TheBritishEmpire 10061087 PDF

B RITI S H E M PI R E
SI" L E C TU R E S
S I R CH A RL E S P . L U CA S
M ACM ILLAN AND CO .

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LIMI T ED
ST M ART IN S ST RE E T LON DON
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1
9 1 5
CO P Y R I G HT
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TH E M E M B E R S
OF TH E
W OR KI N G ME N S’
COL L E G E
The lo t is fallen u n to m e in a fa ir grou n d :
yea, I
h av e a go odly h e r i tage .
Psal m x vi . 6 .
D ay is as n ight an dight is
n as day, un til we h ea r
th at the E gli h
n s v i cto ri u s
are o . G od kn o ws th e r i gh t .
H will h elp the r i gh t

e .
E xtract f rom a S om ali A dd ress to

Kin g G eorge, 19 1 4 (Tra nslati on ) .
C O N TE N TS
I NT R OD U CT O R Y
C HAP TER I
E N G LA N D I N T H E M A KI N G
CHAPTER H
TH E S E V E NT EE NT H C E NT U R Y
C H A P T E R HI
TH E E I G H T EE NT H CE NT U R Y
C H A P TE R H f
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TH E A G E OF Q U EE N V I CT O R I A
C HAP TER V
TH E E MP I R E AT TH E P R E S E NT D A Y
C H A P T E R VI
TH E M E A N I N G AN D USE OF T HE E MP I R E
I ND E "
x) I N TR O D U C TO R Y
TH E British E m pire , as seen through German eyes at this

time of international bitterness is a creation o f force and,
fraud an image with feet of clay a collection o f down

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trodden races and communities eager to rebel in short an, ,
evil in the world which ought to be wiped o u t No sane .
Englishman and no sane man in any neutral nation shares

this view But though before the present war knowledge
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o f the realities of the Empire was steadily growing in the
United Kingdom it was still only half knowledge o r less ;

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and moreover among a large section o f Englishm en there

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was a suspicion o f Empire both the word and the thing

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as implying jingoism vainglory and hyp ocrisy Hence

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arose the term of Little Englander Coupled with t hi s .
suspicion there was a feeling among some at any rate o f , ,
the working men of England that the Empire was o f no

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use to them and that they had no use for the Empire It
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might be the luxury o f the richer classes but how they , ,
asked was the working man o f England benefited by the

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Empire It is proposed in the fo llowing pages to state as

shortly as simply and as honestly as the writer can how
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this Empire came into being and what it means ; to explain

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that it is n o t a mere creation of force and fraud ; and to try

to prove that it is at once the interest and the duty of all
E nglis hmen poor as well as rich to maintain it
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Tw o ,
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1 B
THE B RITISH EMPIRE
comments may be made at the outset and will bear repeti ,
tion later The first is that it is idle n o t to recognise that

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n ations which are communities o f men and women are

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like the individual men and women as a rule guided by ,
mixed motives Self interest enters in as well as moral

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principle and tradition : nations have an instinct to rise

in the world as m en have to rise in life The second com
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ment is that it is impossible to read history aright if the ,
deeds done in past centuries are j udged in the light of the

present day Right and wrong are always right and
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wrong but they are more right or more wrong in proportion

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to the stage o f civilisation which has been reached All .
nations have done evil deeds ; but in condemning what ,
was done in the past it is right to remember that the men

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o f the past did not sin against the li ght to the same extent
as if the deeds had been done here and now The converse .
is also true The world wide indignation against German

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treatment of Belgium is due not only to the actual facts , ,
but also to reflection that what would have been bad at

any time is infinitely worse for having been perpetrated
when the world was supposed to have left barbarism
behind it .
E m pire . The word Empire is responsible for much misunderstand

ing We are obliged to use it because we have no other
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single word which would cover the many and diverse

dominions of His Maj esty the King But Empire to many .
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possibly to most Englishmen implies mi litary do mi nation

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despotic rule ag gression on other liberties This does not

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represent the facts Canada and Australia belong to the

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British Empire and are proud to belong to it yet nowhere ,
in the world is liberty government of the people by the ,
people for the people more fully developed But inasmuch

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as words count for somethin g ; it is worth noticing fir st that ,

IN TR OD UCTORY
the Latin word from which Empire is derived was not a

purely military term and secondly that when the word first
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comes into English history it is used to denote not domina

tion but independence A celebrated statute was passed in
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the reign o f King Henry the Eighth which laid down that
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This realm of Engl and is an Empire The statute was

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passed against paying dues to the Papal See ; and the meaning
of the words Empire and Imperial as explained by the great
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commentator Blackstone was that our King is equally

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sovereign and independent within these his dominions as ,
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any emperor is in his empire Empire denoted the
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S piritual and temporal independence o f England and it ,
may fairly be said that at the present day British Empire

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connotes British liberty .

CHAPTER I
E NG LA N D IN TH E MA K I N G
H I S T O RY tells us th a t nations which acquire overse a s

possessions acquire them when and not until they have , ,
taken final shape at home not until they have really become
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nations and entered upon national life Then the force .
and the instinct which have completed the home work seek
for a further outlet which in modern times has as a rule
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been found beyond the seas This law o f evolution for

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it is no less can be traced in the history of Spain Portugal

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the Netherlands France Great Britain and in late years

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in that of Uni ted Germany and Unite d Italy Nations .
must be made before they can grow into Empires

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The British Empire as a n actual reality only be gins with

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the beginning of the seventeenth century with the end o f ,
the reign o f Queen Elizabeth and the a ccession o f King

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James I ; and it wi ll be noted that it w as not until

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James I became King o f England that the whole island of

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Britain came permanently under o n e Crown Before his .
time Sco tland had been a separate kingdom from England ,
and when he was called to be King o f Engla n d as well as o f

Scotland he took the new title o f King o f Great Brita in
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It is proposed in this chapter to note ho w England grew

into a nation and what elements in her making contribute d
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to the coming Empire The great point to notice is the

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THE B RITISH EMPIRE on . I
many strains which have entered into the English blood .
If an amalgam o f so many different elements produced such

a strong and successful people it may fairly be argued that ,
the many and great diversities which now exist in the British
Empire will if wisely handled be ultimately a source not o f
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weakness but of strength .
I n ancient times when civilisation centred round the

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Mediterranean o u r island was at the furthermost e x treme

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o f the known world It comes into history under the names

of Britain and Albion Under the na m
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e o f Britain it b e
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came a Roman province being conquered by the Romans,
as far as the line o f the Forth and the Clyde The Roma ns .
held the island for rather less than four centuries and they ,
left their mark to this day in the Roman Wall in North

u m b e rlan d in the traces of old Roman roads in the fo u n da
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tions o f Roman towns which have been unearthed at

Silchester and elsewhere Early in the fifth century A D
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Britain ceased to be a Roman province but although all ,
vestiges o f Roman rule disappe ared the island up to the ,
Highlands o f Scotland had been more o r less united under

one Roman administration Roman blood must have .
intermixed with the native Britons and it is di ffi cult to ,
suppose that the future England did not derive some

strength from the wonderful people who gave laws and roads
and government to the greater part o f the then known
world During the Roman occupation there was a very
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short interval between 2 8 7 and 2 9 6 A D when Britain

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became a kind o f separate Roman monarchy apart from the

Carau sius
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Emp ire A Roman Carau siu s had command o f a strong
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fleet to safeguard the eastern side o f the island against

Teutonic pirates and gaining command o f the se a pro
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claimed himself as an independent prince His triumph .
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was short lived but the historian Gibbon s comment is
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THE B RITISH EMPIRE on .
Under his command Britai n destined in a futur e age to ,
obtain the empire o f the se a already assumed its natural ,
and respectable station o f a maritime power This was .
a very early illustration o f the importance o f se a power to
Britain and its inhabitants but in these far off days and for ,
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centuries afterwards until the Atlantic was thrown open the

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se a for Britain meant the wate rs round the British Isles and ,
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notably the Channel the Narrow Sea .
In 44 9 A D Teutons began to settle in Britain ; Hengist

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an d H o rsa with a band o f Jutes came into the Island o f

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Thanet planting themselves it will be noted in an island

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o ff an island for the Isle of Thanet was then an island in the

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true sense Jutes Angles Saxons swarmed in and Britain

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became England Danes and Northmen followed and

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with them above all others came in the seafaring privateer

ing instinct which in afte r ages from the reign o f Queen
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Elizabeth onwards w as to carry Englishmen into every

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corner of the world Danish pressure led to Saxon fleets .

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and King Alfred Professor Freeman tells us laid the

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foundations o f the naval greatness of England H is great .
gra n dso n King Edgar was reputed to have been in a special

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degree master of the Narrow Seas In summer time .

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he ha d re die ship s m a de b e fo r e ,
G r e a t an d hu ge n o t fe w b u t m an y a s t o r e
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All these conquerors and colonisers o f England Teuton ,
o r Sca n dinavian were northerners ,

The Danes brought in .
trade w ith the far North and when a Danish King Canute ,
ruled England England was for a short time politically

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linked to Scandinavia Then in 1066 there came yet .

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another strain into England with the Norman Conquest .
N o rthm e n like all the other invaders o f Britain except the

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Romans the Normans were none the less N orthern ers

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who had become assimilated along the banks o f the Seine

10 TH E B RITISH EMPIRE CH .
another was bargained for bought o r forcib ly obtained

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An age of civil wars ended in something near a despotism

under the Tudors but at least it was a monarchy which
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in the hands o f King Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth .

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emphatically stood fo r England When therefore the .

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Empire centuries began not only was England one people

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but the E n glish h ad been trai n ed into self reliant citizens -
conspicuous for love of freedom and for initiative .
In the reign o f King Henry I we get the early .
beginnings of a Court of Admiralty and in that of King ,
Richard I the first attempt at a Merchant Shipping

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Act the Laws of Oléro n The reign of Richard I is

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memorable for the fact that for the first time an English
fleet appeared in the Mediterranean in connection with the
Crusades The English thus gained some fi rst hand know
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ledge o f the Mediterranean but many long years were to

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pass before any English ships traded into that sea the carry ,
ing trade being in the hands of the Southern States and

cities notably of Venice It was at this time too that the
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same English king gave England for a few months a distant

island dependency This was Cyprus which King Richard
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con quered in 1 19 1 but almost immediately sold to the

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Cyp ru s
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Templars Nearly seven centuries later in 18 7 8 Cyprus
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again passed into British keeping .
England won notable sea victories in the Middle Ages such ,
as the battle of Sluys against the French in 1 3 4 0 in the same ,
Flemish waters where the guns of English ships have lately

been so effective the battle of Winc helsea o r L E spagn o ls
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su r mer against the Spaniards in 1 3 5 0

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Both these fights .
were in the reign of Edward III This King sto o d fast for the
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English claim to sovereignty over the Narrow Seas Call .
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ing to mind ran his instructions to his admirals
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that ,
o ur progenitors the Kings o f England have before these

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ENGLA N D IN THE M A KING
times been lords o f the English sea o n every side an d ,
a coin from his min t—a noble— commemorated his naval

supremacy .
F o ur thin gs o u r n o bl e S h o we th to me,
Kin g , s h ip an d sw o r d an d p o w e r
,
of the se a .
After his death a poem likened him to the rudder of an

E n glish ship .
The r o the r w as n o a the r 0 k n e e lm ,
H it w as E wa r d d the thrid de the no ble kni ht .
And he took practical ste ps to secure his possession o f the

Narrow Sea by the capture o f Calais in 13 4 7 Calais .
remained in English hands till the reign of Queen Mary the ,

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year 15 5 8 Its loss marked the end of England s tenure
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in France and by this time the horizon had widened beyond

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the Narrow Sea But as long as the se a for England meant

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the Narrow Se a it w as all important to hold both sides of

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the Straits o f Dover In the Libel o f English Policie
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a poem of the time of King Henry VI the Emperor .

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Sigismund is made to say to the English King with

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reference to D over and Calais

Ke e pe the se tw o to nn e s s u re an d yo ur Maje st y
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As y o ur tw e yn e e yn e so ke e pe the n a rr o w se a .
King Edward had tw o admirals one o f the southern and ,
western the other of the northern seas the dividi ng point

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being the mouth of the Thames But while o n e King o r .

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another owned ships no Royal Navy as we understand it

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was in existence till the days of modern history We read .
of Kings like Henry V b uilding large vessels but even King

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Henry VIII who was also a builder of big ships had few
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at his disposal There w as a s e a fi ght in the year 15 1 1

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at the beginning of his reign between a famous Scottish ,
se a rover Andrew Barton and English ships

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, The English .
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12 THE B RITISH EMPIRE CH .
men took the Scottish ship an d in the old ballad the English
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commander presents it to King Henry in the follo wing

words
S i r An d r e w s shipp I b r in g w i th m e e
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A b r a v e r shi pp w as n e v e r n o n e ,
N o w e h a th y o ur G r ac e tw o sh ipp s o f Wa rre ,
B efo r e in E n gl an d w as b u t o n e .
For the defence o f England the rulers of England de

pended o n the shipping of the various ports and the ports ,
and their citizens obtained privileges and liberties in return

for their prote ction o f the English coasts The Cinque .
Ports of Kent and Sussex were pre eminently the guardians -
o f the Narrow Sea .The original five po rts were Hastings ,
Sandwich Dover Romney and Hythe and to them were

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added the Ancient Towns of Rye and Winchelsea ‘
These seaport towns and the a dj oining towns which con

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tributed to the expense were granted special and most

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extensive liberties by successive Kings no tably by King ,
Edward I in 1 2 7 8 on condition of doing yearly their full

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service o f fifty and seven ships at their cost for fifteen days ,
at the summons of the King The ships came to be known.
as the Royal Navy of the Cinque Ports and their commander ,
w as styled Admiral of the Fleet of the Cinque Ports Thus .
the King and his subj ects living near the coast contrac ted
fo r the keeping of England and English liberties gr e w up
,
hand in hand with the defence o f the kingdom .
An old ballad of the reign of King Henry VI runs .
F o r w he n th e y h a v e t ake the se a
At S an dwyc he o r at Wyn chylse e ,
A t B rysto w , or W he r e th a t hi t be e .
It seems strange at the present day to read of Sandwich

and Winchelsea as great English ports side by side with
Bristol ; it shows how in the course o f ages the coasts o f -
ENGLA N D IN THE MA KING
England have changed and ho w o n e town or another has

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been a ffected either by retreat o f the sea o r by the growth

in the size of s hi ps In the account o f the fleet which
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Edward III led against Calais the largest contributor among

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the southern ports was the present little Cornish town o f

F owey and high up among the northern and eastern ports
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was Lynn in Norfolk Still most of the English seaports

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which are great n o w were great in early days with some ,
notable exceptions such as Liverpool N e w castle —

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o n Tyne .
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Scarborough with its Iceland trade Hull which Edward I

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—
took into his o w n hands whence the name Kingston o u -
Hull ; Y armouth ; Southampton in the Middle Ages a ship ,
building centre and the great port o f call for the Venetian
galleys which brought to Engl and and to Flanders the riches
o f the Le vant ; Dartmouth Plymouth and many others were, ,
in bygone days as they are now flourishi ng English ports

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Most of all London and Bristol were always great Even Lo d

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n o n.
in Roman times the historian Tacitus wro te o f London as

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much frequented by a number o f Merchants and trading

v essels .It had a large foreign trade in Saxon and Da ni sh
times and after the N orman Conquest when England
, ,
became linked o n to the c ontinent London with its great , ,
waterway of the Thames Ope ni ng o u t towards Flanders

and France grew constantly in importance
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To this .
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city says an o ld writer o f the reign o f Henry II
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mer .
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chants bring in wares by ships from every nation under

heaven As the merchant companies grew up in the
.
Middle Ages they tended more and more to have their head
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centres in London and here too were the headquarte rs o f

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Foreign Merchants in England Florentines and Venetians , ,
Italian ba n kers who gave its name to Lombard Street ,
Flemish merchants Germans notable in Lo ndon even

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before the days o f the Norman Conquest and in the Middle ,

Ages most notable as the Merchants o f the Hanse o r Easter

lings who under successive Royal Charters enj oyed special
,
—
privileges in their London home the Steelyard the Gild ,
halla Teutonica in D o wgate ward on the banks of the

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Thames where the Cannon Street railway station now

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stands .
Bri st ol Bristol too was great at all times Even before the
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Norman Conquest it had a large trade notably with Ireland , ,
to which it carried o n a nefarious slave tra ffi c as in later ,
times it was concerned in the West African slave trade .
Its harbour we read was a receptacle for ships coming from

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Ireland and Norway Bristol ships went to Iceland for .
fish until the Newfoundland fisheries were made known

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to the world they went to Bordeaux long in English hands , ,

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for wine they went to Spain In the Battle of Agin .
court the Elizabethan poet Michael Drayton wrote

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,
i
E ght g o o Sh ip dl y
B ri t l re dy m d s so s o a a e,
Whic h to the K i g th y b u t i full y l t

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n e o n en ,
Wi th S p i h w in e w hi ch th y f b ll t l d
an s s e or a as a e,
I n h pp y p e d o f hi b r a v v o yag m
a s e ts e e e an ,
H 0 pi g his c o n q u e t
n h o u ld n l ar ge th i r tr de
s s s e e a .
F or Bristol merchants like other Englishmen had mixed

motives they would answer the King s call to defend their ’
country but they had also in their eye the prospect of

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commercial gain In the reign of King Edward IV in or

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,
about the year 14 60 a Bristol merchant William Can yn ge s

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was said to have owned 2 85 3 tons of shipping employing ,
800 sailors o n e o f the ships being 9 00 tons in size

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B os t on .
On e o f the English ports which was very pro mi nent in
the Middle Ages and does not now hold the same relative
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position was Boston in Lincolns hire At the beginning o f

,
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the reign of Edward I the customs duties collected here o n .
wool and leather exceeded in amount the collections made

at any other English port including London It was the .
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port of Lincoln and o f Stamford and St Botolph s ,
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fair was one of the greatest mercantile gatherings in

England F lo re n tin e s shi ppe d wool at this port for their
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use in Italy ; the Hansards had a fac tory at Boston .
The Boston export trade was mainly in wool and s u b se W l oo .
quently in cloth There was a time in the Middle Ages

.
when the wealth o f England consisted almost entirely o f

raw material and that raw material was almost entirely
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wool What Aus tralia is now with regard to the United

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Kingdom and other countries a great exporter of wool , ,
that was Engl a nd to the continent of Europe in the

thirteenth and fourteenth centuries We read in a law .
book There are five staple merchandises o f England viz ,

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wool w o olfe ls leathe r lead and tin
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Of them wool was
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incomparably the most important and the wool which was ,
sent across the narrow se a was manufactured o n the co n

tin e n t especially in Flanders where Bruges w as the chief
, ,
centre o f trade King Edward III attracted to England

. .
Flemish weavers and c lo thm ake rs who taught our people

their art—a fact n o t to be forgotte n now that we have so
many Flemings ta king refuge among u s—and gradually the
English instead of sending their wool to foreign parts used Cl t h
, ,
o .
it in increasing quantities at home and exporte d the ,
manufactur ed article instead of the raw product Very .
prosperous was the English cloth trade in the latte r part o f

the Middle Ages in the West country in East Anglia and
, , ,
elsewhere Bristol was a centre o f cloth making Flemings

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settled there and there was turned out her kirte ll Bristowe
,
”
red. A Bristol hi storian wrongly derived our word
”
blanket whose etymology is bla nc
,
white fr om Thomas , ,
Blanket a celebrate d Bristol cloth merchant in the four

,
”
tee n th century Worsted kersey take their n a mes
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,
from villages in Norfolk and Suff olk Lincoln and Stam .
ford like Bristol were famous fo r scarlet cloth which was

, , ,
shippe d at Boston .
It was more especially in connexion with wool and cloth

that the great merchant companies which were to do so ,
much for England directly o r indirectly in co mi ng centuries

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began to be formed There were guilds of various kinds

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for masters and for workmen in the English towns especially ,
in London There were mercers originally dealers in petty

.
,
wares and afterwards traders in silk : grocers general ,
traders who dealt in gross and who were also called p ep

,
e re rs for their trade consisted principally in this and other

p ,
products o f the East there were weavers guilds and ’
numberless others ; but wool and cloth brought wider orga ni

satio n s to birth The most anci ent o f these was the co m
.
pany o f the Merchants of the Staple They claimed to .
date from the reign o f Henry III but the system with .
,
whic h they were connected seems to have been initiated by

Edward I Wool being the principal source o f England s
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’
wealth it was important for the King to ensure that he

,
should receive his rightful dues It was important to o .

, ,
that English wool should be standardised and the wool ,
trade be protected and regulated The co ur se was therefore .
taken o f fixing certain towns at which alone the wool should

be sold and the Merchants o f the Staple were entrusted with
,
the working o f the system which was laid down in full in

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the Consolidating Ordinance o f the Staple passed in England

in Edward I lI s reign in the year 13 5 3 Originally the
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,
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staple ,
the central market was it is said placed at
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Bruges the Flemings being the chief customers for wool ; at

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o n e time it was moved to Antwerp By Edward I lI s law . .

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it was moved to England where various towns were con

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stituted staple to wns some towns having ports attached to

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18 THE B RI T ISH EMPIRE CH .
the eightee nth century were known as the Hamburg Co m

pany They came as they grew into rivalry with the
.
, ,
Merchants o f the Staple and still more with the Hanse

,
Merchants settled in England and after long conflict they

obtained the mastery over the Hansards whose privileges ,
o
were finally canc elled towards the end of the reign o f

Q u een E lizabeth .
There were Merchant Adventurers in various English

towns there was a strong body for instance in N ewcastle , ,
upon Tyne But their headquarters were in London and

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,
the Merchant Adventurers elsewhere seem to have bec ome

affiliated to their metropolitan brethren These Merchant .
Adventurers were the forerunners and it may almost be ,
said the parents of the great companies which came into

,
existence in the days o f the Tudors and in later times .
They embodied the beginnings o f English overseas enter

prise and in the year 1 5 5 4 they are spoken o f as the
,
English nation beyond the se a The Charter o f Henry IV. .
gave them no exclusive monopoly but by combination ,
they secured it against English merchants who did n o t

belong to their number The latter petitioned bitterly
.
against them to Henry VII and an Act o f Parliament was

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passed in 1 4 9 6 which restricted their dealings towards their

fellow countrymen Their history is typical o f English
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methods private initiative obtaining Royal license but n o t

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asking for State funds energetic enterprising aiming

, , ,
directly at private gain and in doing so promoting national

,
interests That in the days when the modern world was

.
young and the risks very great merchant companies should ,
fight fo r and often be given monopolies was only natural .
They were taking ou t patents and patentees have a right ,
to demand that they shall be secured in the fields o f their

enterprise that they shall n o t incur the initial expense and
, , ,
ENGLA N D I N THE MA KING
when they have opened the field and sown the seed see ,
others e nter in and reap the fruits o f their labours .
It is a true saying that England has been made by her

adventurers I t was private Englis hmen rather than Kings
.
or Parliaments who in the main began and subsequently

carried on the work of England beyond the seas Y et Kings .
and Parliaments took a hand in making o r marring .
Edward III who brought the Flemi sh weavers into Eng

.
,
land at one time prohibited the use o r importation of

,
foreign cloth in order to prote ct the native industry King .
Henry IV we are told prohibited the invection o f foreign

.
, ,
”
made cloth His predecessor Richard II passed the first
.
, .
,
Navigation Act for the encouragement o f B ritish shipping ,
an Act passed in 13 81 whi ch provided that none o f the

,
King s subj ects shall carry fort h n o r brin g any merchandises

’
’
but only in ships of the King s alle giance a similar but
only temporary Act was passed in the reign o f Edward IV .
Whatever may be said against o r fo r the economic effects

o f such Acts they were at any rate evidence of preference
,
in England for Engli sh o f growing national spirit alike in

,
Kings and people So the Middle Ages began to merge into

.
modern history William Caxton had brought the printing

.
press into England sailors now used the mariner s compass

,
’
guns and gunpowder had come in fo r fighting purposes but

English sailors and soldiers had as yet seen only narrow
fields and even English trade with some exceptions such
, , ,
as the Iceland trade was with lands and o n seas com

,
p ar ative ly near home .
The beginning of modern history fo r England is taken to

date roughly from the accession o f the Tudors The long .
era of war with France and of civil war between Y ork and
Lancaster both wars equally disastrous finally ended when
, ,
Henry VII came to the throne in 1 4 85 Of him Bacon H ry V I I

. .
en .
writes The King also (having care to make his realm

potent as well by sea as by land ) for the better maintenance ,
o f the navy ordained that wines and woads from the parts
,
o f Gascoign and Languedoc should not be brought but

,
in English bottoms bowing the ancient policy of this estate

,
from consideration o f plenty to consideration o f power ;

for that almost all the ancient statutes invite (by all means )
merchants strangers to bring in all sorts o f commodities ,
having for end cheapness and not looking to the point o f

state concerning the naval power The reference is to a .
Navigation Act prohibiting the importation of Bordeaux

wines in other than English vessels manned by English
crews Passed in the first year of his reign the Act was
.
,
made permanent in 1 4 89 The first year of this reign too

.
, ,
saw an Ac t for rep aracyo n s o f the Nave e the King began

building big ships and constructed at Portsmouth the first
,
dry dock in England If he bowed the policy of his pre

.
de ce ssors from consideration o f plenty to consideration of

”
power he was none the less a keen and vigilant guardian
,
o f English trade At o n e time in 14 9 3 mainly o n political

.
, ,
grounds he banished the Fle mi ngs from England and

,
moved the headquarters o f the Merchant Adventurers

from Antwerp to Calais ; but three years later he concluded
a general agreement with the r u ler o f Flanders and the ,
English merchants came again to their mansion at Antwerp

where they were received with procession and great j oy
’
for in Bacon s words again
,
being a King that loved
,
wealth and treasure he co uld n o t endure to have trade

,
sick .An extra duty which inj ured the English wine trade ,
imposed by the Venetians in the Levant was met by a ,
threat from the King to establish as against Venice a wool , ,
staple at Pisa in Florentine territory and a treaty was made ,
with Denmark removing obstructions to the English

voyages to Iceland While by an Act o f 14 9 6 he protected

.
,
as has been said English merchants at large from exactions

,
at the hands of the Merchant Adventurers none the less

by his charters especia lly a charter o f 15 05 which first
, ,
formally gave them the title of the Fellowship of the

Merchants Adventurers o f England he recognised and ,
strengthened the great company ai m ing at bringing all the

,
merchants who traded with Flanders and the Netherlands

into a single national corporation .
If his reign were not otherwise memorable it would ,
live in history fo r the discovery o f North America by John

”
Cabot The direct route to
. the gorgeous East the ,
Mediterranean route w as commanded by the Turks who

, ,
fin ally took Constantinople in 1 4 5 3 and the Christian ,
nations of Western Europe cast about to fin d some other

way From the beginning o f the fifteenth century the
.
Portuguese inspired by Prince Henry o f Portugal born o f

, ,
an English mother slowly but steadily made their way down

,
the west coast of Africa and in 1 487 two years after Henry
, ,
VII became King of England a Portuguese sailor rounded

.
,
the Cape of Good Hope Portugal had long w o n her.

