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feeling sympathy with the lot of the average planter, much of whose labour went to the support of absentee landlords. Private letters of this period are eloquent upon the hardships of the colonist's lifefrequent hunger and sickness, financial ruin from hurricanes, Carib raids and arbitrary taxation, and consequent improvidence, drunkenness, and immorality. These men, who laid the foundations of an empire, paid dearly for their enterprise.

In spite of all deterrents, emigration increased and expansion took place. By 1635 Nevis was well populated, and a beginning had been made in Montserrat and Antigua. In 1639 there was a determined attempt to colonise St Lucia, but it was beaten by fevers and Carib attacks. The same fate also befell similar undertakings in Trinidad and Tobago, promoted by the Earl of Warwick, who had bought up the Earl of Pembroke's derelict rights to those islands. In the Leeward group Warner exercised a general control, usually filling the vacancies which occurred in the governorships. With Barbados, on the other hand, he had little concern, and that island was more directly administered by the earl from England. The French about 1635 made permanent settlements in Martinique and Guadeloupe, but failed in Grenada and other islands. The earliest Governor of Antigua is said to have been Edward Warner,

concerning whom a local tradition relates that Carib raiders captured his wife and carried her off. He pursued and recovered her, but the shock caused her to pine away and die soon afterwards, and he himself did not long survive her.

The first Earl of Carlisle died in 1636, and the affairs of the proprietorship fell into confusion owing to the clamours of his creditors and the minority, by a year or two, of his son. The trustees who managed the estate were accused of doing so only for their own benefit; and when the second earl gained control he found his

authority irreparably shaken. Henry Hawley, the Governor of Barbados, made a bold attempt in 1639-40 to steal the island and set up as an independent ruler. He had acted prematurely, and was sent home a prisoner. Had he waited a year or two he might have succeeded, for Charles I. was drifting into war with his people, and the power of the Crown in the colonies became a nullity after 1642.

Warner watched these events and shaped his course accordingly. There was no love lost between him and the second earl, who wrote that he found in him "nothing but airy flashes and self-conceit." He was, in fact, quietly changing from servant into master, for he realised that the Civil War was cutting away the foundation of the proprietorship. Carlisle joined the king, and was

captured by the Roundheads tion and the ensuing submis

in the first campaign and his property sequestrated. The colonists at the same time ceased to pay his revenues. The Earl of Warwick sided with Parliament, and was appointed by it in 1643 to the presidency of a committee for the rule of the plantations. One of his first acts was to confirm Warner's LieutenantGeneralship; but his power in the West Indies was no more effective than that of the Royalist proprietor. Warner kept up a civil correspondence with him, but refused all real submission. The colonists were waiting to see which side would win before committing themselves; meanwhile they were enjoying the sweets of a newfound liberty. We have no details of Warner's administration at this period, but it can hardly have been so oppressive as of old. The general impression to be gathered is that his role was changing from that of the stern agent of an outside power to that of the benevolent despot and father of his people.

Even when the Puritans triumphed and the king's head fell at Whitehall the Leeward colonies showed no great concern. Barbados, on the other hand, the chosen resort of exiled Royalists, openly defied the Commonwealth. All real ised that they had no need to submit unless the new government should be in a position to send out a strong force to the Caribbean. That expedi

sion were delayed until 1651-2.

Meanwhile the colonies were undergoing a rapid transition in their social and economic life. About 1640 Dutchmen from Brazil introduced sugarplanting in Barbados. This industry could not profitably be conducted on the old small holdings of the tobacco period. The typical sugar estate was of about five hundred acres, with windmills, crushing machines, copper boilers, draught animals, and gangs of negroes. The Dutch mercantile firms supplied all this equipment on credit, and the planters who were wise enough to accept their terms speedily paid off their indebtedness, and grew rich on the high profits which accrued. They were the fortunate few. The majority of the old-time planters were in a few years crowded out, and sank to the condition of wageearners, or emigrated to new colonies in Surinam, Jamaica, and elsewhere. This change was most evident in Barbados, but it took place, although more gradually, in the Leeward Islands.

Warner's ascendancy-personal, and appealing to no higher authority-was typical of the tobacco period, and unsuited to the new order which was coming in. He could rule as a military tyrant or as a paternal despot over the struggling twenty - acre tobaccoplanters, living from hand to mouth, and liable to ruin by a stiff fine or a bad season.

he saw an enemy's head he hit it, and did his best to make an end. Yet with all his egoism he was a worthy pioneer of the empire. He strove for his own ends, but his ends were those of the state, which cannot be said for many a more amiable character of his century.

Sir Thomas was thrice married. Of one of his sons, the unhappy Edward Warner, we have already spoken. He is described as a man of gentle and melancholy temperament. Another son, Colonel Philip Warner, lived long into the Restoration period, and his descendants are to be found in the West Indies to-day. A half-breed, Thomas or Indian" Warner, was the offspring of Sir Thomas and a Carib woman.

