But poor Don Josef Maria Chacon must have had a hard time of it while he tried to break into something like order such a motley crew.
He never broke them in, poor man.

For just as matters were beginning to right themselves, the French Revolution broke out; and every French West Indian island burst into flame,--physical, alas! as well as moral.

Then hurried into Trinidad, to make confusion worse confounded, French Royalist families, escaping from the horrors in Hayti; and brought with them, it is said, many still faithful house-slaves born on their estates.

But the Republican French, being nearly ten to one, were practical masters of the island; and Don Chacon, whenever he did anything unpopular, had to submit to 'manifestations,' with tricolour flag, Marseillaise, and Ca Ira, about the streets of Port of Spain; and to be privately informed by Admiral Artizabal that a guillotine was getting ready to cut off the heads of all loyal Spaniards, French, and British.

This may have been an exaggeration: but wild deeds were possible enough in those wild days.