'
fights against the Moors and had become a nation Spain .
was made o n e by the marriage o f Fer di nand and Isabella ,
uniting the Crowns o f Arragon and Castile in 1 4 7 9 and by ,
the Conquest of Granada from the Moors in 14 9 2 and in

accordance with the law of nations already emphasised in ,
accordance also with their geographical position— for the “
Iberian peninsula is half way between the Me di terranean

-
—
and Atlantic the Portuguese and the Spaniards led the
way in overseas enterp rise among the peoples o f Western
Europe In 1 4 9 8 the Portugu ese reached India round the
.
Cape and six years earlier in 14 9 2 the year of the Conquest

, , ,
o f Granada Christopher Columbus a Genoese in the service

, ,
of Isabella of Castile in an effort to reach the East by a

,
western route discovered America It was but a chance

,
.
that he did not discover it for Henry VII o f England . .
He had o ffered his services to and asked backing from the

”
English King but the o ffer miscarried
,
and so says , ,
Bacon the West Indies by Providence were then reserved

,
for the Crown o f Castilia In 1 480 a Bristol ship set out

.
to find in the Atlantic the fabled island of Brazille and to ,
Bristol there came from Venice another sailor o f Genoese

birth John Cabot In March 14 9 6 he obtained for hi mself
,
.
and his three sons o n e of whom was Sebastian Cabot a

, ,
patent from Henry VII empowering them to discover .
’
unknown lands under the King s banner and in a little ,
Bristol ship the M atthew with a Bristol crew o n St John s

, , ,
.
’
Day the 2 4 th o f June 1 4 9 7 th ey sighted North America

, , ,
whether Newfoundland or Cape Breton o r some other part o f

the North American coast was the landfall A second voyage .
followed in 1 4 9 8 Thus the English crossed the Atlantic

.
and found North America They did it guided by a man .

,
from the Italian city ports which had led in maritime enter
prise through the Middle Ages and were n o w coming to ,
the end of their work and of their greatness they did it in

thoroughly English fashion upon their own proper costs
and charges The King gave a license and stood to take
.
,
a fifth of the profits but he did not for himself o r for the
,
State contribute to the cost .
The oceans being opened and Spain and Portugal being

first in the field the Pope o f the time being in 1 4 9 4 divided
,
by a line o f longitude the unknown world between these

two powers and in the same year Spain and Po rtugal
made a treaty which with modifications adopted the
division Thereafter at any rate in the central parts of
.
,
the world the ships o f other nations were regarded by the

,
ENGL A N D IN THE MA KING
Spaniards and Portuguese as trespassers when they came

to discover to trade o r to colonise Thi s meant that out
, ,
.
side the Northern regions the English and others co uld only
prosecute overseas enterprise if they were prepared to fight
for it and accordingly at the outset force necessarily entered
,
into the making of an Empire .
Henry VIII succeeded his father in 15 09 and reigned

.
till 15 4 7 In his turbulent reign the outstanding feature is

.
the severance of England as a nation from the spiritual power

of Rome It was in this connexion as we have seen that
.
, ,
“
the declaration was made This realm o f England is an ,
”
Empire The full rich fr u its o f the Reformation were to
.
come later ; but England completed her nationhood when

the King of England became head of the Church as well as
head of the State and from this date more than ever the
,
island and its people entered o n its o w n path and worked

out its own salvation apart from the continent o f Europe .
To the se a power o f England and to defence King Henry

-
gave his whole heart Continuing his father s policy of .

’
building big ships he added to the Navy among others

, , ,
the H e nry Grace 81 Dieu better known as the Great H arry , ,
a ship of 1 5 00 tons He bought s hips too from foreign

.
, ,
parts an instance be ing the Jesus of L ubeck aS hip which

, ,
had a notable history We read that she was a ship o f 7 00 .
tons and was bought by the King from merchants o f Lubeck

in 15 44 Becoming in due course the property o f Queen
.
Elizabeth she was lent by her royal owner to the great

,
English sea captain Sir John Hawkins for fighting and

-
privateering in the Spanish seas In a fight with the .
Spa ni ards at San Juan d Ullo a in September 15 68 in which ’
both Hawkins and Drake took part she fell into Spanish ,
hands the only s hi p o f Elizabeth s Navy which was taken

,
’
by the Spaniards except the Revenge in which Sir Richard

, ,
Grenville fought his immortal fight A side note in Hakluyt .

-
states The Jesu s of L u beck which Sir John Hawkins

, ,
lost in the West Indies was the last great ship which was
,
”
either builded or bought beyond the seas She was an .
epitome of the times Kings and subj ects were still so to ,
speak in partnership in the fighting ships of England

,
some of the ships belonged to the Kings more were owned ,
by private citizens ; but the Royal Navy was gradually

growing and England was more and more building her own
,
vessels An Act . for the maintenance of the Navy

was passed in 15 40 and in 15 4 6 the greatest step forward
,
towards a Royal Navy that had yet been taken was made
by the establishment of a Navy Board the beginning of the ,
modern Admiralty King Henr y founded Woolwich dock

.
yard and Hakluyt tells us that he with princely liber

,
alitie erected three se ve rall Guilds o r brotherhoods the ,
o n e at Deptford here upon the Thames the other at Kingston ,

”
upon Hull and the third at Newcastle upon Tine
,
The .
G uild at Deptford was presumably The Guild o f the Holy

and Undividable Trinity and St Clement at Deptford .
”
Strond which we now know as Trinity House in its home
,
o n Tower Hill It was a time of new learning when men s ’

.
,
minds were being awakened in all directions when new ,
lands were being revealed and new ideas entering in alike

in war and in peace Lord Herbert of Cherbury in the
.
,
[ f ife an d Reig n of King H en ry VI I I tells us that in 15 3 5

great brass o rdnance as cannon and culverin were first
, ,
”
cast in England English cannon being for the fir st time
, ,
in those years cast in the entire piece and bored The same
,
.
writer speaks of the King as inventing small pieces of artil

lery for he was of a singular capacity in apprehending all
,
the new devices which in these kinds n e w daily appeared .
Meanwhile tho ugh no great and immediate results

,
the discovery of regions dominions islands and places

, , ,
”
unknown and in May 15 5 3 he issued instructions for the
,
”
direction of the intended voyage for Cathay This though .
,
a royal charter had not yet been given was the beginning ,
o f what was known as the Muscovy Company or the Russia
Company the first o f a series of new companies of which

, ,
a word must be said The Merchant Adventurers were the

.
forefathers o f the later companies but they were concerned

,
with foreign lands near home and well known The later .
companies dealt with unkn own or with far distant lands -
As the fact that the Turks had blocked the direct route to
the East led to the Portuguese finding their way round the
Cape and to Columbus discovering what he thought was
,
the western side o f the Far East as evidenced by the name

,
West Indies so the fact that Spain and Portugal claimed

,
under papal award all the central lands and seas of the
world set other nations the young and coming peoples to
, , ,
seek for new routes to the Indies and China or Cathay .
The P Ope had fixed a line of longitude but no line of

latitude and Spaniards and Portuguese were compara
,
tive ly indifferent to the Far North Hence the Engli sh .
sought for a northern passage to the East There is left .
one way to discover which is into the North wrote the

, ,
Bristol born merchant Robert Thorne from Seville to

-
, ,
Henry VIII But if the northern route was taken there

.
,
—
were tw o alternatives of north east or north west and -
on this point Englishmen were divided Hakluyt tells .
us of Master An thon ie J en kin so n in a di sputation before

Her Maj esty (Queen Elizabeth ) with Sir Humfrey Gilbert
”
for proofs of a passage by the north east to Cathaya -
Humphrey Gilbert as he showed by his life and by his

,
death was an advocate of the western route Jenkinson

,
.
,
who had been into the Levant as early as 15 4 6 became the

"
,
ENGLA N D IN THE M A KING
able representative of the Muscovy Company in Russia .
For as Columbus set o u t to find a way to the East and found

,
ins tead America so the M u scovy Company in q u est of a

, ,
north eastern passage which they never found e ffected a

-
, ,
wholly di fferent obj ect and Ope ned up trade be tween Eng
,
land and Russia This company is said to have been the

.
first of the great English j oint stock companies for foreign -
trade as Opposed to what were called re gulated companies

,
.
The members of the Merchant Adventurers Company were

fellow members of one and the s ame company but they
-
traded each at their own risk and on their o w n resources .
”
The Company wrote their Secretary in 1 601
,
hath no ,
bank nor Common Stock nor common factor to buy or sell ,
for the whole co mpany but every man trade th apart and , ,
particularly with his o w n stock and with his own factor o r

”
servant The Muscovy Company o n the other hand
.
, ,
adopted the j oint stock syste m -

.
They made their first vent u re in 15 5 3 sending o u t three ,
ships under Sir Hugh Willoughby who carried a com ,
m e n dato ry letter from King Edward VI and Richard .

,
Chancellor Willoughb y and his followers perished o f

.
starvation on the Lapland coast but Chancellor came ,
safe home in 155 4 having fr om the north coast o f Russia

,
paid a visit to the Czar at Moscow .
The Company Obta ined their charter of incorporation

from Philip and Mary in February 15 5 5 being empowered ,
to sail to all part s o f the world before their late adventure

”
or enterprise un known and to annex and conquer for the ,
Crown Private Englishmen as always were at work

.
, , ,
purs ui ng private gain no doubt but at the same time , ,
doing work fo r the State at no cost to the State There .
is an interesting side note in Hakluyt with regard to this

-
charter in the words K Philip and Queene Mary hereby do

,
.
disan n u ll Pope Alexander s division But the Roman

’
.
Catholic Queen and her bigoted Spanish husband were out

o f sympath y with the English people Persecution and .
bur ni ng of Protestants widened the gulf which severed

England from Rome the loss of Calais in 15 5 8— a blessing
in disguise —was at the time a humiliation ; and when in
1 5 5 9 Queen Mary died and her half sister Queen E lizabeth-
succeeded to the throne the forces which had been pent

,
up in England made themselves felt all the world over .
They were the forces o f a growing people whose way was ,
on the sea who would have none of foreign despotism in

,
religion or in State who loved and served a despotic

,
and capricious Queen because she was English and stood

,
for England and knew what English liberty meant whose

sworn foe was the King of Spain because he was the em ,
bodiment o f political and reli gious despotism ; to whom

Roman Catholicism was illustrated by the Spanish I n
q u isitio n in whose eyes Spain monopolised lands and seas
of which they intended to claim their share .
As the arch enemy o f England was Spain so in even ,
greater meas ur e were the Spani ards the foes of the Nether
landers desperately fighting for their independence and their
,
lives Then as now war with a great Power meant fighting

.
, ,
that Power not merely at home but wherever there were

Spanish p ossessions o n land or Spa ni sh ships at se a As .
at the present time war with Germany has meant war with
her not merely on the battlefields close at home but in the ,
Pacific in the South Atlantic in Africa in China so the

, , , ,
Englishmen and Dutchmen fought and looted wherever

Spain had a n ythi ng to lose As again English ships have
.
, ,
been bombarding the German troops o n the Flemish shore ,
checking their advance on land or s e a so when in 15 88 the ,
Spanish Armada came up the channel the Dutch ships ,

blocked the Duke of Parma and his ve teran soldiers waiting

to j oin in the invasion of England from the Flemish ports .
The result of the Armada was r uinous to Spain but long ,
before there was open war between England and Spain ,
English sailors were harrying Spanish lands and Spanish

trade As the Northmen came rava ging into England in
.
bygone cent u ries so the English went forth in Queen Eliza

,
beth s time to fight and to fill their pockets They did not
’
.
ask leave o f their sovereign they took their o w n English

,
leave braving the wrath o f their Queen and her Ministers

, ,
and still the same strange partnership between King or

Queen and subj ects went o n to the satisfaction o f both
parties Queen Elizabeth as we have seen lent her ship
.
, , ,
the Jes us of I/ubeck to Hawkins who went slave trading

, ,
-
kidnapping negroes in West Africa and forcing their sale

o n the Spanish Main She shared the spoils which Drake
.
brought back from his voyage round the world she lent
Martin Frobisher a ship and subscribed to his Arctic
ventures .
It has been said that Danes and Nort hmen above all
others brought the seafaring strain into En gland but ,
it was not from the Danish parts o f England that the

great sailors of Queen Elizabeth s reign were principally ’
recruited Martin Fro bishc r it is true hailed from Y ork

.
, ,
shire ; Thomas Cavendish who followed Drake in Sailing

,
round the world was an East Anglian from Su ff olk ; but it

was from Devons hire that the sea heroes o f the ti m
,
e princi
pally came We read in Fuller s Worthies that the natives
.
’
o f Devonshir e are dexterous in any employment and Quee n ,
Elizabeth was wont to say of their gentry They were all ,
born courtiers with a becoming confidence Of their .

’
confidence there can be no question There was the .
Hawkins family from Plym outh William Hawkins we .

have noted His son was the great Sir John Hawkins
.
,
freebooter and slave trader but a fine sailor

-
very wise
, , ,
”
gallant and true hearted for twenty two years Treasurer
,
-
,
-
o f the Navy He had a brother William Hawkins who

.
, ,
voyaged to the West Indies ; and a son Sir Richard Hawkins , ,
who sailed through the Straits Of Magellan into the Pacific ,
was taken prisoner by the Spaniards and passed eight years

in a Spanish prison and who left behind him when he
,
died long afterwards Observations o n his Voyage in to the

,
S ou th S ea .Sir Walter Raleigh and his half brother -
Sir Humphrey Gilbert were Devonshire men so was John

, ,
Davis Arctic explorer discoverer of the Falkland Islands

, ,
and pioneer of English trade in the Eastern seas ; while born

near Tavistock a kinsman o f Hawkins was the greatest
, ,
English sailor till Nelson s day Francis Drake the Master

’
, ,
”
thief of the unknown world .
Mixed motives inspired these men They fought for .
Queen and country an d freedom they also fought for gain

they embodied the national instinct which told the islanders
that the time had come to take their ways beyond their
island : they were beginni ng the Empire They taught .
their rulers courage To the Spanish complaint that Drake

.
was a trespasser in Spanish seas Queen Elizabeth re

to rte d
,
Neither can a title to the ocean belong to any
people or private persons ; forasmuch as neither natu re
nor public use and custom perm itte th any possession
thereof . They brought English fighting ships navigation , ,
seamanship and treatment o f sailors to a wholly differen t

,
level from all that had gone before Hawkins Stow tells .
,
us in his youth studied the mathematics

,
He was the
first that invented the cunning stratagem of false nettings
for ships in fighting he also devise d the chain pumps
”
for ships and perfected many defects in the navy royal .
ENGLAN D IN THE MA KING
As Treasurer o f the Navy he with Drake instituted the , ,
Chatham chest which w as the forerunner o f Greenwich

,
Hospital .Davis invented a quadrant and wrote The

S ea ma n s S ecrets a treatise o n navigation Drake was
’
.
,
more skilful in all points o f navigation than any that ever

was be fore his time in his time o r since his death
, ,
skilfu l in artillery expert and apt to let blood and give

, ,
”
physic unto his people accor di ng to the climate s Y ear by .
year they improved their ships and guns and men and year ,
by year they widened knowledge and Opened English eyes

to what the great world meant In 15 7 3 Drake looked dow n .
from the Isthmus o f Darien upon the Pacific Ocean vowing , ,
if he lived to carry the English flag into its wate rs and in

, ,
15 7 7—80 he carried o u t his vo w sailing round the world ,
in the Golde n Hin d .
The s ta r s ab o v e w o u ld mak e th ee k n o wn
I f m e n he re sil e n t w e r e .
The su n h i m se lf can n o t fo rge t

His fe ll o w tr a v e ll e r -
.
At the same time in 1 5 7 6—7 8 Martin Frobisher penetrated

, ,
into the Arctic regions hunting for the North West Passage
,
-
A few years late r in 15 8 7 having burnt the Spanish fleet

, ,
and shipping in Cadiz harbour Drake captured o ff the ,
Azores a Spanish Portuguese East Indiaman returning

-
richly freighted from the Indies ; and resulting from this ,
capture so Camden tells us the English so fully under

, ,
stood by the merchants papers the rich value o f the ’
Indian merchandises and the manner o f trading in that

Eastern world that they afterwards se t up a gain ful
,
trade and traffic thither establishing a company o f East

,
India merchants .
Charte red c ompanies were hard at work Existing .
compa ni es were strengthened In 1 5 64 the Merchant .

Adventurers were given a new charte r and their great rivals , ,
the Hansards were finally driven o u t Of the field in England

,
in 15 98 In 1 5 66 the Muscovy Company secured an Act

.
of Parliament an act for the corporation o f merchants

,
”
adventurers for the discovering Of new trades This Act .
embodied the provisions o f a Navigation Law for its terms ,
ran : And for t he better maintenance of the Navy and

Mariners of this realm be it provided and enacted that it
,
shall not be lawful to the said fellowship and company ,
nor to any of them to carry and transport or cause to be

,
carried and transported any commodity of this realm to

their new trade but only in English ships and to be sailed
, ,
”
for the most part with English mariners A Russian .
ambassador had already visited London in 15 5 7 and ,
returnn with him to Russia Jenkinson made his way in ,
following years to Bokhara Astrakhan and Persia In , ,

.
1 5 7 9 the fellowship of Eastland Merchants received a

charter empowering them to trade through the Sound to
,
Scandinavia Lithuani a Poland and Prussia This was

, , ,
.
an expansion o f an old gr ant fo r the benefit of merchants

trading to the Baltic made by King Henry IV in 1408 .
,
the year after the first charter of the Merchant Adventurers

Company Frob isher s first Arctic venture in 1 5 7 6 le d in
.
’
the following year to a charter for a Company of Cathay

, ,
the governor being Michael L o k a great travel ler in the ,

“
Levant and a man for his knowledge in divers languages ,
”
and especially in cosmography able to do his country good ,
.
The obj ect was the discovery o f the North West Passage ; -
The year 1 5 8 1 saw the beginni n g of a great company ,
the Levant or Turkey Company probably an offshoot o f ,
the Grocers Guild For years the English had been coming
’
.
more and more into the Mediterranean bent o n carrying ,
the produce of the Levant to England in their own ships ,

34 THE B RITISH EMPIRE on .
tu re rs to Guinea was formed in London and two ships ,
sailed for Guinea and Benin It was an unsuccessful .
venture but in the next year and the next English ships
,
went ou t again bringing back gold dust ivory and the Spice
, , ,
known as Gui nea pepper In 15 62 E n glish slave trading

.
-
began with a visit by Sir John Hawkins to Sierra Leone ,
and in 1 5 8 8 the year of the Armada the first African

, ,
Company was incorporated by Royal Patent the members ,
being merch ants o f Exeter the West Country and London

, , ,
and the sphere of their operations the Senegal and Gambia

rivers .
The sixteenth century ended with the birth o f the greatest

o f all chartered companies After Drake had sailed round
.
the world and after the battle of the Armada had broken
the sea power o f Spain— and Portugal was now un der
Spanish do mi nation— the English began to take their way
to the Indies round the Cape The first voyage fitted o u t .
,
by London merchants and led by Raymond and James

Lancaster started in 15 9 1 In 1 5 99 the merchants o f
, .
London held a meeting presided over by the Lord Mayor

, ,
to form an association and raise a subscription for trading

with the Indies by the direct Cape route The promoters .
were largely members o f the Levant Company and the ,
first governor o f the East India Company was governor

also of the older corp oration There was some delay in .
obtaining a charter from the Queen but o n the 3 1 st o f ,
D ecember 1 600 the charter was given incorporating The

governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into
”
the East In di es This was the grain o f mustard seed which
.
grew into the great tree o f the British East Indian Empire .
It was stated at the beginning of this chapter that the

British Empire only began after the reign o f Queen Eliza
beth In other words there Were n o a ctual British colonies
.
,
ENGL A N D IN THE M A KING
or dependencies before that date But there is on e colony .
Newfoundland—which was annexed tho u gh n o t occupied , ,
in this reign and there were other important though still

,
born attempts at colonisation and acquisition o f territory

beyond the seas In 15 63 there w as talk o f establishing a
.
c olony in Florida which came to nothing A notorious

,
.
advent urer Thomas Stukele y o f D evonshire birth but

, , ,
unworthy of Devonshire fathered the scheme Queen ,

.
Elizabeth supplied one of the ships but instead of fo u nding , ,
a colony S ta ke le y did pirates work o n the high seas

’
.
,
In 15 7 9 Drake o n his voyage round the world landed

, ,
o n the Californian coast : he called this country N ova

Albion a nd that fo r tw o causes the o n e in respect o f the
, ,
white banks a nd cli ffs which lie towards the se a and the ,
other because it might have some aflin ity with our country
in name which so m etime was so called
,
At his departur e .
he se t up a monument o f o u r being there as also o f Her

Maj esty s right and title to the s a me viz a plate nailed
’
,
.
upon a fair great post whereupon was engraven Her

,
Maj esty s name the day and year o f o u r arrival there with
’
, ,
.
the free giving up of the province and people into Her

”
Maj esty s hand
’
Barren Of res ults as it was this first
.
,
declaration o f British sovereignty in the New World should

not be forgotten But the tw o E n glishmen most intent on
.
planting colo ni es were the half brothers Humphrey Gilbert -
and Walter Raleigh In 15 7 8 Gil be rt was granted a patent

