

In the discharge of our duty as the publicly-constituted guardians of the interests of the coloured population of cur West India colonics, we are bound to record our protest against

An unrighteous

made by white go

vernors

against the coloured race.

such nominations as these. The avenues to offices of honour and emolument ought to be opened to the coloured race to a distinction far greater extent than they are. It may indeed be alleged that coloured candidates have, in fact, the same chance as their fellow-citizens. But this is true only in theory, the reverse being notoriously the case in practice. The secret influence of friends, Parliamentary and other, at home, backed and only too frequently set in action by the powerful recommendations of the colonial authorities, render the success of a coloured candidate the exception, not the rule. Yet, in the interests of the colonies themselves, and in those of the great act of Emancipation, how important it is that facilities should be afforded to coloured persons of education and ability to distinguish themselves in the government of their own affairs. It ought to be obvious that in proportion as the descendants of the African race in our colonies rise in the social scale, achieve a reputation for ability, and attain to political rank and influence, will the arguments of slaveholders against Emancipation be weakened, and the prejudices of caste and colour be undermined. If a gentleman of colour is found capable of administering the affairs of an important department, we see no reason why he should not be elevated to the very highest dignity the Crown can confer, even though it might not result in rendering it necessary for a Ministerial protégé at home to accept the Chiltern Hundreds, with a view to enable him presently to receive the Colonial Thousands.

Constitututional

prerogative of the Crown

abused.

It is undoubtedly quite constitutional and proper, that the Crown should exercise its right by prerogative of appointing to the governorships of colonies meritorious individuals whom it wishes to reward. But in the general interests of the public, and of the colonies themselves, but especially of those where the coloured people are struggling to acquire position and influence, it is only bare justice to require at the hands of the Crown's advisers, that merit should be the first test by which the claims of candidates should be tried, and that the accident of colour should not be allowed to operate prejudicially when coloured competitors for honours prefer theirs.

In striking contrast to the above nomination, we have great pleasure in recording, from the Globe evening newspaper of the 24th ult., that of C. A. Berkeley, Esq., of St. Vincent, to the office of Treasurer of the island of Tobago. In this instance we believe the Colonial Minister to have been influenced solely by

the distinguished merits of the candidate, a coloured gentleman of high character and undoubted ability, who has been for twenty-three years connected with the public service in the colonies, and fulfilled various offices of trust and importance. The same journal also announces other nominations, not so satisfactory, but on which our limited space precludes us from offering any comment in the present number. - Anti-Slavery Reporter, January, 1856,

JUSTICE WILLES'S VERY ECCENTRIC CHARGE TO
A LIVERPOOL JURY.

A PAPISTICAL JUDGE IN A PROTESTANT GOWN.

the Pope of

Ron.e

priests

In Mr. Justice Willes's very eccentric charge to the jury at Judicial Liverpool, in the case of "Darbey v. Ousely," for an alleged advocacy of libel, with the nature of which the reader is no doubt already acquainted, a passage occurs, which seems to prove that his Lordship either laid aside, or totally forgot, the occasion of the language imputed to be libellous; and in his remarks about freedom, in the same passage, it will be seen, that he is for permitting all freedom of speech to one set of people, and none to the other. The speech itself is a perfect curiosity. Such a thing has not been heard from the bench of justice in England, since the time it was occupied by the judges of the Papist James II. His Lordship is explaining the meaning of the record or certificate of Darbey's enrolment in a secret association, who are commanded by foreign Foreign priests in Liverpool, and who are "to direct their efforts in a special way" to change the religion of England, and that "the way may be opened to the extinction of all heresies ;" and he cleverly takes its meaning from the title of this secret body, which is "The Association for the Conversion of England!" Having read the Pope's approbation of this secret society-of which it seems there are many now enrolled, and in progress of formation-his Lordship says, "Now, it appears that the object proposed by that paper, by those who were understood to join the association, was this-the conversion of this country to Roman Catholicism. Now, with reference to that object, it has been said, on the part of the defendant, that it was inconsistent with liberty, that it was inconsistent with freedom; and an Act of Parliament has been referred to, with which it is said to be also inconsistent My own notion would be this-you will con

list mon for tho

purposes of

rapine at d ardor

The Pope

of Rome

approves of

a secret

Society in
England

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