CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.

1810 to 1830.

LEEWARD ISLANDS-MADRAS.

On the termination of his mission to Naples, Mr. Elliot returned to London, and in 1809 he was appointed Governor of the Leeward Islands. The condition of the Continent-from which the success of Bonaparte's armies had all but banished diplomacy-and the risks and expenses consequent on the removal from place to place of a numerous family, decided Mr. Elliot to abandon a diplomatic for a less brilliant, but also a less precarious, career. It was, however, at a great sacrifice of personal happiness that he accepted of a post to which he felt it impossible that his family should accompany him; and the five years that he spent at a distance from them form, perhaps, the most unhappy period of his life.

The numerous letters which he addressed to his wife and elder children from the banishment of Antigua contrast curiously with the family letters written by and to him in his youth. The anxieties which others had felt for him, it was now his turn to experience; and the gay, elastic buoyancy of spirit which had distinguished him in early life, had given way to a sore sense

of the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Returning to England after years of active and often of brilliant service to his country, he found that such service rendered at a distance met with far less acknowledgment than would have been readily bestowed on political support at home. To save an ally of England was no doubt good; but to save a vote to Government was better. Shrewd observer as he was, and versed in the politics of Europe, Mr. Elliot was struck by the narrow views and unskilful policy of statesmen whose mental gaze was contracted to the arena of parliamentary strife; while to their imperfect knowledge of, and limited interest in, continental politics, he ascribed the curious selection of their diplomatic agents, and also some anomalies in the system of procedure towards them. His general impressions of England are given in a letter to a friend, written shortly before leaving it for the Leeward Islands, after a residence of three years in London.

"The country," he says, "surpasses all my recollections by its beauty, cultivation, and appearance of prosperity; but my long residence abroad has made me averse to the general manners of English society, in which there is less of nature and of good breeding than I have met with among the same classes of society in any other country of Europe. The women are sensible, intelligent, and well-informed; but with the exception of a few who have had a cosmopolite training, they want the charm of courteous grace which distinguishes their semblables in other aristocratic societies. . . There

is a certain trafficking spirit in English society, and people seek in it for pleasure less than for advantage; a prudential consideration for self is highly classed among English virtues, and is conscientiously practised."

Whatever the drawbacks to his enjoyment of English life, Mr. Elliot's thoughts turned longingly homewards from the tropical climate and the exceptional condition of manners and society in which he now found himself. The cruelties practised upon the slave population revolted his nature, and in the first year of his government considerable unpopularity was brought upon him by the publication of some of his despatches to Lord Liverpool, which treated of the oppressive conduct of the planters, and the insufficiency of the civil institutions as then existing to restrain them. Mr. Elliot had been desired to inquire into certain facts connected with atrocious acts of cruelty perpetrated by a planter of the name of Huggins in the island of Nevis-acts committed in the public market-place, without interference from the magistracy, and yet so exceptionally ferocious as to have become the subject of indignant resolutions passed in the House of Assembly at Nevis-acts for which, when brought to trial, the perpetrator had been acquitted by a jury composed of his own friends. In writing to Lord Liverpool of these horrors, and of the remissness or culpability of those whose duty it was to punish them, Mr. Elliot gave it as his opinion that the root of the evil lay much deeper than the conduct of a few individuals.

"It must be accounted for by the defects of a constitution little adapted to the present state of decreased

and decreasing white population of this island, which no longer furnishes a sufficient choice of men fit to fill any public department. The fact is, the governments of the smaller islands were formed in times when many of the proprietors lived upon their estates, and the white population was in some instances, perhaps, ten times as numerous as it now is. Of the few white inhabitants who remain, managers, overseers, self-created lawyers, self-educated physicians, and adventurous merchants, with little real capital or credit, compose the greater part. The acquirements of education among many of this description of persons are very unequal to the task of taking a share in the government. The prevalence of principle, either moral or religious, is also, I fear, not to be calculated from the repetition of the hackneyed expressions of which an ostentatious use is frequently made in addresses, and on all occasions meant to meet the public eye at home.

"To collect from such a state of society men fit to be legislators, judges, or jurymen, is perfectly impracticable. Individual interest, personal influence, animosity of partyfeuds, weigh down the scale of justice and direct the course of legislative authority into acts of arbitrary and unjustifiable power, cloaked under the semblance and dignified with the name of constitutional acts. How such defects are to be remedied is a question which requires much minute investigation and serious and dispassionate consideration," etc., etc.1

This letter having been read before the House of

1 November 21, 1810.

Commons, found its way in the newspapers to the West Indies, and a letter from Mr. Elliot's private secretary, Mr. Heydinger, describes the indignation which it had excited :

"St. Kitt's, September 1811.

"I am told that had the Governor gone to town that evening he would have been pelted. However that may have been, he went soon after, and goes frequently, without experiencing any difference in his reception. A handbill has been circulated calling on all the managers, lawyers, physicians, and merchants of this island, and of Nevis and Montserrat, to meet and consider the contents of the letter. The Governor takes no notice of them, and leaves them to talk till they are tired, when he supposes they will give over."

In the following year, 1811, the trial and execution of a planter named Arthur Hodge created a great sensation in the Islands, as, owing to the position and connections of the accused, it was believed that the Governor's veto would intervene to prevent the sentence of execution from being carried out.

Mr. Elliot, writing to his wife, thus describes him :"A considerable planter in the island of Tortola, named Arthur Hodge, Esquire, a member of Council, and a gentleman well known in England, and connected by marriage with families of distinction there, has been thrown into prison upon the accusation of having murdered many of his slaves by severe punishments and various kinds of torture. His trial is to take place on the 25th, and Mr. Horsford, the Solicitor-General in this