.
by Queen Elizabeth for the inhabiting and planting of our

people in America Five years later he made his famous
.
voyage to Newfoundland The story has been often told

.
ho w hetook sezin and possession Of Newfoun dland (accord

ing to the ancient solemn ceremony o f cutting a turf ) for
”
the Crown o f England how he did let set give and
,
”
dispose o f many things as absolute governor there how ,
he annexed the island in the most formal manner and did ,
all short o f establishing a colony It was left to Bristol

.
men in 1 6 10 to form the first permanent settlement in the

island Gilbert was lost in the Atlantic on his homeward
.
voyage learning to o late himself and teaching others

, , ,
that it is a diffi cu lter thing to carry Over coloni es into

’
remote countries upon private men s purses than he and
others in an enormous credulity had persuaded themselves
to their o wn cost and detriment but Raleigh was a like
enthusiast for planting English colonies beyond the seas .
Under a Royal Patent o f 1 5 8 4 the year after his brother s

,
’
death he sent tw o shi ps to N orth America to e xplore with

,
a V iew to a future settlement They took a southerly

.
course and visited the Carolina coasts and the island of

,
Roanoke they came back with a glowing report of the land

and the people the name of Virgini a w as given in honour
o f the Virgin Queen and in the next year 15 85 colonists
, , ,
were sent o u t in ships comm a nded by Sir Richard Grenville .
Ro anoke was the scene o f the settlement which proved a ,
failure the settlers being brought back by Drake o n his

,
way home from raiding the Spanish Main In 158 7 settlers .
were again sent o u t to Roanoke more in number th a n ,
before and a governor and assist a nts o f the city o f Raleigh

,
”
in Virgini a were designated ; but again the scheme mis
carried and in two years time the place w as desolate Not
,
’
.
till the sixteenth century w as past and gone and n ot till ,
the reign o f the Virgin Queen was ended did Virginia ,
become more than a name and British settlement took

,
root beyond the Atlantic .
The literature o f a time tells the sp irit the hopes and , ,
aspirations o f the time In the latter years o f Queen

.
E lizabeth s reign Richard Hakluyt

’
Preacher and some ,
time student o f Christchurch in Oxford prebend o f Bristol , ,

ENGL A ND I N THE M A KING
and Archdeacon of Westminste r was beginning his record of ,
travels o n land and sea a t p ains to gain first hand knowledge

,
-
from those men which were the p ayn e fu ll and person all
”
travellers In 15 82 he published Divers Voyages tou ching
.
the Disco very of A merica and in 1 5 89 the year after the

, ,
Armada appe a red the first edition o r germ o f his great work
, ,
The P rin cipal N avigation s Voyages Trazficque s , , ,

an d Di s
coverie s o
f the E nglish N ation
There was now an Engl i sh .
nation indeed an d the voyages and the discoveries of that

,
nation were worthy and held to be worthy o f record To .
the n a tion and its island home a nd Queen to the doings of ,
the islanders and the dre a m s of future destiny which

,
those doings inspired the poets o f the time bear noble

witness George Peele writes o f
.
E iz l b th gr e t e m p r e s o f the w o r ld
a e ,
a s ,
B ri tan n i a s A tl S ta r o f E n glan d s gl o b e
’
a s,
’
.
Mich a el D r a yton e xtols the Queen

w ho se n t he r v i e s he n ce
na
Un t o the e i th er In d e an d to tha t sh o re so gree n ,
V i r gin i a that we call of her, a V i r gin Qu ee n .
Marlowe s fancy in Tamburlaine roves all over the world

’
,
as widely as Drake sailed and with rich con fusion o f ,
geo graphy
H a v e fe tc h e d a b ou t the I n di an c on tin en t
E v e n fr o m P e r se p o li s to Me x i c o
An d the n c e u n t o the S tr ai t s o f Ju balte r .
All kn ow hi s lines
S ee w ha t a w o r ld o f gr o u n d
Li es w e stwa r d fr o m the mi ds t o f Can ce r s lin e
’
U n t o the r i sin g o f thi s e a rthly gl o be ,

W he re as the su n d e c lin in g fr o m o u r sight
Be gi n s the day w i th our An t ip o de s .
He seems to prophesy of what Ou r o wn eyes have seen ,

as
in the line
We m e an to tr av e l to the An t ar c t ic p o le .
words
An d her e n o t far fr o m Al e x an d ri a
, ,
W he r e as the Te rre n e an d the R e d S e a m e e t ,
B e i n g di st an t l e ss than f u ll a hu n d re d l e agu e s ,
I m e an t to c u t a c h an n e l to the m b o th
Th a t m e n might q u i c kl y sail to I n di a .
Where was now the horizon which had been bounded by the
Narrow Sea and what had become of the days but lately
, ,
sped when the English relied o n foreign vessels to bring

,
into England the riches o f the Mediterranean and the East

But to Shakespeare above all we turn to see ho w new
, ,
discoveries o f an awakening world were leavening English

thought and fancy and to realise how intense was the
,
Englishman s belief in England the island which in fulness

’
of time had come to her o w n We find traces o f Raleigh s .

’
D isco verie of Gu ian a in Othello s words

’
Of the ib al s that e ac h o the r e at

can n ,
The An thr o p o p hagi ; an d m e n w h o se he a d s

D o gro w b e n e a th the i r S h o u ld e r s .
In Twelfth N ight there is a reference to the revised Mer

c ator s map of 1 5 9 9
’
He doe s sm il e his face in t o m o re lin es than are o n the n ew Map

w i th the Au gm e n tat i on of the I n dies .
In the Two Ge n tlemen o f Verona we re a d ho w
Oth e r m en , l de r r e p ta t i on
o f s en u ,
P u t fo rth the i r son s to see k p r efe r m e n t o u t

S o m e to the wa r s to tr y the i r fo rt u n e the r e
, ,
S o m e to di sco v e r i slan d s fa away r .

ENGL AN D IN THE M A KING
’
She s a region in Guiana all gold and bo un ty they ,
s ha ll be my East and West Indies and I will trade to them ,
both says Falsta ff of the M erry Wives of Win dsor

, .
And all the poet s love goes out for England hedged in
’
”
with the main England in a great pool a swan s nest
,
’
,
”
England bound in with the triumphant sea .
The spirit o f the time went o n after the time was over .
Other writers have pointed o u t how the early voyages o f

the East In di a Company kin dled the fire o f John Milton s ’
poetry in P aradise Lost .
A s w h e n , fa r de s ri e d
o ff a t se a , a fl ee t c
H a gs o the l o u d b y e q u in o c t i al w i n d
n n c s, s
Cl o e sa ilin g fr o m Be gal o r th i l
s n a, e s es
Of T m a to a d Tid o re w h c e m e r h an t s b rin g
o n ,
en c
Th i r pi c y d ru g s
e s .
And to the stern Puritan poet no less than ,

to Shakespeare ,
this isle of England is

The g re a te s t an d the be st of all the m a in .
What good has the Empire been to Englishmen 2 Why

did England want an Empire " Find the answer in the
annals of the reign o f Queen Eli zabeth before there was any ,
British Empire at all B ecause the English sucked in the

.
instinct of maritime enterprise with their mother s milk -

’
,
— —
because they iden tifi e d and rightly such enterprise with
freedom and national life because the y were human and ,
found that it paid because they were growing and meant

,
to grow because they were English and loved to have it so

, .
C H A P T E R II
TH E S E V E NT EE NT H C E NT U R Y
Trade an d S ettlemen t
IN the overseas history o f Eng land Sir Walter Raleigh is

,
a link between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century .
In the latter part o f the sixteenth century he was a colo ni ser

in advance of his time He w as a Knight errant ou t o f his
.
time in the early years o f the seventeenth century after ,
James I who behe a ded hi m at the instigation o f Spain

.
, ,
had become King of England F or the seventeenth century

.
was wholly di fferent in character from the age o f Elizabeth ,
almost as di fferent as King James himself was from the

Virgin Queen Writers have pointed ou t how Spanish
.
colonial hi story differed from English colon ial history in

that the Spaniards having discovered America forthwith
, ,
o ve rfl o w e d its central and southern regions in a wave o f
conquest winn ing their empire as the imme di ate result o f

,
their discovery ; whereas the Englis h on the other hand, ,
made their way tentatively and by slow degrees ac hi eving ,
more permanent success in the end Spani sh discovery .
and Empire were on e and the s ame process The English .
had their age o f di scovery adventu re and priv a teering

, , ,
and after the glamour was over there came a prosaic time
, ,
in the seventeenth century when settlement began and

40
Livingstone to wander into C entral Africa w hi ch did n o t ,
belong to him and come home to raise a crusade against

,
slavery and slave trade in Central Africa " It was not

-
his business it was the Africans yet his w as one of the

,
’
noblest works to which man ever se t his hand .
Let us look a little further at this matter o f intrudi ng

’
into and taking other peoples lands What constitutes .
peoples lands " There have been some very few lan ds
’
which as far as is known when first visited by Europeans

, , ,
had no inhabitants When the English took Bermuda and

.
Barbados they took empty islan ds though whether Bar

, ,
bados had been inhabited o r not is uncertain There co uld .
be n o gre a t harm in intrusion o f thi s kind When they went .
to Australia they went to a continent two thirds the size

,
-
o f Europe containing a very small number o f very low

,
grade n atives Did the whole o f Australia belong to those

.
few natives " Is a continent owned by savage human

beings who number say less than o n e to every five square
, ,
miles assuming that those hum a n beings are n o t strong

,
enough to keep o u t all other human beings " When the

English went to North America they went to a land thi nly ,
inhabited by comparatively few Red Indians for the ,
Indians were far fewer in number than was commonly

imagined Ought those Red In di ans to have been allowed
.
to keep all N orth America as their home and hunting

ground " How co uld the world have moved on at all "
Let us take an instance from our o wn time Critics o f the .
late South African War obj ected to the English intruding

into and takin g the Transvaal whi ch belonged to the Boers .
The war was in 18 99— 1 902 The first Dutchmen went into .
the Transvaal in 183 6 o r 183 7 The older Boers at the .
time of the War men like Kruger had not even been born
, ,
in the country They had conquered it they were a very

.
,
II THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 43
sm a ll number in a large territory with a far more numerous

,
native population than themselves Did the country belong .
exclusively to them simply because though new comers ,

-
they had come in first of white men What o f the native

popul a tion " What business had the Dutchmen there at
all NO doubt there are cases when a country can really
be said to belong to a people and when intrusion can safely
be condemned Belgium lately the most thickly pop ulated
.
,
country in Europe emphatically belongs to the Belgians

, ,
and German invasion finds no j ustification o u t Of Germany .
Much might be written in criticism o f the forcible intru sion

of the E nglish and other Europeans into China and of the ,
insistence that Europeans sho uld be allowed to trade and

settle in China Here w as a densely populated part o f the
.
earth s surface ; the population w as more o r less homo

’
n e ou s a nd in the hi ghest degree industrial with a very

g e ,
o ld civilisation with their o wn religion their o w n social

, ,
and political sys tem They desired intensely to keep their

.
country wholly aloof from intruders to continue their ,
separate ways o n their o wn exclusive lines What w as the .
j ustification it may be argued fo r interfering wit h them and

, ,
coming like b urglars into their home apart from occasion ,
given by particular incidents o r outrages On the other

hand how is the world ever to move o n if it is partitioned
, ,
o ff in w a ter tight compartments

-
There is n o answer to
these questions Each case stands o n its merits and must
.
,
be j udged o f according to the place and the time The .
safest test perhaps is that o f what is called beneficial

occupation . The world h a s a right to demand beneficial
occupation o f all p arts Of its surface that can be put to
good u se and that is one main defenc e —if defence is needed
—
,
o f colonisation .
The second question or second f orm o f the same question ,

as we have given it is Why did the English n o t stay at

, ,
home in their o wn island and mind their o wn business "

Why do not people stay at home Because they want to
better themselves by going elsewhere A man from the .
country comes up to live in London Why In the hope

.
o f bettering himself But for the present purpose that

.
,
o f trying to understand British colonis a tion and British
Empire this bettering process may be looked at from two

,
points o f view The main obj ect o f the m a n who moves

.
,
o f the emigrant the colonist may be to make his way into

, ,
some particular new country which has special attractions

for him o r it may be to leave the o ld co un try at any cost
, .
In normal times when there is no great war o n hand

, ,
hundreds and thousands o f men and women leave English

ports for lands oversea Those who go and who are n ot
.
,
making merel y tempor ary trips are going in the hope o f,
betterin g themselves ; some o f them have been fairly

comfort able at home ; they are going o u t to this or that
land because they think that under new conditions they
, ,
will make more money and rise to a higher position ; others

are going because their distres s and poverty in England has
been so great that their main Obj ect is simply to move away
to some other land Take e xtraordin ary times times o f
.
,
war Of political or religl ou s persecution or both of industrial

, ,
revolution and di stress and note how this motive of wishing

to leave home operates Germany invades a nd overruns
.
Belgium A stre a m of Belgian refugees flows into E n gland

. .
Ancestors of these Belgians Fle mings in past centuries

, ,
came to settle in En gland because o f persecution at home .
Huguenots came over in numbers from France after the

revocation o f the E dict of Nantes What business had these
.
Fle m ings and Huguenots not to stop at home an d be im

prisoned and ruined and killed It seems that they con
11 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 45
s ide re dthat under the circumstances they were j ustified

in intrudin g into other peoples lands — with the other ’
peoples consent it is true—and England may well remember

’
,
now what strength the incoming Flemings and Huguenot

gave to E ngland and English industry Let u s take an .
instance from an industrial crisis interesting as illustrating

,
ho w manifold are the effects o f scientific invention In .
the ten years o r so round the year 18 2 5 the handloom

weavers in the North o f England and South o f Scotl a nd
were reduced to starvation by the introduction of machinery
which killed the handlooms The result w as a very large
.
emigration to British North America It w as n o t that the .
weavers wanted to go to North America but that they wanted ,
to leave England where they were starving On e answer .

,
then to the question Why di d n o t the English stay at home

, ,
and mind their o wn business is that at certain times and,
under certain conditions a large number o f E nglish men and

E nglish women found their homes to o ho t o r to o cold to
hold them and that in those homes they had no bus in ess
,
to mi nd S O they went to make new homes elsewhere

. .
F or it will be noted that in past times causes like political

and religious pe rsecution had the effect o f sen ding men and
women over the seas fo r good and all E xiles o f this kind .
did n o t go o u t for a few years only and then retur n they

made new homes in far o ff l ands in permanence This
-
.
desire to go away altogether from England w as on e o f

the sources a ver y important source o f E nglish coloni sa
, ,
tion and it w as much in evidence in the seventeenth

,
century .
This chapter is headed The Seventeenth Century ,
Trade and Se ttlement Trade was more especially with

.
the rich thickly populated tropical East Settlement was

, , .
more especially in the thinly popula ted undeveloped West , .

In North America there was ample room for settlement in

a temperate climate ; and the climate Of the West Indian
islands has always been more favourable to white settlement
than that of other tropical regions In N orth America .
we find the names o f New France as the French termed ,
Canada of New England a name which covered and still

, ,
covers Massachusetts and the sister States o f Nova Scotia , ,
better known in early days as Acadia What did the names .
mean They meant that it was intended to reproduce the

old homes in a new country that the new country was to ,
be permanently colonised A ro u gh distinction can be

.
drawn between a sphere o f trade and a sphere o f settle

ment but none the less settlement develops trade and trade
, ,
more Often than n o t leads to settlement and to acquisition

o f territory This was notably the case in India At the
. .
same time in some cases trade has been an Obstacle to settle

, ,
ment The seventeenth century saw the beginning o f

.
settlement in Newfoundland ; but the English a t home ,
who were interested in the Newfoundland fisheries the ,
Devon and Dorset merc hants most strongly opposed the ,
development of colonisation in the island because they ,
wanted to keep it as a preserve for the yearly visits o f

their fishing fleets West Africa for many long years meant
.
the slave trade to England The English had forts and

-
—
depots o n the coast but the last thing they wanted even
,
—
if the climate wo uld have allowed it was a settled and
civilised West Africa They wanted to keep West Africa
.
as a hunting ground a preserve for slaves These were

-
, .
notable exceptions to what is none the less a general r ule ,
that trade leads o n to territorial acquisition and to settle

ment o f o n e form o r another .
When the seventeenth century opened in 1 603 a Scotch ,
man became King o f England as well as o f Scotland When .

II THE SEVE NTEENTH CENTURY 47
it closed a Dutchman King William III who died in 17 02

, , .
, ,
was o n the throne In the interval there was a great Civil

.
War a King was beheaded a kind o f republic was estab

, ,
lishe d whi ch ended in a practical despotism wi thout the

,
name o f King The Stuart Kings were restored there was

.
,
another civil rising the Monmouth rebellion when West

, ,
countrymen were slaughtered at Sedgemoor and hung or

transported at the hands Of Judge Je ffre ys Another .
revolution followed : the last Stuart King a Roman Catholic , ,
w as driven ou t and William and Mary were placed o n the

,
throne Protestantism attainin g its final triumph in England

, .
The century for England was essentially a time o f internal

disturbance and unrest but was n o t conspicuous for long ,
drawn foreign wars Until William III became King . .
and united the Protestant forces against France the chi ef ,
foreign wars o f England during the century were with the

Dutch the great rivals o f England for se a power and for
,
trade It is note worthy that Cromwell w as at o n e time at

.
war with the Dutch the former allies Of England at another

, ,
with Spain England s and Holland s hereditary fo e Spain

,
’ ’
.
was falling France was rising and in the lo ng reign o f

, ,
Louis "I V which lasted from 1 64 3 to 17 15 took the place

.
, ,
o f Spain as the great mi litary Roman Catho lic power ,
do minating o r trying to dominate Europe When the .
century ended Engl a nd had begun her long struggle

,
with France which did not finally end till the Battle of
,
Waterloo .
Civil war being more characteristic o f the century than

foreign war two results followed On the one hand there
,
.
were strong motives for going o u t o f England to some new

home beyond the seas On the other hand the custody .
,
of the State was perp etually being transferred from o n e

set of hands to another and there was therefore rarely any ,
strong foreign policy What was done at this time towards

.
making the Empire was more than ever done by private

,
Englishmen o r companies Of private Englishmen not by ,
the British Government There was much distress among

.
the poor o f England in the early years of the century

nonconformists so u ght for toleration for their tenets
Ki ng and Parliament quarrelled and civil war ensued ;
Royalists and Puritans laid heavy hands o n each other .
Later again in King James I I s time there was once more

,
.
’
,
danger o f Roman Catholic ascendency It was pre .
eminently an age when men o f thi s o r that church or p a rty ,
some at one time others at another had good reason for

, ,
leaving England Thus there was material for for ming

.
colonies and there was familiar machinery for founding

,
them the favourite and long tried E nglish plan o f chartered

,
-
c ompanies .
In April 1 606 the Virginia Company Of w hi ch Richard ,
Hakluyt was a member received a Royal Patent for the

,
colo ni sation o f North America between the degrees o f 3 4

and 4 5 north latitude There were to be two colonies
.
and in effect tw o companies on e a London comp a ny , ,
operating in the southern territories covered by the p a tent ,
the other called the Plymouth Compan y in the more

, ,
northern regions The London Company o r Virginia

.
,
Company proper sent o u t ships with emigrants who left

, ,
England o n Januar y 1 1 607 Sailing into Chesapeake

, .
Bay in May they fo u nd a suitable site for a settlement o n

,
a peninsula o n the banks o f a river the James River , ,
and gave it the name o f Jamestown This was the first .
permanent English settlement beyond the seas and this ,
was the beginning o f the State o f Virginia and the United

States o f America Michael Drayton has a poem To the
.
Virgini an Voyage in whi ch he speaks o f Virginia earth s

, ,
’
fo r a while at L eyden Loyal subj ects of the King o f.
England while holding their o w n religious creed they

, ,
obtained permission to settle within the limits covered by the

original Charter to the Virginia Company and after various ,
vicissitudes eventually in September 1 6 2 0 one hundred

, , ,
emigrants left Plymouth in a little ship o f 180 tons burden .
These were the P ilgrim Fathers and the ship was the ,
M ayfl ower They reached Cape Cod and in the middle of

.
,
December on the shores Of Cape Cod Bay they founded

, ,
the settlement of Plymouth o r New Plymouth planting ,
Puritanism with all its strengt h and all its shortcomings

, ,
democracy civil and religious freedom coupled with no

, ,
little intolerance deep down in the soil of North America

, .
Other Puritan colonies followed the greatest of all being ,
Massachusetts which may be take n to date from the Royal

,
Charter given in 1 6 2 9 to the Governor and Company of

the Massachusetts Bay in New England ; and the present
great American city o f Boston dating from 1 63 0 recalls , ,
the fact that the Lincolnshire port so prominent in trade in ,
the Middle Ages was prominent also in the annals o f English

,
Puritanism .
There is not space to follow the course o f English co lonisa

tion along the North Atlantic coast in the seventeenth
century and the colonies which were then founded are no
longer within the circle o f o u r Empire Older settlements .
became the parents o f younger colonies fresh settlements

w ere formed from the Mother Country differing in kind ,
according to the political o r religious colour of the promoters ,
according to the time when or the places where they were

M ryl d
a an . promoted Maryland called after Henrietta Maria Charles
.
, ,
’
I s Queen was founded in 163 4 by a Roman Catho lic Lord
.
, ,
Baltimore whose name is borne by the chief city o f the

,
st a te Virginia New England Barbados in addition to the

.
, , ,
Mother Countr y contributed to settlement in the Carolinas

, ,
Charlestown dating from 1 6 7 0 In 1 68 1 the Quaker William .

,
Penn conspicuous for religious toleration though himself

, ,
a member o f a persecuted sect conspicuous too for respect ,
for native rights received from King Charles II a grant o f

, .
the territor y which from that date bore the name of Penn
,
sylvania : in the next year bands o f settlers went o u t a ,
c onsiderable proportion being Welshmen and in 1 683 ,
Philadelphia w as founded This colony was largely the .
offspring of philanthropy as in the eighteenth century was ,
Georgia But there was o n e American colony— a very

.
reat o n e—which was acquired by c onquest This was

g .
New Y ork It had been New Netherlands a Dutch settle

.
, N ew Y o rk .
ment though strangely enough the Dutchmen had been

,
first pilote d into the Hudson River by the English navigator

Henry Hudson ; and in or about 1 6 2 6 New Amsterdam
was permanently f o u nded on Manhattan Island the germ ,
o f the mighty city o f New Y ork War between England .
a nd the Netherlands led to the surrender Of New Amsterdam

to the English in 1 6 64 the city and the st a te be ing re
,
.
christened New Y ork a fter the Duke o f Y ork n o t yet James ,
II to w hom his brother Kin g Charles II granted the

.
, , .
,
’
D u tc hm e n s territory The treaty of Breda in 1 66 7 c o n
.
firmed the English ih their possession the Dutch o n their ,
side ret aining the conquered British West Indian colony of

Surinam In 1 6 7 3 another war led to the Netherlanders
.
regaini ng for the moment their lost colony but the peace o f ,
Westm inster in 1 6 7 4 once more placed it in English

hands All these colonies that have been named and
.
,
others un named were with the excep tion o f New York

, , ,
the result o f British settlement in North America in the

seventeenth century None of them n o w belong to England
.
,
but most of them were the fruit o f British tra di ng e n ter

prise o f British love o f civil and religious liberty o f

, ,
philanthropy as well as o f pursuit o f gain All these .
motives called Englishmen over the ocean all told them ,
not to stay at home .
North Of this Atlantic coast where all sorts and c o n ,
ditio n s o f E nglishmen were making new homes Frenchmen ,
had begun to settle in Acadia and planted New France on ,
the banks o f the St Lawrence In 1 608 the year after

. .
,
the founding o f Jamestown in Virginia Samuel Champlain ,
Q ue b e c .
founded the first French settlement at Quebec A Scotch .
man being now King o f England Scotchmen begin to play ,
a par t in o u r overseas history In 1 6 21 William Alexander .

