despondency as regards the future. Moreover, the balance had to be held
between the Church of England on the one hand, which was in possession of
all the ecclesiastical endowments, and probably of all the learning and
cultivation of the island, and, on the other hand, the various sects,
especially that of the Baptists, who, having fought vigorously for the
Negroes in the battle of Emancipation, now held undisputed sway over their
minds, and who, as was natural, found it difficult to abandon the position
of demagogues and agitators.

Lord Elgin was at once fortunate and unfortunate in coming after the most
conciliatory and popular of governors, Sir C. Metcalfe. The island was in
a state of peace and harmony which had been long unknown to it; but the
singular affection, which Metcalfe had inspired in all classes, made them
look forward with the most gloomy forebodings to the advent of his
successor.

[Sidenote: State of opinion in the island.]

Moreover, to use Lord Elgin's own language, a tone of despondency with
reference to the prospects of the owners of property had long been
considered the test of a sincere regard for the welfare of Jamaica. He who
had been most successful in proclaiming the depression under which the
landed and trading interests laboured, had been held to be in the popular
acceptation of the term the truest friend to the colony.

Nothing could be more alien to the spirit of inquiry and enterprise which
leads to practical improvement. In an enervating climate, with a
proprietary for the most part non-resident, and a peasantry generally
independent of their employers, much encouragement is requisite to induce
managers to encounter the labour and responsibility which attends the