Verres may not have been quite so black as he is painted by Cicero, on whose speeches we depend entirely for our knowledge of him, but there can hardly be a doubt that he stood pre-eminent among the worst specimens of Roman provincial governors.
On the one side was the grinding poverty of the poor; on the other the abuses of the governors.
Thence went out the governors to their provinces.
This change of masters brought some relief to the unfortunate Cretans, who at least exchanged the licence of local misrule for the oppression of an organized despotism; and the government of Mustafa Pasha, an Albanian like Mehemet Ali, the ruler of the island for a considerable period (1832-1852), was more enlightened and intelligent than that of most Turkish governors.
In 1635 the king granted the inhabitants of Halifax licence to found a workhouse in a large house given to them for that purpose by Nathaniel Waterhouse, and incorporated them under the name of the master and governors.