,
a Scottish scholar and co u rtier obtained from King James I ,

.
a patent covering the Acadian enins ula and more also

p ,
the name o f Nova Scotia (New Scotland ) came into being ,
and an order o f baronets of Nova Scotia F rench and .
E nglish from the first overlapped each other in North

America where there was room and to spare for Great
,
Britain France and a ll their peoples Alexander issued

, ,
.
a pamphlet under the title A n E nco uragemen t to Colon ies

, , ,
to stimulate Scottish colonisation but his efforts to

found New Scotland in Aca dia came to nothing He .
had however a hand in an ente rprise which might h ave

, ,
led to far reaching res ults In 1 62 7 Charles I being King

-
.
,
.
o f England there was war half hearted war between

, ,
-
England and France England espousing in some sort the

,
cause Of the Huguenots Alexander j oined hands wi th a .
”
syndicate o f London merchants Adventurers to Canada , ,
and under their auspices a bold English privateer David ,
Kirke over mastered the French in the St Lawrence and

,
-
.
,
in 1 62 9 starved o u t Quebec Nine years before in 1 62 0 .

, ,
tw o English captains Andrew Shil lin g and Humphrey ,
Fitz H erb ert had o f their o wn motion procl aimed British

,
II THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUR Y 53
sovereignty over the shores of Table Bay Thus in the first .
days of the Empire the English might have had f or their

own South Af rica and the banks o f the St Lawren ce .
,
but it was not to be Those in p ower rej ected the

.
sovereignty—a barren sovereignty at the time—Oi the

southernmost end o f Africa where in 1 65 2 the Dutch ,
men planted a permanent settlement They gave back .
Quebec to Fr ance by the treaty o f St Germain e n L aye .

- -
in 1 63 2 .
It must always be borne in mind that the motive which

firs t took Columbus to America a desire to find a new ,
road to the East by no means di ed away with the discovery

,
o f America and o f the route roun d the Cape It was work .
m g I n one form o r a nother for generation after generation .
We have seen ho w it stimulated voyages to north west and -
north east how fo r instance Martin F ro bishe r s Arctic

-
, , ,
’
explorations were backed by a Company o f Cathay It .
operated still in the seventeenth century French e x .
lo re rs looked to find a way by following up the St L aw

p .
rence and its tributaries The name Lachine —Chin a .
borne by the rapids above Montreal testifies to the quest ,
the natives o f N orth America have always been known as

Indians Henry Hudson looked fo r a passage to the east
.
,
up the Hu ds on River a nd in the Arctic re gions He was

,
.
lost in 1 6 10 or 1 6 11 but 1 6 12 saw the incorpor a tion o f a

,
Company of the Merchants of London Discoverers o f the

”
North West Passage under the patronage o f the then
-
Prince o f Wales King James s eldest s o n who di ed before

,
’
coming to the throne The East India Company in 1 6 14

.
contributed to thi s north western search Huds on Button

-
, ,
Ba ffin Foxe James left their names in the f a r north and

, , ,
though after about 1 63 1 the first stage of Arctic discovery

came to an end discovery here as elsewhere led to trade
, , , .
In 16 7 0,in the reign o f Charle s II the company which in .

,
o u r annals stands perhaps second to the E ast Indi a Co m

, ,
pany in historical importance was brought into being .
This was the Governor and Company o f Adventurers of

” ’
England trading into Hudson s Bay .
It has already been stated that o u r Oldest colony N e w ,
fo u n dlan d the one colony which dates back its British

,
allegiance to the reign o f Queen Elizabeth received its ,
first settlers in 1 6 10 In that ye a r The Tre a surer and the

.
Company o f Adventurers and Pl a nters o f the city o f London

and Bristol for the Colony o r Plantations in Newfoun dland
was incorporated Francis Bacon being o n e of the members
, .
The venture was mainly a Bristol venture Bristol had .
sent ou t John Cabot to di scover these regions : it was

altogether fitting that she sho uld be the mother o f a colony
in the New found land Accordingly in this same year.
,
Alderman John Guy of Bristol took o u t a b a nd o f settlers

and planted them at Cu per s Cove o n the shores Of Con ’
c e tio n Bay This was the beginni n g o f permanent settle

p .
ment in our Oldest colony .
B er m uda .
In 1 609 the Virginia Company received a new charter ,
a nd a fleet was sent o u t with 5 00 e migrants to reinforce

the languishing colony There was a great storm and the
.
ships were scattered On e o f the ships the S eacen tu re

.
, ,
carried the chief commander o f the expedition Sir George ,
Somers a West country man from Lyme Regis in D orset

,
-
The ship w as cast up at the Bermudas Up to that .
time the Bermudas had n o human inhabitants and ,
were of ill reputation for rock and storm To Sp anish .
sailors t hev were known as the Isles o f Devils Their .
only inmates were pigs left there by early di scoverers as

, ,
on other lonely islands So Drayton writes his humorous

.
lines
II THE SEVENTEEN T H CENTU RY
Of the B e rm u d o s the ple s c h
e x am u
Whe re o t a S hi p u t il thi t i m du r t t o uch

n n s e s .
K p t a s u pp o d b y H e ll s in fe rn a l d o g
e s se
’
s,
Ou r fl e e t fo u n d th e r m o s t h o e s t c o ur t e o u h o gs
e n s .
A greater poet than Drayton was II lS plI e d by the account of '
the shipwreck at the Bermudas The Temp est written .

,
probably in 1 6 11 with its reference to the still ve x ed

,
B erm o o the s tells o f a storm and an island which Shake

,
speare created o u t Of this Atlantic adventure Somers .
found his way o n to Virginia but the result o f his soj ourn
,
on the islands was that they were settled from England in

1 6 12 and that in 1 6 1 5 a company was formed out of the
,
Virginia Company and incorporated as The Governor an d

Company o f the City of London for the Plantation o f the ,
”
Somer Islands .
Let us now look at the West Indies various islan ds of ,
which became British colonies in the sevente enth century ,
and which for some two centuries played a part in the British
Empire o u t of all proportion to their size and ou t o f all
proportion to their presen t importance We have to bear .
in mi nd that islanders were attracted to islands and that ,
Englishmen when Setting o u t to f ulfil their destiny and

,
make their empire were confronted wi th the great power Of

,
Sp a in A glance at the map will show that the West Indian

.
Islands form an are over against Central America and the

northern coast o f South America Their total area is o nly .
a little larger than the island o f Great Britain and three ,
quarters of it is contained in the tw o large islands of Cuba

and Hispaniola Of the remaining islands Jamaica is the
.
largest being rather larger than twice the size o f the county
,
o f Lancashire Jamaica lies withi n the ring Barbados is

.
,
slightly outside it If Cuba Hispaniola Jamaica Porto

.
, , ,
Rico and Trinidad be excepted the islands are many and

, ,
very sm a ll in S ize The Isle of Wight wo uld fill an average

.
place among them They are not far from the shores o f.
the n eighbouring continent and yet for the most part are ,
n o t closely adj oining In their triumphal progress the

.
Spa n iards sighted them named them claimed them p a ssed , , ,
them by except in the case o f the large islands fo r to

, ,
conquerors o f a continent these small lands were not worthy

o f a ccount n o r were they so close to the Spanish Main as
,
to he obviously a source of danger i f not kept in Spanish

hands Moreo ver some Of them were tenanted by sturdy
.
,
natives n o t to be easily blotted o u t after the hideous and

,
W holesale fashi on in which the Spaniards had exterminated

the weakly inhabitants o f Hispaniola Of Sir John Haw .
’
4—
kin s s western voyage in 1 5 6 6 5 it is written We came
to an island of the cannibals called Dominica The , .
cannibals o f that island and also others adj acent are the
most desperate warriors that are in the In dies by the ,
”
Spaniards report who are never able to conquer them
’
, .
The geographical position Of these islands constituted their

original attraction and value to the yo u ng se a going peoples -
o f Europe intent upon breaking down Spanish monopoly

,
and raiding the Spanish towns and ports o n the mainland .
Here were havens and watering places for the ships that -
came over the Atl antic little footholds from whence to ,
make a further spring S O we read how the Elizabethan .
sailors touched at one island and another as they came and ,
went and before the sixteenth century ended Sir Walter

,
Raleigh had burnt down the small Spanish settlement in

Trin idad .
As Spain declined as her ene mi es grew stronger , ,
Dutch French English came in not on passing visits merely

, ,
but to stay In 1 6 2 3 English a n d French settled side by

.
St . K itt s
. side in the little isl and o f St Kitts arriving it is said o n .
, , ,
Walter Raleigh and the search fo r an Eldorado It w as .
a scene alike of English adventure and o f English settle

’
ment But Raleigh s dreams were shattered romance
.
,
flickered o u t at his death and British colonisation in these

,
regions which had made some considerable way w as cut

, ,
short when in 1 6 67 Surinam surrendered to a Dutch ad mir al ,
and as already told was by the Treaties o f Breda and

, ,
Westminster ceded to the Netherlands as against the

, ,
cession o f New Y ork to Great Britain .
Having come to the West Indies to prey upon Spain ,
the English and others stayed in the islands and found o u t

their actual o r potential value The Moors it is said .
, ,
brought the sugar cane to Spai n the Spaniards brought

-
,
‘
it to America Whatever was the source of the sugar

.
industry by the middle o f the seventeenth century sugar

,
had become the great product o f the British West Indies .
The industry called for cheap and plentifu l labour and this ,
labo ur w as to be procured from the other side o f the Atlantic ,
the weste rn coasts o f Africa .
We have noted early English ventures down the West

African coast and the beginn in g o f slave tra di ng by Sir
,
John Hawkins In 1 6 18 a company was formed for West

.
African trade entitled the Company o f Adventurers o f

,
London trading into Africa Thev are stated to have .
planted two forts one o n the Gambia on e on the Gold Coast

, ,
.
They trafficked for gold and other produce not for slaves ,
.
Hawkins had learnt at the Canary Islands that negroes

were very good merchandise in Hispaniola and he ,
trafficked in the merchandise ; but the company o f 1 6 18

refused as Englishmen to deal in human wares A second
, , .
African company was incorporated in 1 63 1 and a third in 1 662 , ,
The Company of Royal Adventurers o f England trading to

”
Africa It is very diffic ult to assign definite dates to the
.
II THE SEVENTEENTH CEN T URY 59
fir st British footholds in West Africa but from 1 6 1 8 onwards ,
Englishmen and ships were more o r less continuously in

evidence o n the Gambia River and the permanent connexion
,
of Great Britain with the Gold Coast certainly began with

Fort Cormantine o n that coast established by the company
,
of 1 6 18 On the Gold Coast the great rivals o f the English

.
were the Dutch who in 1 62 4 built a fort named Nassau at

,
Mo u re e near Cape Coast Castle and in 1 63 7 besieged and,
took the great Portuguese stronghold the Castle of Elmina , ,
driving the Portug uese entirely from the Gold Coast .
There was no European colonising o n this coast in any

true sense On e nation and another planted a fort and
.
,
the rival forts stood side by side At Accra for instance .

, ,
the present capital o f the Gold Co ast colony English , ,
Dutch and Danes all had forts o r factories

,
Elmina .
became the Dutc h headquarters o n the Gold Coast and the ,
main English centre was at Cape Coast Castle English .
and Dutch fought o n the Gold Coast English and French ,
farther north in Senegambi a and all were tainted with ,
the slave trade .
The Portuguese first made West Africa kno w n to Europe ,
and when the newly di scovered world was partitioned

,
-
between Portugal and Spain the ownership o f West Africa

,
was confirmed to Portugal Masters of the lands from

.
which slave labour was derived the Portugu ese carried ,
slaves across the Atlantic to the Spanish territories in

America as well as to their o w n possession of Brazil Up
,
.
to 1 600 they were the main o n any appreciable scale the

,
only European slave traders In the seventeenth century

.
the Dutch their foe s and trading rivals o us ted them from
, ,
the Guinea coast and for some long time the Netherlanders
,
were by far the most pro mi nent slave traders carrying ,
trade whether of human beings or o f other products being

, ,
their special m étier In all the early years of the history Of

.
Barbados the carrying trade o f that island incl u din g the

,
importation of slaves was mainly in Dutch vessels

,
.
The English had little part in the dirty business before

1 6 4 0 From that day they began to some small extent
.
to supply slaves to their o w n West Indian and American

colonies Then came the Navigation Act o f the Common
.
wealth directed against the Dutch The Act was renewed

, .
and strengthened after the Restoration and from 16 60

,
onwards the slave trade in British vessels grew rapi dly .
The African company o f 1 66 2 contracted for an annual

export o f slaves to the British West In dies and by the ,
end o f the century some negroes o r more were carried

annually in British ships across the Atlantic There were .
two branches o f the slave trade nations which had foot

holds in West Africa and had also colonies in America and
the West Indies wa n ted to supply slave labour to those
colonies and naturally when able to do so carried these
, , ,
slaves in their o wn ships On the other hand there was

.
,
the case o f Spain which owned large possessions in tropical

America but had n o lot o r part in West Africa The gainful .
process of supplying Spanish America with slaves became

a prize for which other European peoples contended and ,
the Assiento or contract with the Spanish government to

supply the required annual number played a great part in
the politics o f the eighteenth century By the Treaty o f
.
Utrecht in 1 7 13 the English sec u red the contract and from ,
this date onwards they may be said to h ave headed the list
of slave trading nations until the iniquity was finally
-
abolished by Act o f Parliament in 1 807 It has been said

.
in the In troduction that it is n o t fair to j udge the deeds

of the past in the light o f the present : the English were
only one among several sinning pe Ople s : Portuguese Dutch , ,
II THE SEVE NTEENTH CENTURY 61
French Danes all who could were slave traders The

, , , .
labour which the slave trade supplied was necessary for

the economic development of the West Indies and the
tropical and subtropical parts o f the American continent ;
but look at it as we will the slave trade was wholly in
, ,
famous The English knew the sinfulness o f it for they

.
,
reprobated sl a ve trading in earlier and cleaner years before ,
the actual trade and the plantation system which it sup

ported proved so profitable before familiarity with human
,
suffering bred contempt The horrors Of the Middle Passage

.
would have been horrible in any century In the course .
o f E mpire ma king the slave trade was the worst crime

-
w hich the English ever committed .
Negro slavery in the West Indies and what are now S l very a .
the Southern States of North America was the outcome

of the slave trade Bad as it was morally and econo m ically
.
,
unsound the slave system was almost universal w herever

,
white men were planted in tropical lands and co u ld procure

slaves It prevailed in the East as well as in the West
.
,
though it w a s in the West that it attained its greatest

dimensions With the plantation system and the exploiting
.
o f the negro race there came in some sort a new phase o f
slavery but from all times the world had been accustomed
,
to servitude in o n e form o r another Still it is perfectly .

,
true that if the English had never gone over the seas they
, ,
would have had little o r nothing to do with slavery and ,
nothing at all with slave trading since the days when Bristol
,
e x o rte d s lave s to Ireland Slavery and the slave trade

p .
,
therefore must be put to the debit side o f the Empire

, ,
— —
bearing in mind as it is fair to bear in min d that while ,
sinning in these matters the English sinned in company

,
with other nations and that if they were specially prominent

, , ,
it w as not because they were peculiarly sinful but because ,

the qualities which carried them far in nobler paths carried

them far also in the pursuit o f gain .
In connexion with the West Indies we will notice yet

one more blot upon the overseas history o f England .
”
Francis Bacon in his Essay Of Plantations wrote that
, , ,
It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum o f

people and wicked condemned men to be the people with
, ,
whom yo u plant . Neither those who went before him

nor those who came after him acted upon his advice for ,
transportation in o n e form or another played a great part

in the story of the British Empire Here again the English
.
only acted as other people acted and a far better case might
,
be made ou t for tra n sportation at certain times and in

certain places and u nder certain conditions than for slavery .
There were many phases o f it Cabot Martin Frobisher

.
, ,
Raleigh recruited or were allowed to recruit convicts for

, ,
their overseas ventures When Sir Thomas Roe in 1 6 15

.
went on his embassy to India for the East India Company ,
the vessel landed condemn ed men from Newgate at the

Cape ; and in the seventeenth century Virginia the Car e ,
linas and the West Indies received a large number of bond

,
servants from the English gaols political prisoners as well

,
as actual crimi nals A Transportation Act was passed in

.
the reign of Charles I To Ja m aica Cromwell ordered the

.
transportation o f all known idle masterless robbers and

vagabonds male and female in Scotland Montserrat
, .
was largely settled by Irish Roman Catholics Monmouth s .

’
rebellion led to the transportation Of a number o f West

country Protestants In the eighteenth centu ry the philan
.
thro pist Oglethorpe settled Georgia from the debtors prisons

’
in England ; and as we all know in the last years Of that

, ,
century the history of the great British Commonwealth o f

Au stralia began with transportation The abuses o f which .
the system was capable and which were proved to have

,
flowed from it in due course led to its abolition but it

, ,
was n o t till the reign o f Queen Victoria that public Opinion

’
fully endorsed Bacon s words that the planting of colonies
with condemned men is a n unblessed thing .
We have seen that the East India Company received their

Charter from Queen Elizabeth on D ecember 3 1 1 600 , .
They lost n o time in turning it to account In 1 601 a little .
squadron o f five ships was sent o u t under the command o f

James Lancaster who had already sailed to the East in 1 5 9 1
, .
His chief pilot w as John Davis w ho had also lately been in ,
the Easte rn seas piloting a Dutch vessel The Spice Islands

,
.
,
the lands whence came pepper and cloves and nutmegs ,
islands of solid valu e and o f almost mythical repute these , ,
the East Indian Archipelago not the mainland o f India , ,
w ere the great attraction in early days alike to English and

to Du tch Lancaster visited S u matra and Java where he
.
,
planted a f actory at Bantam and the success o f the voyage

,
stimulated fu rther ventures The second voyage was .
again to the Spice Islands The third voy a ge however

.
, ,
which was undertaken in 1 606 w as directed to India For a

, .
full century the Portuguese had monopolised the East and ,
bitterly they resented the inco ming of traders from northern

Europe But in 1 6 12 attacked at se a o ff the port o f
.
,
Surat the English signally defeated the Portuguese and the

, ,
fruit of their victory was th a t they were allowed in that year

by the Mog ul Emperor to establish a factory at Surat .
There were some twenty years o r more o f further frictio n

between the o ld established European power in India and
-
the upstart English company then a local agreement in ,
In dia and a few years later a formal treaty between

, , ,
England and Portugal put an end to hostilities From .
1 64 2
,
the date o f the treaty down to the present ,
day there has been unbroken peace between the two

nations .
Far more dangero u s from their strength and pertinacity

, ,
alike to Portuguese and to English in the East were the ,
Dutch They n o t the English broke to pieces the Portu

.
, ,
g u e s e power in the Indies In In di a itself they

. drove the
Portuguese from t his point and from that ; they cleared
them out of Ceylon ; they took Malacca the Portu guese ,
headquarters in the Malay Indies and shattered the ,
supremacy o f Portugal in the East Indian Islands ; they ,
hunted them out o f For m osa in the China seas Al most as .
bitter was their opposition to the English interlopers like ,
themselves Their bitterness cul minated in the islands

.
,
whose trade both nations coveted and where the Massacre o f ,
Amboyna was perpetrated in 162 3 a murder in peace time , ,
with every accompaniment o f torture Of the English factor ,
and members o f his following NO reparation was made .
for this outrage until the strong days o f Oliver Cromwell .
From this date though the English still retained stations

,
in the islands here they never came up to the level

,
o f the Dutch In India o n the other hand amid number

.
, ,
less di flicu ltie s at home and abroad they made through the ,
century constant and ste ady progress Their first factories .
were at Masulipatam o n the eastern side at Surat o n the ,
west Surat being the principal factory in India prior to

, ,
the acqu isition o f Bomb ay By the end of the century .
factories o r agencies had been planted up and down both

sides o f In di a in Bengal as far inland as the Mogul capital
, ,
o f Agra and farther still Lahore Outside India at on e

, , .
,
time o r another o r all the time there were E nglish factories ,
at Mocha in Arabia ; in Persia and the Persian Gulf at ,
Gombroon Bushire and B u sso rah o r Basra whi ch the

, , ,
present w ar has placed in English hands The y were to be .

and the Company fin ally Obtained formal possession of the

C lcutt
a a
.
ground or part of the ground o n whi ch the city of Calcutta
, ,
now stands in 1 7 00 the first conne x ion o f the English with

,
the native villages which were the predecessors of Calcutta

, ,
dating from 1 6 8 6 and the building of F ort William at

,
Calcutta from 1 6 9 6 Thus in thi s century the Company

.
acquired the b ases of what till the recent transfer o f the

,
capital o f India to Delhi were under the English regim e

,
the three capital cities of India They acquired them .
honestly o r comparatively honestly n o t by armed force ,
but by sale o r lease or grant It was a case o f trade leading

.
o n to ownership Of the soil .
St H l
. e ena .
Far away from India they made a very different acqui si
tion the island of St Helena The record o f this little
,
. .
lonely island in the middle of the South Atlantic was

bound up with the voyages to the East Indies round the
Cape o r rather with that o f the return voyages from India
, .
For it lies in the track of the trade winds blowing from the
south east and the sailors when leaving the Cape on their
-
homeward voyages from India wo uld say that they wo uld

sleep till they came into St Helen s Road When the .
’
.
following wind brought them to the island there they found ,
food and water and a health giving climate The Portu -

.
u se once owned the island ; the Dutchmen held it for a

g e
few years before they plan ted themselves permanently at the

,
Cape in 1 65 2 ; and then the English East India Company

came into possession In the course o f the succee di ng Dutch
.
wars the Hollanders twice took the island in 1 665 and ,
1 67 3 but in either case were driven o u t again within a few

,
months and St Helena belonged to the East India Company

,
.
down to the year 183 4 when by an Act passed in the

, ,
previous year it was transferred to the Crown

, .
A recital of names and dates can give no picture o f the

II THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUR Y 67
resourcefulness energy and patience by w hi ch a handful

, ,
o f Englishmen little by little toilfully painfully laid the

, , ,
foundations o f the British Indian Empire and greatly as ,
these qualities were needed in India they were n o less needed ,
at home The Company had to face commercial j ealousy

.
and rival associations they had to deal with and to suffer

,
at the hands o f King and Parliament alike they had to keep ,
as far as possible an even keel in the troubled waters o f

civil war They were pitted against unscrupulous com
.
petition they worked in u nscrupulous times it is idle to

,
criticise the means which from time to time they employed ,
or the tools which from time to time they used They .
traded at first in separate voyages on the l ines o f a regulated ,
company vario u s members clubbing together to meet the

,
expenses o f the particular S hip o r ships but from the year ,
1 6 12 the j oint stock system came in and gradually prevailed

-
The success o f the first voyage stimulated private adve n

tu re rs and more formidable competition arose when at the
, ,
end o f 163 5 King Charles I gave a grant to trade in the

, .
East Indies to o n e of his courtiers from which grant was ,
developed a new company kn own as Co u rte n s Association ,

’
Sir William Courto n a London merchant being the principal

, ,
promoter This Company established rival agencies in

.
Indi a a nd traded also with Madagascar and twenty years ,
passed before under a new chart er given by Cromwell

,
.
in 1 6 5 7 they were finally absorbed in the old Company In

, .
the latter years o f the century the opposition in England to

the monopoly which the Company enj oyed grew stronger
and stronger The leaders o f the Company bribed but
.
bribed in vain and in 1 6 98 another new Company was

,
incorporated The English Company trading to the East

,
”
Indies three years grace being allowed to the Old Company
, ,
after whi ch date their rights were to lapse But beati .

p osside n tes The Old Company fought hard for their exist
.
ence in England and in Indi a and the end o f it was that

, ,
beginning in 1 7 02 and en din g in 1 7 08 a combination took ,
place from which emerged The United Company o f

Merchants trading to the East Indies from that time o u ,
ward famous to all time as the Honourable East India

Company .
The East India Company from the outset was formed

fo r trade but it represented the English nation in India
, ,
as in earlier times the Merchant Adventurers had been styled

”
the English nation beyond the sea The more civil war .
rent England asunder the more important was this company

,
of traders standing so far as they were a company n o t for

, , ,
King or for Parliament n o t for this King o r for that King

, ,
but for trading interests w hi ch di rectly or in directly were

a national concern and as years went o n more than trad
, ,
ing interests dawned upon the horizon Even in early days .

