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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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to confine my observations exclusively to the Colonies with which I am best acquainted, as being under my own immediate government.

With respect to the highest class, or Grand Cross of the Order, I conceive that it should be limited, except in rare instances (none of which exist in the Leeward Islands), to the Governor or Captain-General of Jamaica (who, presuming that a Prince of the Blood Royal might be the Grand Master, would probably hold the rank of Deputy Grand Master), the Governors-in-chief of the Windward and Leeward Islands, and the Governors of Trinidad and British Guiana, together with the General Officers Commanding the forces, and, perhaps the Admiral on the station-all of whom might be called upon to resign the Order or not, at the pleasure of the Sovereign, at the expiration of their periods of service.

The Second Class, or that of Commander, might be more widely extended, although, as far as regards the islands under this Government, I should not be prepared to recom- mend it to be conferred on any other public officers than the Lieutenant-Governors of St. Christopher and Dominica (under similar restrictions as to resignation as proposed for the Governors-in-chief), and, in the event of the Government being divided, as I have every reason to hope it may be, into two judicial circuits, upon the two Chief Justices.

The Third Class might be bestowed on the Presidents administering the Governments of the smaller islands, the Speakers, or any deserving Members of the Assemblies, and the higher classes of public officers, after a certain number of years' service, or upon evincing any marked degree of zeal or efficiency, and upon a limited number of the most respectable and influential resident gentry.

Having a good deal of intercourse with the Governors of the foreign Colonies, interspersed with the islands under this Government, it may perhaps not be out of place if I suggest, for your Lordship's consideration, and that of Her Majesty's Government, whether such an Order might not be conferred with advantage upon some of these authorities, and be the means of strengthening and keeping up the good feeling which, as far as my experience goes, they have always evinced towards the inhabitants of the British Colonies in their vicinities.

In compliance with your Lordship's wishes, I have written unreservedly upon this subject, and I shall be very happy if any suggestions which I have offered should meet your Lordship's views upon it.

(Private.) My Lord,

I have, &c.

(Signed)

CHAS. A. FITZROY.

Inclosure 4 in No. 4.

Sir C. Grey to the Earl of Elgin.

Government House, Barbadoes, June 8, 1844.

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge your Lordship's despatch marked "private," April 19, 184-4, referring to a despatch from Lord Stanley, of which a copy had been sent

to me.

I entirely agree with your Lordship's general view of the subject, and I am persuaded that, if the plans were to be announced at any moment when the West Indian interest in London, and the proprietors on this side of the Atlantic were in good humour, it would have a happy effect.

One "Order of the Morning Star," and another of the "Western Star," would be very appropriate for the British Dependencies cast and west of the meridian of Grecawich.

The present Poet Laureate wrote several years ago some beautiful lines upon the Western Star, in which one of the thoughts is that it ought to be borne upon the banner of England.

The imitation of the colours of the morning and the evening sky would be a good task for the skill of the riband manufacturers.

The Statutes of St. Michael and St. George strike me as being rather overwrought, and more than would be wanted; but Sir Harris Nicolas is a great authority in these matters, and I am no authority at all.

To enter at present into further details would be at variance with the recommenda- tion in the Secretary of State's despatch; to which I trust that your Lordship will not reply without expressing the grateful sentiments with which Lord Stanley's intention has been received, that Her Majesty's Ministers have not abandoned the intention of recom- inending some addition to the Order of the Bath.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

CHARLES EDWARD GREY.

(Private.)

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Inclosure 5 in No. 4.

Sir II. Mc Leod to the Earl of Elgin

My Lord,

Trinidad, June 17, 1844. I HAVE received your Lordship's letter of the 9th of April, grounded on Lord Stanley's despatch of the 15th of March, relative to the extension in some degree of' the Order of the Bath, and of creating a Local Order subsidiary thereto.

Your Lordship expresses your concurrence in the general view of the matter, and in urder to save time I proceed to give my opinion of the subject. First, I assume that Her Majesty's Government have decided on some extension of the Order of the Bath. Upon this, although a soldier, and always looking towards the Order as a distinctive one for military prowess, and consequently with a certain degree of jealousy to those who obtained it, yet I cannot see any reason why its original institution should be lost sight of; but it should be given only in very extreme cases to colonists, and should be confined principally, if not entirely, to such public functionaries as should have merited the marked approval of Her Majesty's Government when employed in places of high trust and dignity. No civilian under the rank of Governor should be eligible for the first and second class. Lieutenant-Governors and officers administering, provided they are appointed by the Home Government, for the third class. This should be the general rule, subject of course to the Secretary of the Colonies having the power to recommend these latter for the higher grade in cases of eminent services. I must repeat that I think it very essential that this extension of the Order should be confined almost exclusively to those officers sent to the Colonies by Government, because to then it would be matter of much pride on settling at home in their native land to have this flattering mark of Her Majesty's approval of their services. I quite agree in Lord Stanley's remark on hereditary distinc- tions, for the only possible claimants to such arc, and would be, those who generally make the Colonies the mere field of money-making to settle at home; for those who do remain are liable to such vicissitudes of fortune as would always render the due maintenance of hereditary rank at least doubtful.

I now proceed to the other question of the Local Order: this is a much more difficult subject, for although it may have been productive of the greatest good in the Ionian Islands, to which your Lordship's attention is directed, the state and formation of society in the West Indies is so totally different as to render the effect produced there, in fact, no criterion. Your Lordship must be well aware, ere this, of the extreme pretensions of the coloured race-I use the word coloured as meaning the half-caste-pretensions which, however little pretension they have to them, are nevertheless as far exceeding those of the white or black (and particularly the former) as it is possible to conceive; and these almost to a man would not only think themselves eligible for the distinction, but ill-treated if they did not obtain it. I speak from experience, gained by long residence in this tropic, during which I have witnessed, and indeed been an actor in the great changes of late years, and it is not an overcharged view, nor is it much to be wondered at, when we consider the low state of their intellectual cultivation, Besides it is natural for people just emancipated from severe thraldom, and having been taught to look upon their African extraction as the great claim in their favour, to overlook the fact that their real claim, now emancipated, is their descent from the more civilized race. By degrees they will find this out, and the late events in Hayti will probably hasten their conviction on this point. In making the above remark, I do not mean to particularize this characteristic as permanent. I hope otherwise, because as education advances, and with it the capability of forming the true estimate of their own merits, it is to be supposed they will fall into their natural places in society. In this Colony, the youngest of the British, and in some institutions much behind Jamaica, we have,'as far as I am capable of judging, a greater relative proportion of the coloured class, who have received European education in Great Britain or France, than in any other, some of whom support the Government; but, as with your Lordship I believe, and elsewhere, the majority incline towards democracy, perhaps fancying they would have (which to them is almost a necessary) a greater opportunity of declaiming in public in such form than under any other. To the former of these, who support the Government, any mark of distinction would be most acceptable, for they are not exempt from the vanity I have alluded to. The other classes to be considered are those who have made the Colonics the field of their exertions, either as employés under Government, lawyers, planters, or merchants, and have advanced themselves to consideration from talent as Government officers, or at the Bar, or in a legislative capacity; and to many of those who might either return to their native home when Europeans, or remain to spend among their families in the Colonies their old age,

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