the short time allowed him, and as a Christain gentlemen, attempted to make the inauguration of Hart as imposing as possible. He hired a fine team and himself and family proceeded to the Tallahassee depot to receive Governor Hart. When the train arrived with Hart, who was accompanied by a number of the members of the ring, Governor Reed left the carriage and went to the car which bore the distinguished guest, and after greeting him by a friendly shake of the hand, offered to assist him in getting his traps from the cars. Hart, whom Governor Reed had appointed at the beginning of his administration one of the judges of the Supreme Court, now haughtily turned away from him, saying that he had other matters to attend to. Hart and his ring friends then got out of the car and actually took possession of the Governor's carriage, filled it with himself and the ring managers, without so much as saying "by your leave," and drove off to the city, leaving Governor Reed and his family to get away the best way they could. Osborn and

his officeholders now met in secret conclave and arranged plans to capture the organization of the lower branch of the Legislature. It was well known by them that at least three members of the Leon County delegation, Wallace, Proctor and Conover, would not, under any circumstances, vote for a member of the ring for Speaker, and that none of the delegation could be brought to the support of Osborn unless they were actually bought; and they could not elect the Speaker with Republican votes without this delegation. They must resort to strategy to secure the election of one of their number. Colonel M. Martin, who had also received great favors from the hands of Governor Reed, being appointed by him warden of the State prison, when he was near starvation, was agreed upon as the man who must save the sinking ship. John R. Scott was again made the pliant tool of the ring, though he professed to be opposed to them. They agreed that Scott should be put in nomination for Speaker by the Republican caucus, and that Martin should be held in reserve for the Democrats to vote for, as they knew that the whites had naturally rather have a white man to preside over them than one of their fomer slaves. Scott, as usual, was silly enough to believe that the ring favored him for Speaker.

Scott was to be put forward because he was black, thus compelling the representatives from Leon County to vote for him or to suffer violence from the freedmen, who would be told that the Leon delegation had voted against one of their own color for Speaker. This delegation being thus forced to vote for Scott, some carpet-bagger would nominate Martin and the other carpet-baggers, violating the caucus obligation, were to follow after the Democrats had given votes enough to elect with the carpetbag vote thrown to them. The friends of Governor Reed were not united as to the best course to pursue, and he had no white friend among the carpet-baggers in the Legislature upon whom he could depend. This division among the Governor's friends caused some of the anti-ring members to ally themselves with S. B. Conover, the Governor's State Treasurer, and support him for the Speakership, not because they had any special confidence in him, but because they believed him to be the most available man against Martin, whom the Democrats had agreed to support in case there was any chance of Scott's election. Conover was reported to have voted for Bloxham when he ran for LieutenantGovernor in 1870, and unless he falsified his own word, he voted for Bloxham this year when he ran for Governor. The object of the ring in attempting to secure the Speakership was that they had instituted several contests for Democratic seats so as to turn enough of them out of the Legislature to elect Osborn without the aid of the Leon County delegation, who were pledged to the whites of that county never to vote for Osborn. In our next chapter we shall see how they succeeded.

CHAPTER XV.

Governor Hart's Administration. The Ring Makes preparation to Capture the Organization of the Lower Honse of the Legislature. The Meeting of the Legislature of 1874, and Carpetbag Treachery to the Negro. Extracts from Governor Hart's Message. Protest of the European Bondholders Against the Neglect of the State of Florida. The Protests of Bondholders Gotten up to Cover Stearn's Tracks. The Assembly Investigat ing the Stealing Statutes. The Attempted Sale of West Florida. M. Martin and the State Prisou. Governor Reed Attempts to Head off Stearns' Railroad Steal. Governor Reed's Memorial as to His Claim Against the State, and the Appointment of a Joint Committee. A Scramble for the Agricultural College Money. Varnum Trips up Cowgill.