,
when Sir Thomas R oe in 1 6 1 5 was sent by and o n behalf

o f the Company to the Court o f the Mogul he went also as ,
the accredited representative o f the English King j ust ,
as the Levant Company provided an English ambassador at

Constantinople Later in the century we find the Directors
.
foreshadowing what the future had in store over and above ,
the increase or decrease o f a nnual dividends In the year .
1 689 they passed a resolution The increase of o u r revenue

is the subj ect o f o u r care as much as ou r trade
, tis that ’
must maintain o ur force when twenty accidents may

’
interrupt o u r trade ; tis that must make us a nation in
”
India . Why did the English go to In di a Because
tra di ng enterprise was in their blood because other European
,
peoples had gone and were going because they found trade ,
profitable for themselves and profitable for their country ,
because they preferred to brin g the produce o f the East to

England in their o wn ships to depen ding upon foreigners .
Why were they not conte nt to trade o nly instead o f taking

’
other peoples lands Bec aus e trade inevitably leads o n ,
in semi civilised lands to settlement and ownership

-
because trade w a s n o t secure without soil which co uld be

defended a nd from which the occupants could not be
evicted at will ; bec a use the native owners o f the soil ,
whether their title was good o r bad whether they were ,
caj oled or n o t were willing to sell o r to grant what the in

,
comers wanted What good came from it to the rank and

.
file Of Englishmen They received a constan t and growing

supp ly of what the East could give and England could not
produce ; a thriving overseas trade stimulates employment
at home ; and if there had been none of these things
, ,
the merchants who sent ships to India the factors and ,
clerks w ho served in Indi a the sailors who worked the ,
ships the artifi cers w ho b u ilt them were all for good o r
, , ,
for bad obe ying a national ins tinct and serving a national
,
destiny .
Of the cities and p orts o f England in the sevente enth cen

tury there is n o very S pecial feature to record bearing upon ,
the particular subj ect o f this book London became more .
than ever the domin ating centre Of England the heart and ,
home o f overseas enterprise the headquarters o f nearly ,
all the great merchant co m pa ni es Amo n g the western .
ports Bristol and Plymouth stood o u t Newfo u ndland .

,
West Africa and the West Indies brought gain to Bristol

,
merchants a nd employed Bristol ships Plymouth we .

,
have seen gave its name to a company and to the first settle
,
ment in New England All the south western ports w ere

.
-
wi h —
busy th the Newfoun dland fi s e ries Bristol Bideford , ,
and Barnstaple Falmouth Fowey St Loe Plymouth, , ,

.
, ,
Dartmouth and other South Devon ports VVe ym o u th and

, , ,
70 THE B RITISH EMPIRE en .
especially Poole in D orset Outside the west and south .
west Of England So u thampton London and even , , ,
Liv rp l
e oo . Y armouth took a part in this fishing trade Liverpool was .
still Of no great account all its infancy being overshadowed

,
by Chester It was not till the latter part of the eighteenth

.
century when H argreaves Arkwright and Crompton gave

, , ,
a new birth to the Lancashire cotton industry through their

inventions and when the Southern States of North America
,
began to pour into the Mersey constantly growing supplies

o f cotto n that it began to be the Liverpool o f to day
, Still -
.
,
“
in the year 1 64 6 it was styled the prime haven in all
Lancashire it had a large and increasing Irish trade ; and
in a celebrated Act of Parliament o f 1663 an Act for ,
”
the encouragement o f trade it finds a place in connexion ,
with the trade o f the Isle of Man The Cinque Ports with .
,
the exception Of D over had long fallen from their high ,
estate left behind by history as by the receding se a Yet

, .
the Narrow Seas which they had kept wanted keeping as

m uch as ever never more so than when as even in the
, ,
present day enemy s guns were heard o ff the eastern and

,
’
the Channel coasts when Dutchmen b u rnt English shipping

,
in the Thames and Frenchmen beat Dutch and English

,
o ff Beachy Head .
Th e N vy
a .
But the keeping of the seas narrow and wide had become , ,
’
as never before the nation s care and the fighting ships were ,
no longer partly the priva te property Of the King partly ,
the levies o f various ports gathered for the moment at the

King s command The last illustration o f the me di aeval
’
.
system was in 1 6 2 6 when at a time o f war w ith Spain the

, , ,
ports sent shi ps at the King s call in the Old time fashion ’
-
.
We trace the beginning o f the new order in Charles I s .

’
memorable attempt to raise shi p money the arbitrary tax -
against which John Hampden stood forth It was in effect .

an attempt to secure money rather than ships for naval

purposes and to extend to all the inland co u nties Of England
,
the burden which had in former days fallen only on the

ports and the coast line In a bad and mi schievous way
-
.
it was yet the beginning of making the Navy the concern

o f the whole nation It was a national concern in the time
.
o f the Commonwealth More than h alf the very small

.
national revenue was then expended o n the Navy and in ,
Blake soldier converted into sailor as were also Rupert

, ,
and Monk E n gland found an ad mi ral who was equal to the

,
new call o f the new time .
From the days of the Commonwealth to o we date the , ,
beginning o f what is known as the Mercantile System the ,
adoption o f a policy o f preference and protection in the

interests or supposed interests o f the nation as a whole o n ,
much the same grounds that in o ur o wn times a similar

policy h a s been adopted by Canada protection o f English ,
industries and products encouragement o f English shipping

, .
We have seen that Navigation Acts had already been passed

in earlier years but the N avigation Act o f 165 1 w as the first
,
act which initiated a continuous and wholesale policy It .
followed o n an Act o f 1 64 6 whi ch gave preference to English

,
shipping by providing that goods sent to the colonies in

,
E nglish s hi ps sho uld be free o f duty The Act Of 1 65 1 pro

.
hibite d the introduction into England Ireland or the , ,
English colonies Of the goods o f any country in Asia Africa , ,
o r America except in Englis h ships built and owned by

, ,
E nglis hmen (including Ships b uilt and owned in the English

colonies ) commanded by E nglis hmen and principally
, ,
m a nned by English sailors It pro hi bited to o the im

.
, ,
o rtatio n into England o f goods from Eur ope except in

p ,
English Shi ps o r in the S hips Of the country whi ch produced

them The Act was directed against the carrying trade of
.
72 THE BR ITISH EMPI R E on .
the Dutch it embo di ed commercial war and it led to actual ,
w a r It dealt with shi ps and navigation but it was the

.
,
forerunner o f more An Act of 1 660 o n e o f the fir st Acts

.
,
o f the Restoration an Act for the encouragement and

,
”
increasing o f shi pping and navigation carried the policy ,
further Exports from the colonies as well as imports into

.
,
the colonies were to be carried o nly in the ships of the nation

, ,
and various articles were to be shipped o nly to English

possessions Three years later the system was again ex
.
“
tended by the Act o f 1 663 for the encouragement o f
,
trade to which reference has already been made

, .
In truth so far as Government was concerned the en

, ,
c ou ra e m e n t o f trade was the keynote of this century the

g ,
century Of trade and settlement Government permitted .
settlement but did little to support o r control it it fostered

,
and protected trade Settlem ent in the eyes o f the rulers o f

.
England was merely the handmaid o f trade n o office came

into existence at this time a nswering to our present Colonial
Office whose special concern for good o r ill should be the
, , ,
care and the management of colomes There were spas .
modic boards and commi ttees to handle colo ni al questions ,
and even when some more permanent agency for the purpose
was in 1 6 9 6 established by King William III trade was .
,
still the governing factor and the agency was the Board o f
,
Trade an d Plantations Many years afterwards the coloni al

.
reformer Edward Gibbon Wakefield summed up the b e

, ,
ginnings of the British Empire in these roughly accurate

words All the early coloni es Of the E nglish were allowed
to govern themselves from the beginning with this single ,
exception that the mother country reserved to herself a

,
monopoly o f the foreign trade o f the colony .
B u t while the State was little concerned with settlement

,
in this century and largely for that very reason the time
, ,
THE B R ITISH EMPIRE OH . II
state control It wo uld have been well in later days had

.
such wise words been better heeded if those who guided

,
state policy in England had thought a little less Of trade a ,
little more o f Plantation .
It has been emphasised that past ages cannot be fairly

j udged by the standard and in the light o f our o wn Bearing
’
.
this in mind it is none the less instructive to note the part

,
which the Commonwe a lth and Cromwell played in regard

to the coming Empire At a time —the only time in English
.
history when democracy developed into do minant re

-
publicanism the o nly time when Nonconformity triumphed

,
completely more than half the national revenue was spent

,
upon the Navy a national policy o f commercial exclusion in

,
se a going traffic was initiated and stoutly upheld

-
and
, ,
for the first time a colony was added to the Empire which
,
had been taken from another European nation by force of

arms .
TH E E I G H T EE NT H CE NT U R Y
The Cen tury of War
TH E present chapter covers the period from the accession Th e
of Queen Anne in 1 7 02 down to the battle o f Waterloo in

1 815. As the British Empire widens o u t it is necessary , ,
in telling the story in limited space to deal with the leading

,
features only and to o m it details In the making Of the

.
Empire this time stands o u t as an age o f foreign w ar and ,
as an age in which the direct action o f the Government was

far more in evidence than in the previous century .
ithin the British Isles civil wars were over and done
'
with except for the two abortive Jacobite rebellions and

,
occasional risings in Ireland It is true that there was

.
another change o f dynasty England again went outside Th U it

. e n
K gd m in o
for her Kings and brought over George I from Hanover
,
. .
Thus English and Germans came into line as William III ,

.
had before linked Great Britain with the Netherlands .
But there was no revolution involved in the Hanoverian

Succession It was a Succession based o n distant kinship
.
,
not a root and branch reversal of the Old order There was .
,
in short continuity in the headship o f the nation in strong

, ,
contrast to the kaleidoscopic changes of the seventeenth

.
century ; and moreover from the time when William 111

, ,
.
75
on . III TH E EIGHTEENTH CENTUR Y
was King monarch y became o r was beco mi ng monarchy

,
as we n o w know it in England constitutional monarchy , ,
the advisers o f the King being the leaders o f the predominant

party in the nation Whigs o r Tories Liberals or Conserva
, ,
tive s Robert Walpole Chatham and his son William Pitt

.
, ,
’
the younger were n o t merely the King s agents they were , ,
as ministers now are the recognised guides and r ulers o f the

,
people Early in the period in 1 7 07 England and Scotland

.
, , ,
already under o n e King became o n e nation under o n e,
P arliament L ate in the period in 1800 the Union o f Eng

.
, ,
land and Ireland was effected and the British Isles became , ,
at any rate in name the United Kingdom ,

.
It was a time o f foreign war There were n o doubt .

, ,
considerable intervals o f peace notably when Walpole ,
w a s Prime Minister ; but taken as a whole this century , ,
was pre eminently a century o f fighting Further though

-
.
,
there were many wars with many peoples the o n e main ,
enemy o f England was France and in the latter part Of the ,
time the wars between England and nations other than

France were chi efly due to the fact that the se nations were
dominated by and followed the lead of France There was .
one great war whi ch w as o f the nature o f a civil war the

, ,
War o f American Independence In this case Englishmen .
were fighting o n e another but here to o France took a hand

, ,
and contributed greatly to the final outc ome of the war .
The Old question Why rises again What j us tification

, .
was there fo r England to be perpetually fighting against a

foreign nation and that nation her near neighbour
,
What
was her obj ect " What did she gain from it " There is
o nly the old answer to be given that mi xed motives were ,
operating more noble and less noble motives ; a sense of

,
national insec ur ity if another European nation especially ,
the nearest o f the continental nations bec a me to o strong ; ,

instinctive perception Of the path along which power and

riches were to be sought ; a higher instinct which told that
England should take arms for political and religious freedom
a constant call to the race from its connexions and its
interests over the seas a call which Older times had n o t
,
known Why are we at war with Germany

. First and
foremost because o f o u r pledges to maintain the in depe n d
ence of Belgium ; secondly to prevent a great and noble
,
nation France o u r enemy of old times o u r friend of many

, , ,
’
years standing from being reduced to vassalage to Ger
,
many ; thirdly because we realise the imminent and

,
deadly danger to ourselves should Germany prevail There .
is a memorable saying o f the Greek philosopher Aristotle ,
that revolutions start from small causes though they have

great Obj ects His words apply also to agreat extent to
.
foreign wars In all wars at the present day as in the

.
,
eighteenth century there is some immediate and particular

,
cause o r causes which Operate at the particular time some ,
treaty some incident In the eighteenth century kings and

,
.
their marriage connexions and their dynastic intrigues played

a more prominent part than wo uld n o w be possible though ,
it will be remembered that the proximate cause the imm e di ,
ate occasion Of the Franco German War o f 18 7 0 was a

,
-
question o f Spanish succession even as it was the proximate,
cause o f the mighty struggle in which the Duke o f Marl

borough broke the ar mi es o f Louis "I V .
This was the first great Anglo French war o f o u r period -

.
It was a continuation Of the war on whi ch William III .
had entered in 1 68 9 The Treaty o f Ryswick in 1 69 7

.
gave a breathing space In 1 7 02 it broke o u t again as the

.
War of the Spanish Succession and it ended with the Treaty ,
o f Utrecht in 1 7 13 The immediate cause o f England

.
being involved in the war o f 1 68 9 was that Lo ui s "I V had .

III THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 79
given his support to the exiled Stuart King James II against , .

,
his own most determined enemy the Dutchman w ho took ,
King James s place upon the English throne The im

’
.
mediate cause Of England being again involved after the

Treaty o f Ryswick was that contrary to the terms o f that
,
treaty Louis recogni sed King James s so n as rightful King

,
’
o f England But beh ind it all England stood as she stands

.
,
now against an attempt o f a continental power to establish

,
a military domination over Europe and thereby over the

possessions o f European peoples The fight was one against .
a military despotism which threate ned the world ; and in

the time o f Louis "I V it was also a fight for Protestantism
.
against militant and persecuting Roman Catho licism ; for

the year 1 68 5 was the year o f the Revocation o f the Edict
o f Nantes with its sequel o f Huguenot immigration into
,
E ngland .
Among other wars with France the middle war Of ,
the centur y the Seven Y ears War which ended with

,
’
,
the great Peace o f Paris in 1 7 6 3 w as o f the utmost ,
importance to the British Empire England went into the .
war to fight it ou t with France for supremac y in West

and East On the continent o f Europe her ally was
.
Frederick the Great o f Pru ssia and then grew up the b ond ,
between England and Prussia which was cemented at

Waterlo o and which has been severed in the same Belgian
,
land where Wellington and Blucher fought side by side .
The b a ttle of Minden glorious and memorable in the annals

,
o f the British infantry is a reminder that in this Seven

,
Y ears War Englis h soldiers were fighting o n the c o n

’
tin en t .English money was forthcoming to support the

Prussian king as it was forthcoming to support the con
,
tin en tal enemies o f Napoleon and as it is forthcoming now

,
to aid the Allied cause But it was in America and in India

.
, ,
and on the high seas tha t England played her leading ,
part .
The last o f the French wars in the period under re

view was the war with Napoleon in which the Treaty o f ,
Amiens in 1 802 made a break parallel to that made by the ,
Treaty o f Ryswick In the Napoleonic wars religion n o

.
longer played a part but England was once again in arms

,
against an attempt at universal military desp otism as S he ,
w as a century before and as she is a century later the battle ,
ground where Marlborough fought Ramillies and Oudenarde

in 1 7 06—8 where Wellington fought Waterloo in 1 81 5
, ,
where the English are now holding their trenches being one ,
and the same the war scarred well tilled fields of Belgium
,
-
,
-
In the fir st chapter it has been noted and it is self ,
evident that war with another nation implies war with that
,
nation all the world over but o n the other hand in order , ,
to appreciate the story of the British Empire we have to ,
take careful note of place and time and especially to bear ,
in mind the conditions which prevailed before the days o f

scie n tific invention when there were n o steamers n o su b
-
, ,
marine cables n o wireless telegrap hy

, War o r peace in .
Europe did not necessarily mean war or peace in America o r

in India In 1 7 5 4 two years before France and England went
.
,
formally to war G eorge Washington was fighting Frenchmen

,
o n the V irginian and Pennsylvanian frontier On the same .
’
frontier in 1 7 5 5 General Braddock s force was annihilated
, ,
by French and Indians In the same year 1 7 5 5 William .

, ,
Johnson rep ulsed French and In di ans near Lake George .
All this was prelimi nary to the Seven Years War Similarly ’
.
in India between the Peace Of Aix la Chapelle in 1 7 48 and

,
- -
the outbreak of the Seven Y ears War French and English ’

,
were fighting one another tho u gh here they fought osten ,
sib ly as allies o f native competitors and as representing

strengthened the English p osition in N orth America but

’
meanwhile in North America the mother country s efforts
had been mainly signalised by a most ignominious failure ,
in 1 7 11 o f an expedition intended to take Q u ebec Thus

,
.
the colonists witnessed the failure whereas the successes

, ,
by which they as a matter o f fact profited had been w o n ,
far away I n 17 4 5 the New Englanders achieved a great

.
triumph Aided by a small British squadron they besieged

.
,
and took Louisbourg the main French stronghold in North

,
America Three years later in 1 7 4 8 the Treaty o f Aix la

.
, ,
-
Chapelle provided for mutual restitution o f conquests .
The French regained Louisbourg ; the English regaine d

Madras which had been taken by the French But what
,
.
did the New Englanders reck o f Madras " The peace in ,
their eyes took from them wh at their o w n arms had w o n

, ,
and left them to be still threatened by the fortress which

they had captured Here critics of the Empire may fin d
.
ground for criticism A country which has no overseas

.
possessions has nothing to exchange and runs no risk o f ,
giving o ffence by the process of exchange A power which .
has possessions all the world over when peace comes after
,
war weighs North against South and East against West

, ,
and stri kes a balance between gain and loss Until the .
overseas possessions enter into full partnership in a world

wide concern can take stock o f the whole and n o t merely
,
o f their o w n immediate surroundings and can make their ,
voice felt in the general settlement there must be ground

, ,
well o r ill founded for soreness and resentment

,
.
The eighteenth century was a time o f war It was also .

,
mainly because it w as a time o f war pre eminently an age,

-
when the direct action of the State contributed to the

making o f the British E m pire Most of the many colonies
.
and dependencies acquired in this age were the fruits o f

III THE EI G HTEENTH CE NTUR Y 83
war were conquered from or ceded by other European

,
nations We took toll from France and Spain from Holland

.
,
and Denmark But there were also peaceful acquisitions

.
in these years far the greatest Of w hich was Au stralia

‘
.
,
T hi s again was the work o f the Government n o t of private ,
citizens not o f co m panies The earliest English settlement

,
.
in Australia was planted by the State .
The first addition to the British Empire in the eighteenth Gibr ltar a .
century was at the expense o f Spain during the War of ,
the Spanish Succession This was the Rock o f G ibraltar .

,
taken by a mixed Dutch and British fleet in 1 7 04 and ,
confirmed to Great Britain by the Treaty o f Utrec ht It .
was an acquisition which reflec ted the character o f the age

and the character of the people who took it The fig hting .
time for England opened by taking a natural fortress o f ,
no direct valu e fo r tra de o f no value at all for settlement , ,
but o f the utmost value for a se a going power o n the road -
to Empire an all but island at the gateway o f the inland

,
- -
se a . Among the various component parts of the British

Empire Gibraltar is the typical fortress o f a naval power
, ,
commanding o n e of the greatest trade routes of the world

—
.
The memorable S iege o f 1 7 7 9 83 during w hich it was held ,
for three years and seven months against French and

Spaniards enhanced its value in the eyes o f the English
,
people ; and outside the Straits which it commands is the

Bay o f Trafalgar where England s greatest sailor fought
,
’
conquere d and di ed , .
The Treaty o f Utrecht gave to E n gland in addition to ,
Gibraltar undisputed possession o f Newfoundland with

,
the reservation to the French —a most dangerou s and

,
troublesome reservation —o f certain fishing rights ; the

Aca di an peninsula n o w Nova Scotia (though n o t Cape
,
Breton Island which is at the present day included in Nova

,
84 TH E B RITISH EMPIRE on .
Scotia ) ; and exclusive sovereignty over the shores o f

Hudson Bay It gave her the sole possession o f the West
.
Indian island o f St Kitts which the French had S hared ;

.
,
and it gave her the Assiento the contract fo r supplying ,
Spanish America with slave labour to w hi ch reference ,
has already been made French ships went fishing to

’
.
Newfoundland as early as English s hips fo r there were ,
no more enterprising sailors and merchantmen than

those who hailed from the Breton and Norman ports .
Newfoundland lay over against C anada N ew France ,
beyond the seas and about the year 1 66 2 n o t content with ,
fishing ventures and yearly visits n o t regardful o f British ,
rights o r claims the French began to settle in Newfound

,
land Their chief centre was Placentia about seventy

.
,
miles south west Of the m ain British settlement at St

-
.
’
—
John s ; and in the winter of 1 69 6 9 7 guided by a noted ,
F rench Canadian partisan Le Moyne d I b erville the

’
, ,
Frenchmen took St John s and laid waste the whole ring

’
.
,
o f British settlements A fleet and a garrison for St John s

. .
’
were sent ou t from England but twice again in the course ,
’
o f the war the French broke into St John s and there was .
,
little security for the English settlers until the Treaty Of

Utrecht .
Iberville w ho was so conspicuous in Newfoun dland

,
in 1 6 9 6 9 7 had already in 1 68 6 and 1 6 94—9 5 raided and

-
, , ,
taken the forts of the Hudson Bay Company o n the shores

of Hudson Bay There was no war in 1 68 6 between
.
England and France but that mattered little in the far

‘
north o f America Yet again in 1 6 9 7 fresh from his

.
,
successes in New foundland he gave France the upper ,
hand in the Bay and the French were dominant o n

,
its shores until the Treaty o f Utrecht That treaty .
put a n end to their success It gave to Great Britain .

