། ༄། ༅།
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 882
5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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(V.) Lastly he has even refused to give his authorisation for a special train paid for and intended to carry the parishioners of father Cox to the procession of the "Fête Dieu," although all the arrangements for that train had been taken by Mr. Caulfeild, and such a favour was never refused even when the object was to go to the theatre.
We could cite many other facts to show the spirit which animates his Excellency in
relations with the Roinan Catholic Church.
We shall conclude this point in calling your attention to the three following facts: (I.) During the absence of the Bishop, his Vicar-General, Abbé Cox, addressed to the Secretary of State a letter in which be complained that his 'Excellency followed in respect to him a policy of insult and obstruction.
(II.) Quite lately the Roman Catholic Bishop has written to you, in his turn, praying, if it were not asking too much, to be protected against the calumnious and malicious attacks of which he is the object.
(III.) We have been told-but we can scarcely believe it-that the Governor has done everything in his power to induce the legal advisers of the Crown to prosecute the Roman Catholic Bishop before the Court of Assizes. If such an indignity had been offered, it would probably have caused a rising of the population.
10. Unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Bishop and Abbé Cox are not the only persons, who have suffered from the oppressive proceedings of the Governor. Many other public officers have had to complain of his conduct towards them. The numerous memorials which the Colonial Office has received furnish proof of this. Whatever may be the explanation, it is a fact that a number of public officials have been-we dare not Bay systematically-ill used by his Excellency. We cite a few names out of a larger number: the Honourables Clifford Lloyd, Trotter, Gibson, Lovell, Captain Crauford, Mr. Cockburn Stewart, the Reverend Mr. Mclrvine, Moderator of the Church of Scotland, Stipendiary Magistrates, Mr. Escott, Précis Writer, etc. etc.
11°. If his Excellency shows himself unrelenting against those who oppose his policy or refuse to associate with it, he refuses nothing, on the other hand, to those who approve or defend his policy in the press or elsewhere. When he receives important despatches, he communicates them to leaders of his party, and next day their contents, often distorted and mutilated, are published in the papers of his party, even before they have been communicated to the Legislative Council or to the individuals immediately interested.
Copies of these journals are sometimes even sent to London bearing upon them the stamp of the Coloinal Secretary's Office, in order no doubt to give more importance to their contents. The address of one number, forwarded to Sir John Peter Grant, was in the handwriting of the Honourable Mr. Beyts, then Acting Colonial Secretary. It is in our possession.
In defiance of ministerial instructions, Mr. Delafaye an intimate friend of the prominent members of the Governor's party, and a planter was twice named Acting Judge of the Supreme Court. That nomination made all the more impression upon the public mind, because, righty or wrongly, the feeling prevailed that it would have for effect to afford those already possessed of so much interest with the Governor, an equally prepon. derating influence in the administration of justice in the Colony.
It is also a matter of public notoriety that public servants have been rewarded by promotion under the Crown for having been serviceable to those who support the Governor's policy.
12°. You need not, therefore, be astonished to learn that at a great public meeting which was held on the 11th instant, at which more than two thousand persons were present, a resolution was passed, with indescribable enthusiasm, to the effect that the Governor had allied himself to a party.
Herewith annexed is a copy of the official report of this public meeting sent in to the Governor. The resolution passed will doubtless convince you of the Governor's unpopularity, despite the laudatory address got up at the time by members of his party and signed even by children and women who were ignorant of its purport.
13°. The intervention of the Governor in arresting the execution of judgments given in the Courts of Justice, and in reducing or remitting the penalties awarded by the magistrates, has had the most deplorable effects. And by so intervening, his Excellency has arrogated to himself a dispensing power.
