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schemes being first duly considered by the executive. There are many objections to this system.

Until the administration of Sir Stephen Chapman, the senior member of the Council administered the government in case of the death or absence of the Governor. It was then changed, and the duty now devolves upon the senior officer commanding the troops. This was a very proper alteration, as there are many serious objections to placing the administration of a small community, like the Bermudas, in the hands of a native of the place. The mode of election for members to serve in the Assembly, is by parishes, of which there are nine. Each returns four, and the representative must be a person qualified by the possession of freehold property in the parish that returns him, to the amount of £240 sterling, and the qualification of an elector is a freehold of £60 sterling; this last amount was formerly £30, but it was doubled in 1834, on the passing of the Emancipation Act. The Assembly thus consisted of thirty-six members, which is undoubtedly a most immoderate number, as the business of the islands could be better done with half. The members of the Assembly and Council are each paid eight shillings sterling per day, when on duty; this sum is voted annually, and contemptible as it appears, it entails a heavy expense on the colony.

The revenue raised in the islands is in proportion to £1. 8s. sterling per annum to each inhabitant, and as the mass of the population is poor, this is quite as much as should be levied. The expenditure is now

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kept within the income, and a small debt which had commenced has been paid off. The imperial duties are collected by officers appointed from home, and forming, for so small a place, an extensive customs establishment. The amount collected by this department is quarterly paid over to the Treasurer of the Colony, who has also the collection of the local revenue, and who is paid by a five-per-cent. charge on all amounts received by him. The collection of duties by the Customs costs about thirty per cent., and the amount received is again taxed five per cent. by the Treasurer, thus making the collection of the principal part of the revenue cost the enormous sum of thirty-five per cent. No doubt can be entertained but that one establishment would be amply sufficient for the whole, and if the Customs were selected to transact the business, it might be effected at a much lower rate.

The Episcopal Church was established in the colony by the earliest settlers, and most of the edifices now stand on the sites of those erected by the first colonists.* * Great attention was paid by the Bermuda Company to the religious wants of the place, and the first clergymen appear to have possessed considerable influence. After the abolition of the Charter of the Proprietors, their pay appears to have been much neglected, as it was reduced, and very irregular, causing them to make frequent and bitter complaints,

* There is a piece of cedar still in existence which was taken from the pulpit of the old Parish Church of Pembroke with the date 1621 carved on it.

and they were usually compelled to keep day-schools for their support; as the inducement was so small, it frequently happened that one clergyman had the charge of four parishes, to which, of course, it was impossible for him properly to attend.*

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In 1820, the Assembly passed an Act, dividing the nine parishes into five livings, and attaching a salary to each, of £120 sterling, payable from the Treasury. There were, besides, other provisions for regulating the establishment, although the whole law is very insufficient. The parish of St. George alone was provided with a resident clergyman, and possessed some other privileges not common to the others. March, 1825, the Bermudas were annexed to the diocese of Nova Scotia, and a resident Archdeacon was appointed, with a salary of £400, half of which was paid by Act of Parliament, and the remaining £200, at the recommendation of the Secretary of State, was granted by the Governor and Council from the Colonial Fund, called the Powder Fund. In August, 1839, the Venerable Dr. Spencer, the Archdeacon of the Islands, was collated to the See of Newfoundland, to which the Bermudas were annexed, and an order was issued from Home to continue to him the Colonial salary of £200, which he had enjoyed whilst Archdeacon. This, added to the Imperial Grant of £1000, increased the income of the bishopric to £1200. This arrangement was certainly prejudicial to the best

* The Bermuda Company caused readers to be appointed for the tribes for whom there was no clergyman. Their duty appears to have been to read the Service on Sundays.

interests of the Islands, which are now bound to pay £200 per annum to a bishopric with which they must ever have very little connection. It would certainly have been wiser to have attached the Colony to the See of Barbadoes, allowing the office of Archdeacon to continue.

Besides the nine parish churches, there is a temporary place of worship at St. David's Island, and three Episcopal chapels. There is also an extensive building in progress in the town of Hamilton, in connection with the establishment. The Presbyterians have a neat kirk in Warwick, and a smaller one in Hamilton, recently built. In 1831, the Legislature granted a salary of £60 per annum to the incumbent of the kirk in Warwick, which he still enjoys. The Wesleyans have a fine chapel in the town of St. George, a commodious one in Hamilton, and seven smaller places of worship throughout the Islands; they receive nothing from the Treasury, but pay their ministers from their own resources.

The Clergy Act of 1820 was passed for thirty years, and was received at the time without complaint; but the Wesleyans have since materially increased, and now form an influential body, and it may reasonably be doubted if they will consent to be taxed to pay clergymen they never hear, unless they are to participate in the grant for religious purposes. Each parish pays the rector a salary according to its ability, and this amount, together with the repairs of the church and other expences, is assessed at Easter. There are two clergymen for the dockyard at Ireland

Island, whose duties are confined to that place, and who are paid entirely by the Home Government.

Education is at a low ebb in the Bermudas, and no correct opinion of its condition can be formed by reading the reports of Societies, which are generally inclined to speak favourably of their own exertions. This important subject appears to have interested many worthy men from the earliest period of the settlement, and particularly since the proposal of Bishop Berkley to erect a college on the Islands for the education of the aborigines of America. Foremost among them, the Rev. Mr. Lyttleton made every effort to procure funds for building and endowing a collegiate establishment, about the latter half of the last century; it is to be regretted that his benevolent efforts entirely failed. The Bermuda Company made laudable provision for the support of public schools, by grants of land throughout the colony. These lands were sold at long leases, subject to an annual rent of tobacco, which constituted the pay of the schoolmaster; how or when much of the soil became alienated from its original intention, cannot now be ascertained. Previously to the Clergy Act of 1820, the stipends of the clergymen were so small that they were forced to establish day-schools for a maintenance. In this way a number of good classical schools were always to be found in the colony; but after that period this advantage was lost to the people. In 1816, an Act was introduced for erecting and partially endowing a college on the plan proposed by the Rev. Mr. Lyttleton, upon lands be

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