,
to be possessed in full right for ever the Bay and ,
Straits o f Hudson .
The Acadian peninsula was the scene of early French

settlements in N orth America Samuel Champlain had .
been at work here before he betook himself to founding

,
Quebec The principal settlement was at Port Royal o n

.
Annapoli s Harbour In Aca di a the French were by se a

.
more within stri king di stance o f the English in New Eng

land than they were u p the St La wrence River at Quebec .
”
and the New E nglanders especially the ,
B o sto nn ais ,
whose enterprise and initiative Canadians had good reason

to dread took Port Royal in 1690 In 1 7 10 with the help
,
.
,
o f ships and troops from home they took it again By the

, .
Treaty of Utrecht France ceded to England all N ova

Scotia o r Aca di e with its ancient boundaries and then ,
came the question w hat were its ancient boundaries an ,
intermin able di spute leading to and only solved by further

, , ,
wars .
There is little to record of the period between the Treaty

o f Utrecht and the Seven Y ears War By the middle o f the
’
.
century the English colo ni sts o n the North Atlan tic sea board -
numbered some A thirteenth colony Georgia , ,
had been founded in 1 7 3 2 by the English philanthropist

James Oglethorpe The New E nglanders h ad proved their
.
mettle by taking Louisbourg ; and as the colonies grew in ,
strength they grew in j ealousy o f their rights in restiveness

, ,
against political and commercial restrictions imposed by

the mother country The West In di es prospered more
.
and more as sugar producing slave owning colo ni es West

-
,
-
Indian plantation owners like East In di an nabobs being

, ,
the millionaires o f the eighteenth century West Africa .
was as much as ever perhaps more than ever a slave

, ,
hu nting preserve In India the East India Company

.
grew in the face o f competition from the French East In di a

Company and for a while of an Ostend company domiciled
,
in the Aus trian Netherlands in the face too o f growing

, , ,
native diffic ulties caused by the break up o f the Mog ul

Empire and the rise o f the Mahrattas They acquired small .
additions to their small territorial possessions as in the ,
neighbo u rhood o f Madras ; but they lost Madras itself for

'
the moment in 17 4 6 to Labourdonnais the able Frenchman

, , ,
whose name is so closely connected with the island of

Mauritius Two years late r they recovered it by the
.
Treaty of Ai x la Chapelle The conditions o f India which

- -
.
,
was in the melting pot with rival native dynasties and

-
rival native claimants inviting European aid and in te rven

tion and with a Frenchman o n the spot D u pleix n u
,
.
, ,
rivalled in turning to account natives and native troubles

and native intrigues forced the English merchants in
, ,
defence of their commercial interests into political paths ,
and military ventures ; and from the counting house there -
came o n e o f the men o f the century Robert Clive , .
It has been seen that French and English were busy

fighting one another in the backw oods o f America in the
years 17 5 4 and 1 7 5 5 From Canada the French in the
.
seventeenth century had made their way to the head

waters o f the Mississippi and La Salle bolde st o f pioneers
, , ,
had followed the great river down to its mouth claiming ,
for the King o f France all its lower basin under the name
o f Lo u isiana Settlement at the mouth o f the river began
.
at the very end o f the century Iberville carried to the

.
G ulf o f Me x l CO the restless energy which had been so

signally shown in Newfoundland and Hudson Bay and in ,
1 7 18 the city o f New Orleans was founded Then grew up .
a great French scheme to hem in the English colonies o n the

Atlantic se a board by a French North American Empire
-
,
III THE EIGHTEENTH CE NTURY 87
based o n the St Lawrence and the Great Lakes A chain

. .
of forts was to link the Great Lakes to the upper waters o f

the Ohio whence the line was to follow the Ohio to the
,
Mississippi and the Mississippi to the se a As Duplei x .
worked for F rance in India through the natives o f India ,
using native machinery for F rench purposes so in North ,
America the n a tive In dians handled by the French far ,
more tactfully more unscrupulously than they were by the

,
English were to subserve Imperial French interests The

, .
scheme was great but doomed to f ail Tw o S ides o f an

, .
enormous triangle were to be held against the base which ,
base was the open se a and was in the hands of a power

,
always equ a l to and u sually stronger o n the se a than

France while the English colonists outnumbered the
,
French in Nort h America in a proportion Of something like

thirteen to one The key o f the French position w as a fort
.
,
F ort D uquesne planted where the Alleghany and Monon

,
g a hel a rivers comb ine to make the Ohio and here it was ,
that George Washington w as beaten b ac k in 17 5 4 when ,
sent by the governor o f Virgini a to forestall or dislodge the

French .
On the se a board the French held Louisbourg in C a pe Ac di

-
a a.
Breton Island given back to them by the Peace of Ai x l a

,
-
Chapel le and they never ceased to attempt to regain the

,
Acadian peninsula Here o n the ocean side the English

.
, ,
had strengthened their position by founding in 1 74 9 the

city of Halifax called after Lord Halifa x who was at the
, ,
time head of the Board o f Trade and Plantations and ,
numbering among its first inhabitants a large body o f time

expired sol di ers and sailors But o n the opposite side .
,
facing the Bay of Fundy the pop u lation was French , ,
constantly instigated by French e missaries and priests to

disloyalty to the British Government This brought on a .
catastrophe in 17 5 5 when the large maj ority of the Acadians

,
were deported mainly to the English colonies in North

,
America The tragic fate o f the Aca di an settlement

.
at Grand P ré has been immortali sed in Longfellow s ’
Evangelin e
An d w ith th e bb Of th t t ide the S hi p saile d o t o f the h r b o ur

e a , s u a ,
L ea v in g b e hi d th e m th d ea d o n the sho r e n d the village in ru in s

n e a .
This deportation is o n e o f the incidents in the ov erseas

history of Great Britain which Englishmen would like to
forget ; but ho w overcoloured has been the story and how ,
strong and persistent had been the provocation is told , ,
fairly and squarely by the great American historian Francis

,
Parkman Whatever j udgment may be passed on the

.
cruel measure o f wholesale expatriation it was not put in ,
execution till every resource o f patience and persuasion had

”
been tried in vain .
Horace Walpole wrote in 1 7 5 9 I believe the world ,
will come to be fought fo r somewhere between the N orth o f

”
Germany and the back o f Canada He wrote in the most .
memorable year of this Seven Y ears War the year most ’

,
rich in British successes the year o f the battle o f Minden

, ,
o f the ta king of Quebec and when a mi d storm and wind

, , ,
rocks and shoals Admiral Hawke anni hilated the French

,
fleet in Qui beron Bay His words written in j est contained

.
, ,
the kernel o f the matte r It was a war in whi ch England

.
-
,
as never before and as hardly ever a fterwards either by ,
the genius Of a great statesman Chatham o r by national , ,
instinct di scerned and followed the true path to s a fety and

,
to greatness by taking the lead o n the se a and beyond the

se a and by playing a subor di nate part o n the continent o f
,
Europe fighting there with the purse more than in kind

,
.
H e r one ally in Europe was the great F rederick o f Prussi a .

THE B RITISH EMPIRE OH . III
his guns tried to dislodge Mo n tcalm s army o n the Beauport

,
’
lines below Quebec between the town and the Montmorency

River and in the second week o f September resolved on a
,
night lan di ng at a point slightly higher up than the town ,
which gave him the victory and cost hi m his life On the .
morning o f the 13 th of September his troops were o n the

plateau of the P lains o f Abraham by mi dday the battle ,
was won Wolfe was killed Montcalm was mortally wo u nded

, , ,
and o n the 1 8 th of September Quebec surrendered It was .
held through the winter by a garrison under an admirable

soldier General James Murray but har dly held the garrison
, , ,
being badly defeated outside the walls at the battle o f

Sainte Foy Relief came o u t from England in the spring
.
o f 1 7 60 and three English forces converged o n Montrea l

, ,
up the St Lawrence from Quebec down the St Lawrence

.
, .
from Lake Ontario and up from Lake Champlain by

,
Chambly and St Johns D own the St Lawrence from the

. . .
Great Lakes came the main force under Amherst and o n ,
September 8 what was left o f the French army and govern

ment in Canada finally capitulated wi th Montreal By .
the fourth section o f the Peace o f Paris in 17 6 3 the French

King renounced all pretensions to Nova Scotia o r Acadia
” “
in all its parts and ceded to the English King in full
,
right Canada with all its dependencies as well as the

, ,
island of Cape Breton and all the other islands and coasts
,
”
in the gulf and river o f St Lawrence In Louisiana the
. .
Mississippi was made the boundary , except that the town

o f New Orleans o n the eastern bank was left to France .
The French fishing rights in Newfoundland which had ,
been reserved b v the Treaty o f Utre c ht were unwisely ,
confirme d and more unwisely the islands of St Pierre and

, , .
Miquelon were ceded to France though as fishing stations ,
only From Spain England gained under the te rms of the

.
peace Florida and all the Spani sh poss essions o n the North
American continent to the east and south east o f the -
Mississippi Spain o n her side recovering Havana I n the

,
island o f Cuba which the English had taken

, .
I di
n es . For there had been plentifu l fighting in the West In di es ,
as elsewhere in the course Of thi s war The French islands

, .
o f Guadeloupe Marie Galante and Martinique were taken

, ,
by the English a s well as Spanish Havana The outcome

, .
was that by the Peace of Paris France recovered Guade

, ,
loupe and the sister islands and that o f the smaller islands ,
England secured Grenada the Grenadines St Vincent , , .

,
Dominica and Tobago while France gained St L ucia w ith

, ,
.
its valuable harbour o f Castries In West Africa the French .
lost heavily by the war For the tim e they were practically
.
driven from the coast the island o f Goree being taken b y

,
the English as well as the other French possessions in

,
Senegambia the chief of which w as Fort St Louis o n the

,
.
Senegal River The peace gave back Goree to France but

.
,
left to England the River Senegal with the forts a n d fac

tories o f St Louis Podor and Galam and with all the I ights
.
, , ,
and dependencies o f the said River Senegal .
I di
n a
. Great as this time was in its res ults upon the f ortunes
o f the English in America it was almost as fruitful in India
,
.
It w as the time when Clive placed the English as represented ,
by the East In di a Company once and for all in the position ,
o f the predominant European power in In di a and raised the ,
Comp a ny once and for all from a commercial to a political

basis From the death o f the Emperor Aurungzeb s in 1 7 07
.
,
after a reign o f over fi fty years the Mog ul Empire whose , ,
capital was at Del hi faded into the S hadow of a power

, ,
broken by the fighting Mahratta conf ederacy which over ,
mastered Western and Central In di a The Viceroys o f the .
Mogul became practicall y in dependent rulers a nd under ,

94 THE B RITISH E MPIRE CH .
fo r thethrone of the Carnatic whom the English favoured , ,
was besieged and sore pressed in Trichinopoly by the allies

of Dupleix when Clive with a handful o f men marched o n
,
Arcot the political capital Of the Carnatic seized the fort

, ,
and held it and w ith Mahratta aid defeated his opponents

,
with Frenchmen fighting in their ranks This was in the .
latter months o f 1 7 5 1 ; and early in 17 5 2 with Maj or ,
Lawrence he annihilated the besiegers o f Trichinopoly

, .
’
D u ple ix s great scheme was broken up he himself was ,
recalled to France in 17 5 4 and peace between the tw o ,
companies— for all the while there was peace between

France and England—was negotiated in 1 7 5 5 by a repre
se n tative of the French East India Company sent o u t
from home .
In 1 7 5 3 Clive went home to be honoured by his em

l
p yo e rs and
,
returned to India in the latter part o f 1 7 5 5 .
He came back as Governor o f Fort St David and took up .

,
his post early in 17 5 6 In Jun e of that year the native

.
V iceroy o f Bengal attacked the English at Fort William in

Calcutta they surrendered and there followed the hideous ,
tragedy o f the Black Hole burnt into the memory o f ,
Englishmen like the massacre o f Cawnpore a century later .
C live was again called fo r and answered to the call Sent

, .
up to Bengal with Admiral Warren at the beginning o f ,
January 1 75 7 he recovered Calcutta then drove the French ,
Pl asse y o u t of Chandernagore and in June at the battle o f Plassey

.
,
broke to pieces the army of the Nawab of Bengal Two .
years later towards the end o f 17 5 9 by his orders though

, , ,
there was peace between England and Holland a threaten ,
ing Dutch squadron which came up the Hooghly with a

,
force of soldiers o n board was attacked and annihilated, .
Meanwhile in 1 7 5 8 Co u nt de Lally o f Irish descent came

, , , ,
out as French Governor of Pondicherry Brave able and .

, ,
impetuous at once he attacked Fort St David A strong

,
. .
fort and adequately manne d it w as nevertheless most ,
poorly defended : in June the garrison surrendered and ,
the fort was blotted o u t In December Lally was

.
besieging Madras but here he failed completel y and in

, ,
January 1 7 60 he was signally defeated by Sir Eyre

Co ote at the battle o f Wan de wash This battle finally .
settled the question whether English or French should

predominate in Southern Indi a In a year Pon di cherry .
capitu lated and though the French under the terms of the
, ,
Treaty of 1 7 63 received b ack the ir lost Indian possessions

,
'
they never again were serious rivals o f the English in India .
The treaty indeed provided that they should not erect

fortifications or keep troops in Bengal The English at .
this time added somewhat to their territorial possessions

in India but what they really gained w as undispute d
,
ascendancy as again st other Europea n s with its infinite ,
possibilities for the future There were dark features then

.
and later in their dealings Empire makers are n o t always

.
-
n o t often perhaps wholly clean handed and many critics

, ,
-
have dealt with the shortcomings of Clive Y et he was the .

'
man w ho founded o u r In di an Empire and if that Empire ,
has o n the balance stood fo r human welfare much m a y b e ,
forgiven to its founder .
A great peace was the Peace o f 1 7 63 and mi ght have ,
been yet greater had Chatham still been in power Exactly .
twenty years later a very di fferent peace was signed the ,
Peace o f Versailles which acknowledged the independence

,
o f the United States o f America On e Of the brightest .
times in all English history was followed immediately by

o n e o f the darkest To years in which English statesman
.
ship shone at home and English leadership on land and

,
se a succeeded a gloomy cycle

, when there was a wrong ,
96 THE B RITISH EMPIRE en .
headed King short sighted Ministers second rate o r half

,
-
,
-
hearted generals and with exceptions such as Lord Howe

, , ,
and Rodney even at se a ad m irals who were n o t of the best

,
o r at their best On the causes Of this civil war it is im

.
possible to enlarge though a word will be said on the subj ect

,
in the last chapter Most unbiassed men English o r Ameri

.
,
cans wo uld probably agree that the exp ulsion Of the French
,
from North America removed o n e potent motive why the

colonies sho uld be content to remain under the British flag .
Secure from foreign attack conscious in a growing degree

,
o f their strength conscious in a growing degree o f the re

,
strictio ns which their British allegiance at the time involved ,
having in the case Of New England at any rate been cradled

, ,
in independence founded by the desire to be out of Engl and

, ,
di ffering fi om the English at hem e in social and political

conditions they w ere essentially at a stage in their histo ry
,
to be handled with wise and sympathetic statesmanship .
The mother country had beyond question right on her S ide

in demanding that they should pa y part o f the heavy bill
for their defence but equally beyond question those who
,
had the guidance of the mother country damaged their case

by unwise and high handed measures S o the rupture
-
came the struggle was interpreted as a fight for

freedom against oppression when in truth there was but
,
the shadow o f Oppression Edmund Burke pleaded the

colonists c au se in E ngland Lafayette went o u t from
’
France to fight for it and from the British West Indies the
revolting colonies gained Alexander Hamilton Person .
alitie s coun t for much at a crisis o f this kind Chatham s ’

.
day was past : small men held O ffice in England The .
army had no Wolfe ; and if Wolfe had lived we may well

, ,
believe that his heart would not have been in a fight against
thos e who h a d been side b y side with him wh en the issue
clean but they were strong

,
weaker control corrup
tion and peculation were rife There was a deposition o f .
one native ruler in Bengal and the setting up of another a ,
massacre o f English at Patna and consequent war Clive , .
was sent back to deal with the crisis Reaching Calcutta in .
1 7 6 5 with iron resolution he put an end to the iniquities

,
which had takeh place the result of p oorly paid E n glishmen

,
in a C ompany s service enriching themselves by illicit gains

’
and the Co m pan y who had hitherto governed Bengal through

,
native puppets began to take the administration into their

,
own hands Meanwhile the Government at home had come

.
,
to realise that an Empire had been created which co uld n o t

be left to the unquestioned control o f a tra ding company .
When Chatham returned to O ffi ce in 1 7 66 he was minded to ,
change the old order his health gave way and the change ,
was delayed for a short time ; but in 1 7 7 3 a Re gulating

Act was passed which established a Governor General and
,
-
Council the no mi nations to the appointments being made

,
subj ect to the approval of the Crown Under this Act .
Warren Hastings then Governor of Bengal became the

, ,
first Governor General and held office for ten memorable

-
years Eventually the younger Pitt carried ou t what his

.
father had contemplated and his Act of 1 7 84 placed over

the Company a Board of Control which held the field until ,
the India Mutiny brought the East India Company to

an end and the government of India was finally and
,
formally taken over by the Crown .
In 1 7 8 9 the French Revolution broke o u t the French King ,
was put to death and in 1 7 93 France and England were

,
again at war Napoleon was the offspring o f the Revolution

.
in France as in the seventeenth century Cromwell was o f

,
the civil war in England ; and England as in the days Of ,
Louis "I V was once more face to face with an a ttempt

.
,
III THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUR Y 99
—
the greatest attempt perhaps in all history at a world wide -
military despotism All the world over on every land and

.
,
sea the fight went o n o n e people and another being draw n

, ,
in one people and another losing possessions because if

, ,
not already taken by France there was good prospect that ,
they would be ta ken by France if France were not fore ,
stalled The Treaty of Ami ens in 1802 called a halt for less
.
than a year Then the war went o n again France do mi n

.
ated the Continent Nelson at Trafalgar c onsummate d

England s mastery o f the se a Slowly and painfully
’
.
’
Wellington made his way and England s way in the Pen
insula Eventually Russia threw in her lot wholehearte dly
.
against military domination from without and had her ,
reward when the retreat fr om Moscow came Sweden came .
’
in under one Of Napoleon s own marshals Bernadotte
, ,
.
Prussia crushed at Jena raised her head again Austria

, ,
.
once more took heart o f courage and the end of it was the ,
Peace o f Paris in 1 8 14 supplemented by a second peace in

,
1 8 15 a fter the Hundred Days Campaign and the Battle of

’
Waterloo .
At the most critical time England became involved in

a second war with the Uni te d State s the war o f 18 12 It , .
arose out of the complications caused by the war with

Napoleon the interference with the trade o f neutrals the
, ,
exercise of the right of search It was a war whi ch neither .
side favoured at heart which brought little hono ur or profit

,
either to England o r to the United States a war in which ,
the Americans signally failed to subdue Canada in which ,
the English burned down the government b ui ldings at

Washingt on retaliating in kind for American outrages at
,
Newark and Toronto in which they were badly beaten at

,
New Orleans and at se a lost prestige in naval duels between

,
single ships ; fo r American frigates well built and well ,

100 THE B R I T ISH EMPIRE CH .
commanded were constantly successful though under the

, ,
eyes o f the citizens of Boston Captain Broke o n the S ha n n on

,
defeated and carried o ff the American ship Chesapeake .
The war ended with the Treaty o f Ghent S igned o n the 2 4 th ,
of December 18 14 leaving the two combatants as they

,
had started In the century which has S ince passed peace

.
, ,
though often tlire ate n e d has remained unbroken between

,
Great Britain and the United States S O may it be till .
the end of time .
Th e
’
N avy
. A review o f this pre eminently fighting age from 1 7 02
-
to 18 1 5 must place in the forefront the fact that England

,
owed all to the se a There were no doubt many S hort

.
, ,
comings and disappointments o n water as on land There .
were failures to record especially in the earlier part o f the

,
century Admiral Vernon s attacks o n Cartagena and Cuba

.
’
in 17 4 1—4 2 were mi serable fi asc o s In 1 7 44 a fight Off .
Toulon against a mixed French and Spanish fleet S howed

English discipline and e flicie n cy in a poor light In 1 7 5 6 .
the unfortunate Admiral Byng w as shot for failing to

relieve Minorca Later in the century Admiral Graves was
.
found wanting in the War o f American Independence On .
the Coromandel coast of India a good staunch seaman Sir , ,
Edward Hughes was yet n o t the equal o f his opponent the

,
French Admiral Su ffren and other instances might be given

to S how that English seamen and English ships were not
always the best in the world But from the date 17 1 8 .
,
when o ff the coast o f Sicily the elder Byng demolished the

Spanish fleet and the captain Walton whom he had
, , ,
.
detached to follow up fugitive vessels sent in the memorable ,
brief report We have taken or destroyed all the Spanish

,
ships upon this coast the number as per margin

,
— from
that date till Trafalgar in 1805 there is o n e long chronicle ,
of the constantly growing sea — power o f England one long ,

to be transferred to Germany in 18 90 ; from Holland ,
Ceylon British Guiana and most important of all the Cape

, , , ,
of Good Hope First taken by the English in 1 7 95 the Cape

.
,
was given back to the Netherlands by the Treaty Of A mi ens .
Taken again in 1806 it was formally ceded to Great Britain

,
in the general settlement Of 18 14 Thus Of the three .
'
present great g roups of self governing dominions Canada -
was acquired by conquest and the following Peace of 1 7 6 3 ,
South A frica by conquest and the following Peace o f 1 8 14

the third Australia came into o u r hands by settlement
, , ,
not by force o f arms .
For there were peacefully acquired possessions in this

fighting century In the war in North America which
.
,
ended with the conquest Of Can ada two men served whose ,
names were later to be known not in the fighting line but ,
in the ranks of great discoverers On the English ships .
served James Cook with Montcalm was D e Bougainville

, .
When the Seven Y ears War was over these two men among
’
,
others sailed into the southern seas Cook o n his first .

,
voyage in the E n deavo u r explored the coasts of New ,
Zealand and the eastern side o f Australia o r New Holland ,
as it was then called having with him the botanist Sir Joseph
,
Banks and in 1 7 7 0 he landed in a bay to which was given

,
the name o f Botany Bay It has been seen that trans .
o rt tio n of criminals and political prisoners beyond the

p a
seas was a practice o f long standing On e main ma rket .
for this export o f human goods had been the North American
colonies especially the Southern States Here the door was
,
.
closed by the War of Independence and its sequel and it ,
became necessary to look elsewhere for the disposal of

English undesirables Hulks were tried and penitentiaries
.
,
and in 1 7 8 4 the year after the Peace of Versailles w as

,
signed an Act o f Parliame nt was pass ed authorising

, ,
III THE EIGHTEE NTH CENTUR Y 1 03
tr ansportation to pl aces to be fix ed by the Privy Co uncil ,
whether within or without the King s dominions Banks ’

.
had already suggested Botany Bay the proposal was

eventually adopted In 17 8 7 Captain Phillip started wi th
.
the first band of convicts At the beginning of January .
1 7 88 he landed in Botany Bay later in the same month he

move d into Port Jackson and o n its shores laid the fou n da
,
tions o f a future great city called after Lord Sydney who

, ,
w as then o n e o f the Secretaries o f State Al most im .
mediately another small sta tion w as established in Norfolk

Island and another in 1803 in Tasma n ia while Phillip s c o m
,
’
mission as Governor covered all the easte rn S ide o f Australia

and a wide stretch of Pacific islands The i m mediate origin .
of British settlement in A u stralia w as the transportation

system But even for the p u rpose of transportation Aus
.
tralia was only sought because the North American colonies

were closed From this narrow point o f view alone there
.
,
fore the colonisation o f Australia may be said to have been

,
the outc ome o f the Independence o f the Uni ted States .
But in the minds Of some men at any rate there w as a wider

, ,
conception There was a desire to forestall F ranc e and

.
—
—
France w as barely forestalled in the occupation o f thi s
new world in the south there was some instinct to c o m
pen sate in southern seas for losse s in the Atlantic The .
fact stands o u t that we finally parte d with the Un i ted

States in 17 83 and in 1 7 88 we were in Australia
,
.
Another peace ful ac quisition during this period and a ,
very important o n e was made from India by the East

,
India Company This was in the Malay Peninsula There

. .
had been as we have seen in earlier days factories in Patani

, ,
and in Kedah but it was in the year 1 7 8 6 that the English

,
first gained a firm foothold in o r o ff the Peninsula In that .
year the Company bought from the S u ltan Of Kedah the

104. THE BRITISH EMPIRE on .
P e na n g .
island o f Penang calling it Prince o f Wales Island because
,
’
it was first occupied on the birthday o f the then Prince of

Wales ; and in 1 800 they bought the opposite strip o f main
land the greater part o f what is now Province Wellesley
, ,
in order to secure both sides o f the harbour j ust as at Hong

,
kong we hold not only the island but also the promontory
of Kowloon The annuity to the Sultan of Kedah which
.
,
w as the price o f these cessions has continued to be paid to

,
his descendants to the present day The island o f Penang

.
was for some time a penal settlement for Bengal but in ,
1 805 it was for a while raised to the rank of a Presidency .
It was the first beginning o f the present great colony of

the Straits Settlements with the adj oining Protectorates ,
which cover the whole south of the Malay Penin sula The .
Dutch suffered badly in the East Indies in the Napoleonic

wars Malacca was taken by the English Ceylon was taken
, , ,
and Java There was restitution when peace came again

.
,
except in the case o f Ceylon ; but the fin al settlement

between English and Dutch in these lands and waters fall s
outside the period now under review .
From 17 98 may be dated the acqui sition of British

Honduras From very early days the English had been in
.
evidence in the Bay of Honduras In 1 63 0 a Company

.
was incorporated by Charles I for colonising islands o ff

.
the coast o f Central America o n e o f which was given the

,
name of Providence and came to be known as Old Provi

,
dence to distinguish it from the late r named island of New

-
Providence in the Bahamas For more than two centuries

.
the English connexion with these islands and with the

Mosquito Indians o n the adj oining mainland coast continued ,
the Indians regarding the British Government as their

suzerain and protector against Spain In 18 5 2 the islands
.
were actually constituted a se parate British colony but in ,

106 THE BRITISH E MPIRE on .
Admiralty For it is interesting to bear in mind th at

.
,
as was not the case in France the administration o f British

,
colonies and dependencies has never been combined with the

control of the Navy The Navy has been largely responsible
.
for their acquisition almost wholly responsible for their

,
safe keeping but n o British Minister o f Marine has dis

-
charged the du ties o f Colo ni al Secretary To Tristan da .
Cunha a tiny garrison was sent in 181 6 which w as removed ,
again in 1 817 a corporal and his family with tw o others

remained behind and became the nucleus of a very small
nondescript community which exists to thi s day under the
,
British flag in a con di tion o f peaceful anarchy .
On e more settlement remains to be noticed o n the west ,
coast o f Africa The year 1 7 8 7 saw the foun di ng of the

.
colony of Sierra Leone It was the product o f philanthropy

.
pure and u n defile d At the very place whence Hawkin s

.
carried 0 3 the first English cargo of negro slaves a site was ,
obtained from its negro owners for a settlement for liberated

slaves which bore the name of Freetown In 1 7 9 1 a Sierr a
,
.
Leone Company was incorporated by Act o f Parliament ,
and its obj ect as de fin ed by the Directors a little later

, ,
was the introduction o f civilisation into Africa In truth .
the colony was o n e of the concrete instances o f an awakening

conscience in England with regard to the possessions and
interests o f England beyond the seas and the doings o f
Englishmen The riches of the West India sugar planters
.
-
the wealth o f the East Indian nabobs had not only been ,
acquired by questionable means but had when acquired , , ,
tended to poison public and private morality in England .
Money was lavished on Ministers o n Directors o n Members , ,
o f Parliament How had the money come " Was it n o t

.
from enslaving black men in the West and oppressin g

n a tives in India " The impeachment o f Clive the long ,
III THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUR Y 107
drawn trial of Warren Hastings allowin g fo r exaggeration , ,
unfairness political bias were yet evidences o f a growing

, ,
sense in England that all was n o t right that much was ,
wrong on the other side o f the water The staunch old

, .
Tory Dr Johnson hated slavery and the slave trade with all
.
his sturdy so ul To him the West Indian planters were

.
the English barbarians that cultivate the southern

islands of America he raised his glass at Oxford to the
next negro insurrection in the West Indies With him .
and with others it counte d that the revolting American

colonists who called out for libert y were themselves largely
owners o f slaves If all the black slaves were in rebellion
.
,
wrote Horace Walpole in 1 7 7 4 I sho uld have no doubt in ,
choosing my side but I scarce wish perfect freedom to

,
merchants w ho are the bloodiest o f tyrants The law .

h
courts struck a blow fo r freedom when in 1 7 7 2 Lord , ,
Man sfi e ld s j udgment laid down that the free soil o f England

’
gave freedom to a slave Granville Sharp Clarkson and.