But the new wealthy men of the sugar estates, who could put down five or ten thousand pounds to purchase a plantation, were not to be bullied. The proprietorship and its representatives had few terrors for them; it required the might of the English State, as wielded by the Commonwealth and the Restoration, to bring them under control. Perhaps fortunately for himself, Warner did not live far into the transition period. He died at St Christopher on 10th March 1649. His death, with that of Charles I. six weeks before, marks the end of the first period of Caribbean plantation. His character is to be deduced only from his career; it is nowhere portrayed for us by a contemporary. Only one or two of his letters have been preserved-one to the king in 1636, containing a vigorous stab at Hawley of Barbados, whom he disliked. That was in keep- In St Christopher there exing with the general record, ists a broken gravestone with which never shows us Warner a half- obliterated inscription as guilty of any chivalry or commemorating the colony's delicacy of feeling; wherever founder :

66

He proved to

be a firebrand in the islands, and was killed at Dominica in 1674 by an expedition led by his half-brother Philip.

"First read, then weep when thou art hereby taught,
That Warner lyes interr'd here, one that bought

With loss of Noble bloud the Illustrious name

Of a commander Greate in acts of Fame,
Traynd from his youth in armes, his Courage bold
Atempted brave Exploites, and Vncontrold

By fortunes fiercest frowns hee still gave forthe
Large Narratives of Military worth,

Written with his Sword's point, but what is man
the midst of his glory, and who can

His life a moment since that hee

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THE GINGER-BEER STANDARD.

BY ISOBEL JAMIESON.

III.

THE possible maids whom we had accommodated ourMrs Frendo-Falzon had sent selves to the cheaper Maltese us waiting downstairs standard, and I almost shared when we had finished break- Octavia's pronounced horror. fast. Half-hidden in their fal- Further inquiry showed we dettas, in the obscurity of the were paying for our own ignorhall they looked more like ance rather than their ability Little Sisters of the Poor than as maids, for it was theirdomestic servants, and the con- presumed-linguistic acquiretemplative patience with which ments that doubled their marthey waited added to that im- ket value. It was soon settled, pression. and Mr Caruana, emerging into the hall, assured us they were

I left the negotiating to Octavia, or, it might be more truthful to say, she took it.

"Do you both speak English?" was naturally the first question.

"Yez, mees." Their names? Dolores and Carmèla charming! To ask after that which was the cook and if she could make steampuddings and what were their wages seemed to me horribly terre-à-terre. I thought how much more "Dolores " suggested fans and castanets than pots and pans, but Octavia quite rightly felt that by any name a cook could be equally incompetent, and pursued her investigations.

Wages were rather a blow. £2 a month each. True, we could not have got them at home for that, and wages do not really go by rental, like the water-rates, but already

good girls and used to English ladies," so they apparently knew the worst and were willing to face it again. It is small wonder they were, for their wages were sumptuous, from a Maltese point of view. Their fathers and brothers, we found later, were earning four and five shillings a week as labourers.

The Chocolate Soldier was to hand over the keys and inventory that morning, so we trysted Dolores and Carmèla to meet us at the house, and we and our luggage were to drive round to Sliema. We could not fit into a carrozza with all our belongings, so Mr Caruana produced a small flat cart, with donkey and brigand complete.

Going to Sliema by road is a very different matter from going by the ferry, as the road

has to find its way round the two-fingered end of Marsamuscetto Harbour. We got a new and very astounding view of Valetta as we left it. We drove out through a stone archway and bridge over an immense dry moat. There must be some other name for a ditch of these proportions; and yet, as I feel sure there cannot be another such in the world, perhaps no one bothered to invent a name for it. Every day and in every way I wonder more and more why one has not heard as much about Valetta as about any of the Seven Wonders of the world. This amazing ditch is cut through the limestone from one harbour to another, so cutting off Valetta from the rest of the island, and the depth is somewhere about 200 feet. In every nook and cranny was growing some queer green trailing-plant, and here and there veritable cascades of the beautiful purple Bougainvillæa. The 200 feet was my estimate by looking at it, but Octavia was hunting for the actual figures in the guide-book, with the result that I saw and was conquered by the beauty and queerness of it all while she was still fumbling. When she looked up again the ditch was far behind, and the most interesting object in sight was our luggage-cart, tearing along as fast as the low gear of a donkey will allow, and our various boxes bounding at every bump; whether whether they always bounded back on to the cart was evidently a

matter of indifference to their guardian, who was giving his entire attention to belabouring the hard-working little beast.

In the first arm of the harbour we passed there were some big steamers moored. Octavia prodded our driver in the back, and asked him if that were Marsamuscetto Harbour. He answered, "NoPiano," which we later resolved, correctly, into "P. and O."! The next arm was apparently shallower, as near the end there was a long bridge connecting the Sliema side to the peninsula that divides the arms. On this, nearly-island, is another splendid massive fort called Manoel, belonging also to the age of the Knights, so frequently thought finer and nobler than our own, but fighting between Turks and Maltese was not likely to be scrupulous, and the Knights, although mediævally picturesque, had not necessarily our ideas of what romantic chivalry was.

At last we reached our mauve dwelling, and again admired the effect of black faldettas, as seen against its lemon and purple beauty. Dolores and Carmèla were so far satisfactory in that they had arrived.

But nowhere was our Chocolate Soldier to be seen. This somewhat annoyed Octavia, for the luggage-man was busy depositing our goods on the verandah, and to be left to sit on our boxes, in company with two faldettas, seemed to her a trifle infra dig. This, no doubt,

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