The history of the use of distinctive postage stamps in St. Vincent dates from May 1st, 1860, when the Colonial Authorities took over from the Imperial Government the entire management of the Post Office of the Island, which, like the posts of many of the other British West Indies, had up to that date been administered by the Postmaster-General of the United Kingdom. The Local Legislature of the Island thereupon passed an Ordinance, known as the “Post Office Act,” which became law on June 14th, 1860. This Act, amongst other things, provided for the appointment of a Colonial Postmaster, a General Post Office for the Island, rates of postage, and the issue of postage stamps. As many of the clauses of the Ordinance possess a good deal of interest for Philatelists, we give, in Appendix A, a copy of those which, from a collector’s point of view, may be considered the more important ones. After the passing of the Act postage stamps were ordered from England, and, as we shall afterwards see, a supply was despatched to the Island on March 27th, 1861. The stamps were no doubt put into use immediately on their arrival, as a statement in the _Blue Book_ of the Colony for 1861 gives the amount received for postage during that year as £158 16s. 5d., as against £78 5s. 4d. for 1860, and the increase is accounted for by the “Sale of Postage Stamps which were obtained in 1861.” This fixes with certainty the date of the first issue, but when we commenced to study those of the later issues, and attempted to make a proper chronological list, we found there were many discrepancies in the published catalogues we consulted; from them we turned to contemporary notices in the pages of the _Timbre-Poste_, the _Stamp Collector’s Magazine_, the _Philatelist_, the _Philatelic Record_, and other less celebrated periodicals, in hopes of removing our difficulties. Unfortunately Philately was decidedly under a cloud from the middle to near the end of the seventies, and this is just the time during which a number of issues took place in St. Vincent. The _Stamp Collectors Magazine_ ceased with 1874, the _Philatelist_, never a good source of _original_ information, stopped in 1876, and after that the _Timbre-Poste_ alone filled the breach until the _Philatelic Record_ made its appearance in 1879. It is with regard to this important subject of dates that Messrs. Perkins, Bacon & Co.’s list has been so extremely useful, as we have thereby been enabled to check the notices scattered through the pages of the various philatelic works we have mentioned. We therefore believe that the dates of issue given by us will be found to be more accurate than those in any previous publication.