, ,
Wilberforce drew after them Pitt Fox and other leading , ,
statesmen and the year 1807 saw the slave trade abolished
,
by Act of Parliament .
Before this date as has been no ted the East In di a Com

, ,
pany had been placed under a Board o f Control A Colonial .
Office did not exist before the beginning of the nine teenth
century The Board of Trade and Plantations lasted till
.
1 7 8 2 and with o n e o f two Secretaries o f State not specially

, , ,
allotted to the colonies handled colonial matters From

,
.
1 7 68 to 1 7 8 2 there was a third Secretary of State a Secretary ,
of State for the Colonies or Secretary of State fo r the Ameri

can department and in the hands o f Lord George Germain
,
this office spelled di saster It too was abolished by

.
, ,
’
Burke s Act of 1 7 82 and it was n o t until 1801 that a
Secretary of State for the Colonies in the modern sense
108 THE BRITISH EMPIRE on .
came into existence E ve n then his colonial duties were

.
~
combined with others for he was Secretary o f State for

,
War and the Colonies In other words as the nineteenth

.
,
century opened war n o t trade gave the keynote to

, , ,
colonial administration .
Side by side with moral awakening in England with ,
regard to Englishmen and English possessions beyond the

seas came in the latter part of the eighteenth century an
, , ,
awakening of the forces which had lain hidden in English soil

and in English minds James Watt with his steam engine
.
-
inaugurated a new era machinery came in and the reign ,
of iron and coal began the north and north west o f England -
rose to leadership supplanting with town and manufacture

,
the predomi nance o f the farm the landlord and the yeoman
, , .
Liverpool enriched by the infamous African slave trade

, ,
began to draw greater riches from the import of cotton .
At the same time Adam S mi th in the Wealth of N ation s , ,
exposed the fallacies o f the mercantile system which had

governed English trade and the relations between the
mother country and her colonies and dependencies In .
short long before the fighting age was over the signs of
, ,
the times pointed to a wholly new England modelled ,
upon wholly new lines .
What shall be said of this fighting age this time of ,
immense gain and immense loss What was the good of

it all of all the endless expenditure o f life and money o f
, ,
the acquisition o f new lands only to cause further e x pe n di

ture to invite further en mities to give further hostages to
, ,
fortune and in doing so to add to distress taxation and

, , ,
misery at home 23 Why could n o t the English be content

with their own island keeping their own shores inviolate
, ,
giving no o ffence incurring no risk " It was to o late to

,
ask this question in the eighteenth century The initial .

C H A P T E R IV
TH E A G E OF Q U EEN VI CTOR I A
—
1 8 1 5 1 9 15
OF the hundred years between the Battle o f Waterloo and

the present day over sixty years are covered by the reign
o f Queen Victoria That reign falls into tw o parts the
.
,
dividing line as will be seen hereafter being about the year

, ,
1 8 80 During these hun dred years England has been singu

.
larly free from wars with other E ur opean nations Since .
1 8 1 5 there has been unbroken peace with France as with ,
the United States There have been only two great foreign
.
wars The fir st was the Crimean War in which France and

.
,
England now allies o f Russia were allied against her and

, , ,
which of all important wars in English history was perhaps

the most localised the most remote from English overseas
,
interests and possessions The other great foreign war is

.
the present war in which for the first time in history the
,
English are at war with the German nation There have .
been numberless wars with native races , in India in China , ,
in Africa in New Zealand Egypt su ff ered on two o f the

,
.
few occasions o f serious importance on which until the ,
present war began E n glish ships have been in action

,
during the century The Egyptian and Turkish fleet was

.
destroyed at the battle o f Navarino in 1 82 7 Alexandria

1 10
1 12 THE BRITISH EMPIRE on .
’
was bombarded in 18 82 at the ti me o f Arabi Pasha s revolt .
The Boer wars in South Africa including the last great , h
South African War were more o f the nature o f civil than o f

,
foreign wars Under the heading of Civil War must be

.
placed the Indian Mutiny .
The century has been an age in which both State action

and private enterprise have been conspicuous beyond the
seas The East India Company was eliminated from India
.
in favour o f the Crown ; the Canadian Government took

over the territories of the Hudson Bay Company ; but not
many years passed before there was a new birth o f chartered
companies making history even faster than their pre
,
de c e sso rs It has been an age o f large additions to the

.
Empire some made by force of arms some by wholly

, “
,
peaceful means but on the whole it has been an age more

marked by expansion than by intrusion into wholly new
regions of the globe There has been at this point and
.
at that widening o f the circle there has been movement

from the coast inland there has been filling up o f vacant
spaces there have also been acquisitions in lands and seas
where there was no foothold before ; but in the main the
growth of the Empire in the nineteenth century can best
be described by the term expansion and expansion has ,
been facilitated by railways the fruit of scientific invention

,
.
Indeed the outstanding feature of the last hundred years

,
has been the ever growing predominance of science alike

-
in peace and in war .
Compared with the years which went before and the

years which followed after the interval o f rather less than
,
a quarter o f a century between the battle o f Waterloo and

the accession of Queen Victoria in 1 83 7 was in the story ,
of the Empire a very quiet time but none the less it was
, ,
in various directions an important and a fruitful time .

to plant a French colony in them and the English had ,
followed suit The Spaniards had always held them

.
to be a Spanish possession and eventually tu rned o u t ,
the English by force There followed a kind o f com .
promise ; and in connexion with it the islands attained

some notoriety in party politics in England Dr Johnson , .
contributing to the controversy in 1 7 7 1 his pamphlet ,
Thoug hts on the late Tra n saction s res

p ectin
g F a lklan d s
’
I slan ds .Subsequently the Argentine carried on R epublic

the Spanish claim ; but in December 18 3 2 and the begin
ning of 18 3 3 a British ship assured the exclusive possession
to Great Britain .
It was in these years that the famous Monroe Doctrine

came to birth The revolt of the Spanish colonies in Central
.
and South America met with warm sympathy in the Uni ted
States The English Foreign Secretary George Canning
.
, ,
invited a declaration against European intervention in the

a ff airs o f South Americ a ; and with strong approval in ,
England President Monroe published in December 182 3

,
a Message which embodied the Doctrine It was a pro .
n o u n ce m e n t with far reaching results From this date in a

-
.
,
growing degree territorial acquisition in North o r South

,
America over and above existing colonies and depen denc i es

, ,
was closed to Europe The United States would regard .
any attempt o f European Powers to extend their system

to any portion o f this he mi sphere as dangerous to our
”
peace and safety .
The close of the Napoleonic wars found all the peoples

of Europe including England exhausted with the strain ;
, ,
and the years which followed Waterloo were in England

years o f grave distress and heavy taxation To William .
Cobbett the National Debt represented merely a Dead

Weight it w as a curse entailed u pon the country on
,
Iv THE AGE OF QUEEN VICT ORIA 1 15
a ccount of the late Wars against the liberties of the French

people Home legislation was in arrear and it took time
.
,
for men s minds to become accustomed to peace and what

’
peace demanded instead o f being intent upon war Thus

,
.
there was a breathing space in which emigration to the

colonies attracted attention as a remedy for starvation in
Ireland and in England and gradually methods o f colonisa
,
tion and the principles on which colonies might be soundly

,
based and wisely administered began to be studied by a ,
band of thinking men the foremost of whom was Edward

,
Gibbon Wakefield In the meantime the stagnation caused

.
by the war passed away the party o f reform gained ascend ,
ancy and the great Reform Bill of 18 3 2 began a new era

,
.
Among the measures passed by the reformed Parliament

was the Act which abolished slavery throughout the British
Empire in 18 3 3 The Act w as to come into force gradually
.
,
and Parliament voted fo r compensation to the

slave owners in the West Indies in Mauritius and at the
-
, ,
Cape The compensation though the amount voted did

.
,
not cover the loss w as at least worthy evidence that the

,
English were determined at cost to themselve s to put an

end once and fo r a ll to an evil system It may be quoted .
as one memorable instance in which Englishmen preferred

morality to interest .
The Act was co mi ng into operation when Queen Victoria

succeeded to the throne in 183 7 and the beginning o f her ,
reign marked in a singular degree the beginning of a new

age for England and the Empire In 183 7 a select c o m .
m ittee was appointed by the House of Commons to enquire

into the system of transportation and its report made in , ,
the following year led to the gradual abolition o f the

,
system In 183 8 Lord Durham went on his historic mission

.
to C a nada and his report published in January 1 83 9

, , ,
was the source from which the present self governing

.
-
Dominions derived their freedom In 1 83 7 the great Boer .
trek was o n foot in South Africa whence came all the ,
manifold complications wars and treaties which we associ

, ,
ate with South African history The same year 18 3 7 .

, ,
saw the first patent for an electric telegraph and in 183 8 ,
regular steam communication between England and

‘
America began We will now trace very shortly the e vo lu

.
tion of the Empire in the first forty years o f Queen Victoria s ’
reign starting in the West

, .
C d
ana a . An outcome of the War of American Independence was
the peopling of Ontario and New Brunswick by Loyalist
refugees from the revolting colonies The United Empire .
Loyalists their services and their su fferings have until

, ,
these latter days received but scant recognition in the

chronicles o f the British Empire ; but assuredly alike as ,
an ensample o f faithfulness to a cause and as makers o f a

future heritage they should ever be held in grateful remem
,
brance The result of their im migration was that the Upper

.
part of Canada became an English province while Lower ,
Canada remained predominantly French though in Lower ,
Canada towards the borders o f the United States there

, ,
was a district the Eastern Townshi ps where the large

, ,
maj ority o f the population was of English descent Up to .
the year 17 9 1 along the line of St Lawrence and excluding

,
.
the Maritime provinces Nova Scotia New Brunswick and

, , ,
Prince Edward Island there had been since 17 63 an u n

,
divided Canada kn own as the province o f Quebec The

,
.
coming of the Loyalists into Ontario bringing with them ,
their old colonial traditions of popular Assemblies led to an ,
Act o f Parliament in 1 7 9 1 which divided the province o f

Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada an English province ,
and a French province each province being given representa

,
year s w e nt on the Whigs o r so m e of them on one wing o f

, , ,
the Liberal party Radicals o f the type o f Richard Cobden

,
o n the other wing more o r less coincided in the view that

,
laissez false o r laissez a ller was the road to salvation that ,
all peoples should go their own ways and not be shepherded ,
or rather fi e ec e d by State policy that trade should be

, ,
u nfettered that separation of colonies might well be a boon

, ,
and would in any case be in the course of nature The .
other school was a school o f Radicals who had made a ,
stud y o f colonies and colonisation They held as firmly and .
as fiercely as the others that political liberty was the basis

o f all good ; but starting from this basis they preached the
, ,
doctrine that extension of political liberty to the colonies

w as the true road to a uni ted E mpire The founder o f this .
school if any one man was the founder was Gibbon Wake
, ,
field who has already been mentioned Lord Durham

,
.
,
in political life was its most pro mi nent representative ;

,
Charles B uller its most attractive personality Buller .

“
and Wakefield went with Durham to Canada and the great ,
Durham report recommended the reunion o f the two

Canadas and the grant to the single whole thus created o f
,
responsible government Under wise and free institutions

.
ran the prOphetic words of the report a connexion ,
secured by the link o f kindred origin and mutual benefits

may continue to bind to the British Empire the ample
territories of its North American provinces and the large ,
and flourishing population by which they will assure dly be

” ’
filled .There is n o t space to discuss how far Durham s
views o f responsible government di ffered from what
actua lly has come to pass o r to n ote his recommendations
,
as to the disposal o f public lands which subj ect was an ,
integral part of the Wake fi eld c re e d The great outstanding .
fact is that after the publication o f his report and because

,
of it first the tw o Cana di an provinces linked toget he r in

, ,
1 8 40 in an imperfect Unio n which fell far short o f what

he had contemplated about the year 1 84 8 achieved self
,
government the Maritime Provinces of Canada became self

governing about the same date and by the end o f the year
18 7 2 responsible government had been established in New
’
fo u n dlan d in all the Australian colonies except Western

,
Australia in New Zealand and in the Cape Colony

, ,
.
Under the Union Act o f 1840 English and French Canada C f d ra on e e
went hand in hand but very uneasily and in a quarter of a Ca da ti f on o

, ,
na .
century a solution of political difiicultie s was looked for

and found in a wider scheme Lord Durham had fore .
shadowed a future union of all the British North American

colonies ; and after conferences and much debate and no ,
little opposition among those concerned by the British ,
North America Act passed in the Imperial Parliament in

,
18 6 7 it w as provided that
,
the provinces o f Canada ,
Nova Scotia and New Bru nswick shall form and be o n e

,
Do m inion under the name of Canada The province of .
Canada was aga in severed into two provinces Ontario and ,
Quebec and provision was made for the a dmission of

,
o t her colonies o r provinces Railways played a con

.
s ic u o u s part in the federation o f Canada The constru

p o .
tion of an intercolonial railway connecting the city of '
Halifa x in Nova Scotia with the River St Lawrence was .
declared to be essential to the consolidation of the Union

of British North America and to the assent thereto of Nova
,
”
Scotia and New Brunswick The construction o f a trans
.
continental railway was the condition o n which British

Columbia entered the Uni on .
British Columbia took its origin wholly apart from Briti h s
0 mm “ 0
the rest o f Canada separated from the land o f the
,
Lawrence and the Atlantic seaboard by the barrier

of the Rocky Mountains It was from the Pacific that

.
England came to kn ow o f British Columbia Cook visited .
Nootka Sound in Vancouver Island in 1 7 7 8 About .
ten years later a trading settlement was estab lished

there which caused friction with Spain ; and in 7
,
1 92 —93
Captain Vancouver explored the shores and bays o f the
island and mainland leaving his name behind him In
,
.
1 7 93 there came a visitor overland from Canada to the

Pacific coast Alexander Mac Ken z ie of the North West
,
-
Company who made his way up the Peace River and over
,
the Mountains On the mainland in the early part of the

.
,
nineteenth century the Hudson Bay Company having

, ,
been amalgamated in 1 8 21 with the rival North West -
Company became active on the P acifi c side o f the Rocky

, ‘
Mountains competing with Russians and with Americans

, ,
trading and establishing factories the chief o f which was

,
Fort Vancouver o n the Columbia River By the Anglo .
American Treaty o f Washington in Jun e 1 8 4 6 the Oregon ,
boundary question as it was called was settled ; the

, ,
4 9 th parallel was constituted the boundary between British

territory and that of the United States as far as the mi ddle
of the straits between Vancouver Island and the continent ,
and the line was then drawn so as to reserve Vancouver

Island to Great Britain Vancouver Island was handed
.
over to the Company who made the settlement of Victoria

,
in that island their seat of government Then came .
discovery of gold on the Fraser River o n the mainland ,
with a consequent stream o f immigration Both Van .
couver Island and the mainland of British Columbia were

placed under the Crown and eventually in 18 6 6 were
, , ,
uni ted into a single colony Self government came at the

.
-
same time as entry into the Dominion which was in the ,
year 18 7 1 though the railway w

, hich was to link the Pacific
12 2 THE BRITISH EMPIRE CH .
le d in 18 69 to a rising head ed by a pure blooded French

, ,
-
Canadian Louis Riel and there followed the Red River

, ,
Expedition o f 18 7 0 when Lord Wolseley first proved his

,
conspicuous fitne ss for independent command The rising .
collapsed : the province o f Manitoba including this Red ,
River Settlement was carved out o f the territories in 18 7 0

,
and where Fort Garry stood with some 2 00 settlers gathered ,
round it is now the city of Winnipeg with a population

, ,
rising towards In the present century the pro

vinces o f Saskatchewan and Alberta were also created ou t of
the North West Territories and from these territories the
-
Yukon territory was separated in the year 1898 in view of ,
the immigration caused by the Opening o f the Klondyke

g o ldfi e ld s The third and
. smallest of the Maritime Provinces
o f Canada Prince Edward Islan d held aloof at the outset
, ,
from the Dominion but came into the Confederation in

,
18 7 3 .On e North American province alone now stands

outside though the Act of 18 67 contemplated its adhesion
, ,
the oldest English colony Newfoundland , .
Newfoundland made little history in the time under

review slowly turning from fis hing station to colony
,
-
beginning to look inland as well as to the Banks Little .
history too was made in the West Indies There w as no

, ,
.
addition to or subtraction from the islands and here the ,
nineteenth century presented a melancholy contrast to the

eighteenth The prosperity of these colonies had rested on
.
sugar and negro slavery The emancipation o f the slaves.
was followed by the triumph of the free trade p olicy in

England which deprived West Indian sugar of any prefer
,
ence in the English market The want o f cheap and regular .
labour was to a considerable extent made good by the

system o f indentured immigration from India which began ,
to a small extent about 1 8 3 7 an d after an interval of su s ,

I v THE AGE OF QUEEN VICT ORIA 123
p e n sion was resumed about 1 84 4 ; but the days had pa ssed

and gone when the ownership of a West Indian plantation
was synonymous with riches when by treaty makers a ,
-
West Indian isla nd could be weighed in the balance against

Canada and when in West Indian waters fleets o f all nations
,
sailed and fought before the eyes o f the world A s the .
nineteenth century grew older the British West Indies ,
grew poorer their decline being more marked by contrast

,
alike with their o w n great past and with the conspicuous ,
development o f other provinces o f the British Empire .
There were constitutional changes and the islands were , ,
for purposes of administration differently grouped at o n e ,
time and another In 18 3 9 a Bill laid before the Imperial

.
Parliament for the suspension of the Jamaica Constitution

led to the resignation o f the Melbourne ministry ; and in
1 8 6 6 representative institutions were for a while abolished
in the island in consequence o f a dangerous risin g in the
previous year the rebellion which roused the we ll known
,
-
controversy as to the action t aken by Governor Eyre .
The link unlovely and discredited which had bound

, ,
West Africa to the West Indies w as broken by the abolition

,
o f the slave trade The last of the African companies

.
whi ch were connected with the trade the Company o f ,
Merchants trading to Africa had been incorp orated by ,
Act o f Parliament in 1 7 5 0 the management being in the

,
hands of a committee o f nin e who were chosen in equal ,
proportions in London Bristol and Liverpool This Com

, , .
pany was abolished in 182 1 and all the English possessions

,
o n the west coast o f Africa came under the control o f the
Crown They included the forts on the Gold Coast ; Sierra

.
Leone which had been constituted a Crown Colony in 18 08

,
’
and a new settlement o n St Mary s Island at the mouth o f
.
the Gambia River foun ded in 18 1 6 and called Bathurst

, , ,
after Lord Bathurst the Colonial Secretary o f that date

,
.
They were all for a short time constituted a single colony ,
with the administrative centre at Sierra Leone It was an .
evil heritage into which the British Government entered ;

their possessions were a few disj ointed forts or settlements
on the fringe of a savage continent where savagery had ,
been intensified by white men s dealings On the Gold ’

.
Coast English forts stood by the edge of the se a in and out ,
with Dutch and Danish forts and factories There was a .
coast and nothing more Even in 1 8 6 5 when no little

.
,
progress had been made a Select Committee o f the House

,
of Commons reported that the obj ect of British policy

should be ultimate withdrawal from West Africa with the ,
exception of Sierra Leone But much had happened before

.
this date There had been Ashanti wars o n the Gold Coast
.
the forts in 1 82 8 had been handed back to merchants under

Government control and with a Parliamentary subsidy ;
and under this r égime a strong and wise Governor Captain ,
Maclean had established something like a Protectorate

,
over the tribes behind the sea boa rd Once more in 1 8 4 3

-
.
, ,
the Crown resumed the administration ; the Danish forts

were bought up in 1 8 5 0 in 1 8 6 7 the coast was partitioned
between the Dutch and the English the Dutch headquart ers
,
being at Elmina the English at Cape Coast Castle and in

,
1 8 7 1 a Convention between Great Britain and the Nether

lands eliminated the Dutch altogether from the coast and ,
left the English in sole possession Two years later in .

,
18 7 3— 7 4 came an Ashanti war when Lord Wolseley added

, ,
to the reputation gained in the Red River Expedition by

taking Coomassie and from this date began what may be
,
called the modern history o f the Gold Coast Colony and

Protectorate Meanwhile on the Gambia the English
.
, ,
secured strips o f territory on either bank of the mouth of

England sore at being severed from their mother country

, ,
minded whether under the Dutch or the English flag

, ,
to go their own ways and live their own lives Governors .
were not always wise There was the incident of S lac hter s
.
’
Nek in 18 15 when the Governor Lo rd Charles Somerset

, , ,
hung five Boer farmers for high treason a long remembered ,

-
act o f severity Administrative and j udicial reforms were

.
novelties and as n oveltie s were liable to misunderstanding

, .
Missionaries from England preached doctrines with regard

to the treatment of natives which did not harmonise with ,
Boer views Slave emancipation impoverished the slave

.
owners who received inadequate compensation for the

,
value o f their slaves The climax of discontent was reached

.
at the conclusion of o n e o f the many Kaffi r wars in which

’
South Africa and the n in e te en th ce n tu ry abounded At the .
end of 1 83 4 there was a formidable Kaflir invasion o n the

eastern frontier of the Cape Colony then marked by the ,
Ke iskam m a River The Kafli rs were beaten back their

.
,
territory in turn was invaded and in 18 3 5 the Governor , ,
lately come to the Cape Sir Benj amin D Urb an extended,

’
the colonial border farther east as far as the Kei River ,
giving to the district the name of the Province of Queen

Adelaide By this date Lord Glenelg had become Secretary
.
of State for the Colonies in Lord Melbourne s second ’
administration An ardent philanthropist he persuaded

.
,
himself o r was persuaded by advocates o f native races more

, ,
imp ulsive than wise that a grave wrong had been done
, ,
that the Kaflfirs were vi ctims o f what he styled systematic

inj ustice He reversed the annexation and ordered the
.
,
boundary to be moved back again This filled the Dutch .
’
men s cup of bitterness against the British G overnment ; and ,
as Englishmen themselves in [ b ygo n eZdays had gone lover the

’
se a s to be rid o f En glish rule so the South A fric a n Boers

,
IV THE AGE OF QUEEN VICT ORIA 12 7
found their remedy in emigration In 183 6 began the Great .
Trek which altered the whole history o f South Africa There

,
.
are two main points to be noticed The beginning of all the .
trouble in South Africa was missionary influence slave eman ,
c i atio n regard f the interests r supposed interests of

p , o r o
native races It was n o t misrule and oppression that

.
sent the Dutch wanderin g into the interior it was good ,
intentions and impolitic philanthropy Again on purely .