The administration of Governor Hart, though he was the first native Governor of Florida, was full of vacillation and uncertainty as to a real line of policy. His administration lasted for fifteen months, the most of which time he spent at the North in the fruitless attempt to rebuild his health, which he had wrecked beyond hope of recovery by being forced into the canvass of 1872 by the members of the Ring for the express purpose of incapacitating him for the exercise of his official authority if elected. The Ring, now further to humiliate Governor Reed, had Hart appoint him a member of the Board of County Commissioners of Duval County, thinking that he would spurn the idea of accepting so inferior a position after having been Governor of the State. He, however, took them by surprise and accepted the position, and it was not long before he began to investigate and stir up the carpetbag scrip ring in Jacksonville, and after having struck one blow at a fradulent scrip grab, in which he beat them out of a couple of thousand dollars, his removal was demanded by the Ring, and he was at once decapitated by Hart. Hart went to the North after the adjournment of the Legislature of 1873, and M. L. Stearns, Lieutenant-Gov

ernor, assumed the head of the government. His first step was to lay wires by which to force the State to aid him to secure the nomination for Governor three years henee. William Archer Cocke, the Attorney-General, refused to be used for that purpose, and Stearns was driven to the alternative of employing outside counsel to bring suit in the United States Supreme Court, pretending to protect the interest of the State, but for the real purpose of getting possession of the Jacksonville, Pensacola and Mobile Railroad, the earnings of which were to be exclusively used, as far as possible to force his election to the United States Senate at the next meeting of the Legislature; but failing in that to compel his nomination for Governor by intimidating and buying out those freedmen who so bitterly opposed him. He began to interfere with the local school boards of the different counties, and whenever he could influence its members, no one in the black belt counties could get a school unless he was in favor of Stearns' and Hart's so-called administration. This administration inaugurated a most alarming proposition among the freedmen, which came near precipitating them into a war among themselves with reference to the representation in the Legislature from the colored Methodist and Baptist churches. The freedmen prior to the emancipation knew nothing of any other churches than the Missionary Baptist, Primitive or footwashing Baptist, and the Methodist Episcopal; but at the close of the war the A. M. E. Church sent ministers from the North, the most of whom were men of intelligence, and these men enlisted some of the most intelligent of the freedmen under their banner as ministers. These ministers, discerning the scarcity of leaders among the freedmen, went into politics. A large number of them, previous to this year, had been repeatedly elected to the Legislature and had been fighting the Ring under the leadership of Governor Reed, which had alienated them permanently from that faction. The freedmen who belonged to the Baptist churches were taught that the members of the Methodist churches were cheating them out of a just representation and of their share of the offices; and that the Ring would see to it that the Baptist members should be elected to the Legislature. This teaching created church jealousy and great prejudice, which, in

some counties, caused frequent rows, and but for the foresight and better judgment of the more intelligent ones in the churches, a general outbreak and bloodshed would have been the result among the colored churches. There were some vacancies to be filled in the Legislature of that year, caused by resignations, some of the members being appointed to Federal offices by Walls, Purman and Conover, or through their recommendation. In one county two Baptist ministers were put up for the Legislature without a regular nomination, one of them could neither read nor write, and when called upon to make a speech said to his auditors that if elected he would do whatever Governor "Starns" told him to do. This was an old colored Baptist preacher in Leon County, named Henry Griffin. Acting Governor Stearns and C. A. Cowgill, Comptroller, took the stump for this intelligent candidate, and brought to bear the whole power of the so-called administration in his behalf. Griffin was a Primitive or foot-washing Baptist, and the other candidate was a minister of the Missionary Baptist Church, whose name was John N. Stokes. The white Democrats and the freedmen united and defeated Griffin and Stokes, but Stokes was counted in by one majority.

The Ring having been defeated in the attempt to re-elect Osborn, turned their attention to M. L. Stearns to save the day. Conover, who had been elected to the United States Senate, now began, with the assistance of Purman and Walls, the Congressmen, to appoint some of the most influential colored men to some of the most important Federal offices, with, also, a good sprinkling of Democrats. These appointments alarmed Stearns and his followers, as the masses of the freedmen now saw, for the first time in the history of the State, their own color filling Federal offices that had heretofore been held by some of the most inferior members of the carpetbag ring. There was an agreement among the members of the Ring to go on no bond of any freedman appointed by Conover, Purman & Co. The white Democrats in many portions of the State did not hesitate to endorse these appointments, as they preferred an honest colored man in a Federal office rather than have the State infested with strangers whose sole purpose in the state was to fatten at the