MR. GROVE HUMPHREY CHAPMAN, S.J.P.
As Stipendary Magistrate of this self-same San Fernando district, Grove Humphrey Chapman, Esquire (another English barrister), was the immediate predecessor of Mr. Child. More humane than Mr. Mayne, his colleague and contemporary in Port of Spain, this young magistrate began his career fairly well. But he speedily fell a victim to the influences immediately surrounding him in his new position. His head, which later events proved never to have been naturally strong, began to be turned by the unaccustomed deference which he met with on all hands, from high and low, official and non-official, and he himself soon consummated the addling of his brain by persistent practical revolts against every maxim of the ancient Nazarenes in the matter of potations. His decisions at the court, therefore, became perfect emulations of those of Mr. Mayne, as well in perversity as in harshness, and many in his case also were the appeals for relief made to the head of the executive by the inhabitants of the district—but of course in vain. Governor Irving was at this time in office, and the unfortunate [108] victims of perverse judgments—occasionally pronounced by this magistrate in his cups—were only poor Negroes, coolies, or other persons whose worldly circumstances placed them in the category of the "weaker" in the community. To these classes of people that excellent ruler unhappily denied—we dare not say his personal sympathy, but—the official protection which, even through self-respect, he might have perfunctorily accorded. Bent, however, on running through the whole gamut of extravagance, Mr. Chapman—by interpreting official impunity into implying a direct license for the wildest of his caprices—plunged headlong with ever accelerating speed, till the deliverance of the Naparimas became the welcome consequence of his own personal action. On one occasion it was credibly reported in the Colony that this infatuated dispenser of British justice actually stretched his official complaisance so far as to permit a lady not only to be seated near him on the judicial bench, but also to take a part—loud, boisterous and abusive—in the legal proceedings of the day. Meanwhile, as the Governor could not be induced to interfere, things went [109] on from bad to worse, till one day, as above hinted, the unfortunate magistrate so publicly committed himself as to be obliged to be borne for temporary refuge to the Lunatic Asylum, whence he was clandestinely shipped from the Colony on "six months' leave of absence," never more to resume his official station.
The removal of two such magistrates as those whose careers we have so briefly sketched out—Mr. Mayne having died, still a magistrate, since Mr. Froude's departure—has afforded opportunity for the restoration of British protecting influence. In the person of Mr. Llewellyn Lewis, as magistrate of Port of Spain, this opportunity has been secured. He, it is generally rumoured, strives to justify the expectations of fair play and even-handed justice which are generally entertained concerning Englishmen. It is, however, certain that with a Governor so prompt to hear the cry of the poor as Sir William Robinson has proved himself to be, and with a Chief Justice so vigilant, fearless, and painstaking as Sir John Gorrie, the entire magistracy of the Colony must be so beneficially influenced as to preclude [110] the frequency of appeals being made to the higher courts, or it may be to the Executive, on account of scandalously unjust and senseless decisions.
So long, too, as the names of T. S. Warner, Captain Larcom, and F. H. Hamblin abide in the grateful remembrance of the entire population, as ideally upright, just, and impartial dispensers of justice, each in his own jurisdiction, we can only sigh at the temporal dispensation which renders practicable the appointment and retention in office of such administrators of the Law as were Mr. Mayne and Mr. Chapman. The widespread and irreparable mischiefs wrought by these men still affect disastrously many an unfortunate household; and the execration by the weaker in the community of their memory, particularly that of Robert Dawson Mayne, is only a fitting retribution for their abuse of power.
NOTES
85. *A West Indian official superstition professes to believe that a British barrister must make an exceptionally good colonial S.J.P., seeing that he is ignorant of everything, save general English law, that would qualify him for the post! In this, to acquit oneself tolerably, some acquaintance with the language, customs, and habits of thought of the population is everywhere else held to be of prime importance,—native conscientiousness and honesty of purpose being definitively presupposed.
BOOK III: SOCIAL REVOLUTION
[113] Never was the Knight of La Mancha more convinced of his imaginary mission to redress the wrongs of the world than Mr. James Anthony Froude seems to be of his ability to alter the course of events, especially those bearing on the destinies of the Negro in the British West Indies. The doctrinaire style of his utterances, his sublime indifference as to what Negro opinion and feelings may be, on account of his revelations, are uniquely charming. In that portion of his book headed "Social Revolution" our author, with that mixture of frankness and cynicism which is so dear to the soul of the British esprit fort of to-day, has challenged a comparison between British Colonial policy on the [114] one hand, and the Colonial policy of France and Spain on the other. This he does with an evident recklessness that his approval of Spain and France involves a definite condemnation of his own country. However, let us hear him:—
"The English West Indies, like other parts of the world, are going through a silent revolution. Elsewhere the revolution, as we hope, is a transition state, a new birth; a passing away of what is old and worn out, that a fresh and healthier order may rise in its place. In the West Indies the most sanguine of mortals will find it difficult to entertain any such hope at all."