The memorial of the Stipendiary Magistrates has already made it known to Lord Derby that they had much to complain of in respect to the action of the Governor towards them, and that his Excellency had even given an order to one of them not to execute a judgment which he had pronounced, and which had been confirmed by the Supreme Court. In short, his Excellency ventured to take upon himself the respon-
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sibility of stopping the Queen's writ. We think, Sir, you will admit that no more unconstitutional and arbitrary action has ever been brought to your notice in the history
any British Colony.
of
On the other hand, may we not infer that some of the ridiculously trivial penalties pronounced by certain district magistrates were the result of ennui or fatigue, or perhaps arose from the fear of incurring the displeasure of the Chief of the Colony.
A Commission would make this fact readily appear, by comparing the penalties pronounced since the arrival of Sir John Pope Hennessy in the Colony with those that were awarded under his predecessors.
14°. One of the consequences of the situation is the increasing audacity of criminals. Thus, we affirm that at no other period has the Colony been so harassed by their enter- prises as at the present moment. The newspapers of the Governor's party themselves complain almost daily of the audacity of the criminals and of the increase in the number of crines and misdemeanours,-taking care, however, to throw the responsibility of this upon the police. The following are the terms in which the Journal de Maurice," which is entirely devoted to Sir John Pope. Hennessy, speaks, in its issue of the 11th instant, of the thefts committed at the present moment at Beau Bassin, one of the small villages of the Colony :-" If this continues, the inhabitants of Beau Bassin "will be obliged to take measures for their own protection, the police being powerless "to do so. Every kind of depredation is cominitted in this quarter, and the guilty "always escape. The other day, at noon, an Indian was robbed upon the road leading to the Lunatic Asylum. Last week thieves plundered Barkly Asylum. Yesterday " evening they paid a fresh visit to that establishment, and robbed two of the employés." Before the arrival of Sir John Pope Hennessy, highway robberies had ceased to be heard So had illicit distilleries. To-day these offences are very frequent, a fact which indicates that this kind of fraud has taken considerable development to the great detriment of the receipts of the Treasury.
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of.
It cannot but be allowed that Sir John Pope Hennessy has, on many occasions, given proofs of a charitable disposition which, in principle, cannot but be worthy of praise. But if a spirit of indiscriminate charity is even scarcely to be commended in the circum- stances of private life, it may become fraught with danger to a community when it rules an administrator's conduct. Such is the case with Sir John Pope Hennessy. His persevering efforts to bring about an universal abolition of the small licenses which may be said truly to bave weighed heavily on the poorer classes of society-his leniency towards prisoners in general, and particularly those defaulters who belong to the lower classes of society, and in whose case he made it a rule, at one time, to remit their fines and imprisonment-have been followed by regrettable effects on account of the unreasonable frequency of these indulgences.
The numerous escapes of prisoners from the Civil Prisons; the repeated convictions of some noted bad characters who, after absconding or being discharged prematurely after a semblance of good conduct whilst in jail, recommenced their ruffianly attacks against private property and even the lives of individuals, striking with terror the inhabitants of those lonely and out-of-the-way localities where they carried on their depredations; the wanton destruction of timber on Government lands and along the banks of streams, which foresters in many cases at last gave up checking on account of desultory results arrived at after they had been at the trouble to prosecute the delin. quents; the indirect encouragement thus given to those who were disposed to evil doing, and whom the police became powerless to cope with, are facts known to every
In support of the above assertions, we quote the following from the Annual Report of the Inspector General of Police for 1885.
one here.
The Superintendent of Police, Mr. H. R. Bell, states as follows :—
"The abolition of small licenses has given to a number of bad characters the oppor- tunity to set themselves up as hawkers of fowls, &c., which enables them to enter private premises, rendering petty thefts easy, and protects them froin interference by the police."
"The number of young boys wandering about with nothing to do is very great, and the suppression of those young vagabonds is a difficult matter as, if arrested for vagrancy, they are generally claimed by their parents; and if caught committing any offence, the sending of them to prison or reformatory only makes them worse by contamination of old offenders."
Respecting the increase in the number of larcenies, Inspector A. W. Bording says:— "This may not be solely due to the facility with which a great number of thieves traverse the districts under the pretence of being hawkers of poultry; and it cannot be denied that these men acting as such when out of prison do so merely to find out
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