,
philanthropic grounds a most disastrous step was taken

, ,
the retrocession o f a district which had been formally

annexed This was the beginning o f undoing and it se t a
.
,
precedent for undoing which held the field in South Africa

for fifty years The mischief the present misery and the
.
,
future difficulties which are caused by going back can best ,
be studied in South Afri can history It is a long record o f .
English policy at its worst alienating white men and ,
coloured alike by implanting in them the conviction that

,
what is done may be undone by a Government beyond the

seas representing not a steadfast nation but the pre do m in
,
ant party at the moment .
'
The Boers went out into the land be tw e en the Orange

and the Vaal River and beyond the Vaal They foun ded .
little republics the nuclei of the Orange Free State and the
,
Transvaal Republic They crossed over the mountains into

.
Natal In Natal Dutchmen gave to the inland town

.
Pietermaritzburg its name whereas the port o f the colony ,
was called after Sir Benj amin D Urban the English Governor ’
o f the Cape For before the Dutchmen came down from

.
,
the mountains in 183 7 private Englishmen had about the

, ,
year 182 4 obtained a grant of the port o f Natal and the N t l

,
a a .
adj oining district from the Zulu King In 183 4 a regular .
settlement began and the settlers asked to be recognised

,
as a colony but the Home Government re fused The

, .
incoming Dutch and the Zulus fell to fighting there was a

massacre o f the immigrants at Weenen the place of weeping ,
in December 1 8 3 8 o n the Blood River as it was thencefo rth

, ,
known the Boers inflicted a crushing defeat o n the Zulu

,
King Dingaan commemorated ever since by Dingaan s

,
’
Day They were still in the eyes of the British Government

.
British subj ect s but the Government was at a loss how to

,
deal with them They wanted to be recognised as in

.
dependent in the lands which they had won from Zulu and
Matabele but their dealings with natives were not to the
,
minds of Englishmen and Scotchmen ; to David Living

stone mi nistering to the Bechuanas in the far o ff mission
,
-
station of Kolobeng they were as so many bushrangers ,

.
Eventually in 1 8 4 3 Natal was declared to be a British

, ,
colony some Dutchmen re m am m g to be under the British

,
fl ag others going back over the mountains to j oin their

,
brethren on the plateau of the interior There the British “
Government vacillated in their policy afraid of responsibility ,
for law and order in a great wild land yet loth to leave the ,
natives unprotected At length in 1 8 4 8 Sir Harry Smith

.
, , ,
then Governor of the Cape proclaimed British sovereignty ,
over the territory between the Orange River and the Vaal
the Boers took up arms ; and there was a sharp fight at
B o o m platz before the Orange River Sovereignty as it
, ,
was called was established and a fort built at B lo e m fo n

,
tein Beyond the Vaal no e ffective step was taken to

.
enforce British authority .
There had been in the meantime another Kaflir

war in the Cape Colony and in December 1 8 4 7 Sir ,
Harry Smith had once more annexed the province o f

Queen Adelaide giving it the name of British Ka ffraria
, .
Y et again there was fighting with the Kaffi rs from

“
1 8 5 0 to 1 8 5 3 with the usual sequel o f further annexation ;

,
their country to the British Government and in March ,
1 8 68 Basutoland became part o f the British Empire

,
The .
year before there had been news of the finding of a diamond

near the Orange River and in 18 7 1 there were rich finds
,
north o f that river in what is now the Kimberley district .
Here the land was tenanted by half breeds known as -
G riqu as and the district came to bear the title o f Griqualand

,
West The Orange Free State also claimed it but the

.
,
Griqua leader invited British sovereignty an d in 1 8 7 1 that ,
sovereignty was proclaimed Five years later the Free .
State claim was compromised for a sum o f Drawn

o n by native invitation and by the advancing tide o f
,
diamond diggers the English had gone once more beyond

,
the Orange River .
Native wars continued in the Cape Colony ; German

mi litary settlers were introduced always the frontier
was moved eastward until in 1 8 7 8 the last Kaffi r rising
,
was over Then the scene shifted to Natal Zululand and

.
, ,
the Transvaal Republic There had been a small native

.
rising in Natal in 1 8 7 3 the leader o f which L an galib ale le

, , ,
found a warm champion in Bishop Colenso but far more

dangerous w as the Zulu power on the borders of Natal ,
supported by battalions o f disciplined savagery under

King Ce tew ayo Zululand marched alike with Natal and
.
with the Transvaal Republic That Republic was at the .
lowest ebb in a state of bankruptcy and anarchy with an

, ,
evil record for atrocities towards coloured men It was .
at war in 18 7 6 with a native c hi ef within its borders a war ,
which was proclaiming to the natives o f South Africa that

white men in South Africa were at once I nhuman and
ine ffective The Zulus were ripe for invasion of the Trans
.
vaal the situation was full o f danger A British emissary .

,
o f rare experience in native questions Sir The OPhfl u s ,

Shepstone was sent to the Transvaal to make enquiry

, ,
empowered if he thought necessary to proclaim British

, ,
sovereignty over the Republic He used his discretion .

,
and in April 18 7 7 the Transvaal was annexed With the Fir t . s
annexation the British Government took over a boundary f th

x ti an n e a on
o e
question outstanding between the Boers and the Zulus an Tr v l an s aa .
award was given by the High Commissioner Sir Bartle ,
Frere and the Z ulu King w as at the same time called upon
,
to make good past outrages and to desist from future

hostility to white men There followed at the beginning
.
o f 18 7 9 a Zulu war when eight hundred white soldiers were Th Zulu

,
e
W ar.
annihilated at I san dhlw an a when the Zulus were beaten ,
o ff at Rorke s D rift and later at Kambula Gin gihlo vo

’
, , ,
and in the final battle of Ulundi were broken and conquered , .
Lord Chelmsford Evelyn Wood Redvers Buller and in

, , ,
the sequel Lord Wolseley took part in the fighting ; the ,
French Prince Imperial fought in the British ranks and lost

his life It was a somewhat disastrous war and a more
.
,
disastrous war followed Relieved o f danger from the .
Zulus disappointed at delay in the grant of self government

,
-
which had been promised mindful o f the shiftiness of ,
British policy the Boers followed up protests against

,
annexation by rising in arms on D ingaan s day the 1 6th o f Th B r ’
, e oe
W ar
December 1880 In the Transvaal they intercepted and
.
.
shot down a British detachment at Bronkhorst Spruit ;

they besieged the garrisons ; and they blocked a British
advance from Natal at Lang s Nek At Lang s Nek and ’
.
’
at Ingogo the British troops under the command o f Sir

,
George Colley were checked and driven back On the night .
o f February 2 6 1 88 1 Colley led a force o f about 400 men

, ,
up Maj uba Hill which commanded the Boer position but

, ,
when daylight came the Boers worked up the hi ll skilful

, ,
in taking cover and the end o f it was annihilation o f the

,
wearied English soldiers and the death o f the general To .
replace him Lord Roberts then Sir Frederick Roberts

, ,
was sent out from England only to learn w hen he reached

, ,
the Cape that the fighting was at an end The Liberal

, .
G overnment had dec ided not to make go o d the defeat ,
not to incur further b loodshed against m en who would

be u nw illing subj ects and who were in arms to regain
freedom Once more steps were retraced and under the
.
,
Pretoria Convention of 1 88 1 amended by the London ,
Convention o f 1884 the Transvaal became again a republic

,
- —
the South African Republic under a disputed suzerainty
o f the Queen but with undisputed hold by the British
,
Government upon the foreign relations o f the Boers .
Australia . In Australia the English settlers were not troubled with

fighting native races o f the Kaflir and Zulu type Few .
and weak were the aborigines o f the southern continent ;

nor had the colonists to face any white competitors already
settled in the land either French or Dutch Their war was
, .
”
the war with the wilderness It has been told that
.
the Select Committee on Transportation recommended in ,
1 8 3 8 abolition of the system

, The evils which were inherent
.
in it were exposed its inefficiency for good and efficiency

”
for evil its tendency further to deprave the convict and
,
to infect a young community with the taint o f wickedness .
Fuller who has already been quoted o n this subj ect o f

,
Transportation wrote It was rather bitterly than falsely

,
spoken concerning o n e o f o u r Western plantations (con

sisting most o f dissolute people ) that it was very like unto
,
”
England as being spit o u t of the mouth of it
,
Two .
hundred years later Englishmen began to see in the same

light their evil plantation in Australia ; they began to
recognise the sin o f sen ding Christian savages to heathen
3)
savages From the date of the Com mi ttee s report the
.
’
itself to Wakefield the early years o f the colony ended in

,
‘
bankruptcy and it owed its regeneration largely to the

,
strong hand o f S ir Ge o rge Grey who was later to make

'
history in New Zealand and in South Africa Port P hillip .

,
the inlet to Victoria from the se a had been discovered at ,
the very beginning o f the nineteenth century In 183 4

settlers came o v
.
er from Tasmania they were followed by ,
men who trekked overland from New South Wales and in ,
1 83 7 Melbourne was fo un ded In 18 5 1 the Port Phillip .
settlement was severed from New South Wales and given

the name of Victoria ; and as the result of the gold dis ,
c o ve rie s for a while it outpaced the mother colony

,
Queens .
land including the Moreton Bay settlement and inland

,
the rich grazing district of the Darling Downs which were ,
discovered before 183 0 and entered by squatters some ten

years later was in like manner to Victoria carved o u t o f
, , ,
New South Wales and declared to be a separate colony in

December 1 8 5 9 When it ceased to be a convi ct colony
.
,
’
Tasmania which had been known as Van D ie m en s Land in
, ,
1 8 5 3 took its present name Since 1 8 2 5 it had ceased to be

.
a dependency o f New South Wales and it became a self ,
governing colony in 18 5 6 Between 1 850 and 1 8 60 all the

.
Australian colonies obtained responsible government except ,
Western Australia whose self government dates from 1 890

,
-
.
There is n o t space to record the doings of the Australian

explorers who opened up the Great Lone Land of the
,
interior from the date when in 18 1 3 Wentworth Blaxland , , , ,
and Lawson found their way over the Blue Mountains .
The chronicle is one o f heroism su ffering and loss o f life , ,

.
The names of Oxley Sturt Mitchell Eyre Leichhardt , , , , ,
Burke and Wills and many others live in Australian

, , ,
history as those o f men who dared greatly for the future

o f Australia In 18 6 2 Mac do u all Stuart achieved the feat
.
IV THE AGE OF QUEEN VICT ORIA 13 5
of crossing t he continent from south to north South , .
Australia from which he started and to which he returned

, ,
added to her great area the northern territory o f the

continent and in 1 8 7 2 a transcontinental telegraph was
—
,
completed from Adelaide to Port Darwin In 18 0 4 1 4 .
Eyre afterwards Governor o f Jamaica made his way with

, ,
incredible hardship along the coast of the Australian Bight

from Adelaide to King George s Sound but it was not until
’
18 7 4 that Sir John Forrest last of the great explorers of ,
the interior crossed inland from Perth to the South

,
Australian telegraph line The vast spaces o f Australia .

,
which these men slowly and painfully made kn own to the

world and whi ch in fulness of time were linked up o r are
,
being linked up by rail and telegraph were in earlier days ,
refuges fo r bushrangers the offspring of the convict system

,
—in the pages of books picturesque adventurers in actual ,
life with few exceptions ru fli an s of the worst type They

, ,
.
ceased to be a feature in Australia n history after the Kelly

gang which infested Victoria had been broke n up in 1880
, ,
.
Unlike Australia New Zealand was tenanted by a ,
fighting race the Maoris Cook had explor ed the shores

, .
of the islands and white men came among the natives

,
sealers traders beachcombers and missionaries too from

, , , , ,
the London Missionary Society from the Chur ch Missionary ,
Society from the Wesleyans They came at di fferent

, .
points but the Bay o f Islands on the north eastern coast

,
-
of the North Island was the chief mission centre In .
Manning s Old N ew Z ea la n d will be found a picture o f life

’
in these islands before the British Government came in .
There was some sleepy claim of British sovereignty o r

overlordship but for long it slumbered Twice the Maoris
, .
asked for British protection but the Home Government ,
held its hand until the hand was forced from within and
,
from without The Wakefield school including Lord

.
,
Durham looked upon New Zealand as a likely field wherein

,
to carry o u t their model schemes o f colonisation A New .
Zealand Association was formed in 18 3 7 it was followed by ,
—
a New Zealand Land Company in 1 83 8 3 9 and in 1 83 9 the ,
Company secretly sent o u t a ship the Tory with Wake , ,
fi eld s brother o n board to begin the work of settlement

’
, .
Meanwhile the French had been co ming in like the English , ,
bringing with them claims to sovereignty and the b e

ginni ngs o f missions and even as in Australia settlements
o r stations were planted at this p oint and at that to fore ,
stall French extension so in New Zealand French rivalry

,
stimulated English action In 183 9 under instructions .

,
from home Sir George Gipps Governor of New South

, ,
Wales proclaimed j uris diction over the islands and in 1 8 40

,
Captain Hobson sent by him concluded the Treaty o f

, ,
Waitangi whereby the Maoris ceded the sovereignty o f

,
New Zealand to Great Britain It was inevitable that as .

,
years went on there wo uld be friction between the incoming

,
English always growing in numbers always absorbing

, ,
land and the coloured race who owned the soil proud and
, ,
virile seein g their strength wane and their heritage pass

,
'
away There was a Maori rising or series o f risings in

.
1 8 4 4 4 8 ended at last by the good management of Sir

-
George Grey in his first and more successful government

o f the colony There was a more serious war o r series o f
.
,
wars between 1 8 60 and 18 7 1 when he was Governor for

, ,
the second time But the fighting left mutual respect

.
between the tw o races Maori members now sit in the .
New Zealand Parliament and white men and coloured ,
in New Zealand stand side by side in loyalty to the King

and steadfastness to the cause o f the Empire Very shortly .
after its annexation New Zealand was separated from New

and dominated Tonga in the Friendly Islands In 1 8 4 9 .
Bishop Selwyn o f New Zealand f ounded the Melanesian

mission of the Church o f England which has its present
,
headquarters in Norfolk Island ; and in 1 8 7 1 the martyr

Bishop Patteson lost his life in the Santa Cruz Islands ,
killed by natives who had su ffered at the hands o f white

men The Fren ch were active in the Pacific and secured
.
,
Tahiti and New Caledonia ; their missionaries came into

the Friendly Islands ; and as later in Uganda the natives
, ,
wer e torn and bewildered by conflicting Protestants and

Roman Catholics After 1 8 7 0 the Germans too were in
.
, ,
evidence in the Pacific White men settled in some numbers

.
in Fij i In 1 85 8—
. 5 9 the leading chief Thako m b au o ffered
, ,
the sovereignty of the islan ds to Great Britain but the

‘
,
o ffer was declined ; the settlers invented a constitution

which did not work ; an Australian conference demanded
that Fij i should be placed under British protection ; and
at length in order to put an end to anarchy to check
, ,
abuses and to exclude the intervention o f other Powers

, ,
Great Britain accepted a renewed offer o f sovereignty over

the Fij i group and in 1 8 7 4 annexed them to the Empire
,
.
Two years before in 18 7 2 an Act had been passed for the

, ,
better protection of the Pacific Islanders An other Act was .
passed in 1 8 7 5 ; and by an Order in Coun cil of 18 7 7 the

Western Pacific High Commi ssion was established to ,
enforce among British subj ects in the Pacific outside British

territory some kind o f law and order some respect for ,
native rights Under this High Commission were evolved

.
the present British Protectorates in the western Pacific .
There is o n e little lonely island in Pacific seas which

became British without traders or missionaries This is .
Pitcairn Island Here a handful o f the mutineers o f the

.
B ou n ty having set their captain adrift in 1 7 8 9 and having

, ,
Iv THE AGE OF QUEE N VICT ORIA 13 9
taken to themselves wives from among the Tahitian women ,
landed in 1 7 90 In 1808 they were discovered and thirty

.
,
years later the island was formally annexed In 185 6 the .
colony was transplanted to Norfolk Island but some of ,
the islanders returned to their o ld home and like Tristan , ,
da Cunha Pitcairn Island is at the present day the dwellin g

,
place o f an isolated group o f B ritish subj ects whose pictu r ,
esque past is in strong contrast with a squalid and unlovely

present The captain of the B ou n ty Captain Bligh found
.
, ,
his way across the se a to the E ast Indies and in course ,
o f time became Governor o f New South Wales where he ,
caused a second mutiny .
The fir st addition to the British Empire in the reign o f Ad en .
Queen Victoria was the peninsula o f Aden in Ar abia taken ,
in 1 83 9 under instructions from the Government o f Bombay ,
to which Presidency it has always been attached In 185 7 .
the island of Perim in the mouth o f the Red Sea was

, ,
taken ; in 1 8 68 188 2 and 1888 fu rther territory roun d

, ,
Aden was acquired by purchase In 184 0 little islands .
the Musha Islands —lying o ff the opposite African coast ,
were bought In 18 5 4 the Kuria Maria Islands east o f

.
,
Aden on the Arabian coast were ceded In 18 7 6 the island

, .
o f Socotra was secured from foreign intervention by treaty
with its native owner and ten years later was placed under
,
British Protectorate As the first British acquisiti on in

.
the eighteenth century was the rock of Gibraltar so the ,
first territory added in Queen Victoria s reign was the rock ’
of Aden ; like Gibraltar a penins ula like Gibraltar a natural ,
fortress the gateway at o n e end o f a long se a route as

, ,
Gibraltar is the gateway at the other end F o r the cutting .
o f the Suez Canal which was completed in 1 8 6 9 made a

, ,
new and more direct waterway from the Atlantic to the

In di an Ocean superseding the ocean highroad round the
,
Cape o f Good Hope ; and in the control o f that canal

England obtained a strong voice by the purchase o f the
’
Khedive s shares in 18 7 5 .
I di
n a
.
In India the small possessions which still remained to
the Dutch s u ch as Chinsurah had been transferred to the
, ,
English by the settlement o f 182 4 which in turn gave to ,
the Netherlanders un di sputed predominance in the East

Indian Islands In 1 8 4 5 the small Danish possessions
.
,
including Tranquebar were bought ou t ; and now among , ,
Europeans only the Portugu ese with their o ld historic

, ,
centre o f Goa and the F rench at a few points mainly

, ,
Pondic herry and Chandernagore remain side by side with ,
the English in India The Queen s reign opened in India

.
’
with a disastrous Afghan w ar w hich began in the early , ,
months o f 18 3 9 Ghazni was besieged and taken Cabul

.
,
was occupied then came a massacre of Europeans at

,
"
Cabul a midwinter retreat and annihilation of a British

,
force o n e horseman alone escaping to tell the tale Sale

, .
,
Pollock and Nott turned the tide o f disaster Cabul was

, ,
once more temporarily reoccupied and peace was restored ,
in 1 8 42 But a rude shock had been given to lB ritish arms

.
and British credit it was the fir st and not the last bitter
experience o f ventures into Afghanistan Following upon .
this Afghan War came in 18 4 3 a war in Sind Sir Charles .
Napier won the battle o f Miani and Sind with its port o f , ,
Karachi was annexed to the British dominions Next

, .
there were wars with the hard fi ghtin g Sikhs o f the Punj ab -
.
The first war was in 1 84 5— 4 6 when the battles o f Mudki o f , -

,
Ferozeshah o f Aliwal and of Sobraon were fought the

, , ,
outcome being annexation of part o f the Sikh territory .
The second war was in 18 4 8— 4 9 and was marked by the ,
desperate battle o f Chillian w allah the siege and capture of ,
Multan and the final victory o f Guj erat The Sikh dynasty
, .
company and now by an Act o f 18 5 8

,
a n Act for the
better Government o f Indi a — the Government o f all the

territories belonging to o r under the rule of the Company
was vested in the Crown It was time to make the change
.
companies can create empires but they are not framed ,
to rule them The merchants had done a great work

.
which will live fo r all time but it was for the Government
,
of Great Britain alone to control the future destinies o f

India On the l st o f January 1 8 7 7 Queen Victoria was
.
proclaimed Empress of India ; and in 1 8 7 8—8 0 there was a

second Afghan war more successful than the first but yet
, ,
a critical and dangerous war in which Lord Roberts first ,
made his great reputation .
The Act o f 18 5 8 brought into being a Secretary o f State

for Indi a who with a Council provided for by the law was
, ,
to control in England the ad ministration o f the great

dependency Already o n the eve o f the Crimean War the
.
, ,
Secretaryship of State for the Colonies had been separated

from the War Office and the Colonial Oflic e was for the
,
first time in history placed under a single un divided head .
That Offi ce in 1 8 6 7 took over from the India Office charge

of the Straits Settlements and in 1 8 7 4 the islands of Dinding
.
and Pangkor and a strip of mainland opposite known ,
collectively as the Din din gs were added to the colony , .
The native states o f the mainland were in a state of anarchy ,
a haunt for pirates in the creeks and up the rivers ; and ,
in order to safeguard trade the system was at this date

,
inaugurated of placing British Residents in the States to ,
advise and in practice to control the native S ultans There .
was a native outbreak against the new order in 18 7 5 the ,
British Resident o f Perak w as murdered troops were sent ,
in and after some bush fighting order was restored

,
‘
.
i
Then began a notable era of progress tin m ning and .
-
Chinese immigration under British rule exercised in the ,
name of the native r ulers combined to make the Malay ,
Peninsula o n e o f the most prosperous regions within the

whole circle o f the British Empire By this time the .
English had found their way back into the islands to Borneo , .
The East India Company had from time to time planted B r o n eo .
factories in Borneo and did not fin ally give up all con

,
n e x io n with the island till the begin ni ng o f the ni neteenth
century About the year 18 40 an Englishman James

.
,
Brooke visited Borneo and having given assistance to the

, , ,
Sultan of Brunei received a grant o f the district o f Sarawak S r w k

, a a a .
in the north west o f the island He became as Raj ah

-
.
,
Brooke the English ruler o f an independent state and his

,
nephew the present ruler is still independent though

, , ,
under British Protectorate and leaving foreign relations

in the hands of the British Government There was much .
piracy in Borneo calling for the services of British men

,
o f war and with a view to its suppression the Sultan o f

-
, , ,
Brunei through the good offices o f Raj ah Brooke was in

, ,
18 4 6 induced to cede the little island o f Labuan at the L bu a an .
mouth o f Brunei Bay to the British Government The first .
Governor of Labuan was Brooke himself .
Far more important was a Chinese island acquired in

18 4 1 the island o f Hong kong
,
From the seventeenth
-
.
century the East India Company had carried on trade at

Canton and when under the terms o n which their charter
, ,
was renewed the Company ceased to enj oy the monopoly

,
o f British commerce with China a special officer was , ,
in 1 8 3 4 sent o u t from England to supervise the trade

, .
There was constant friction between the English merchants

and the Chinese officials the importation o f opium being
,
an important item of dispute Eventually in 18 3 9 there .

, ,
was open warfare and when war was ended by the Treaty
of Nankin in 1 84 2 the posses si on o f Hong kong was con

,
-
firmed to Great Britain and five ports in China including , ,
Canton and Shanghai were ope n ed to British trade There

, .
was a second war in 1 8 5 6 it was ended fo r the moment

by the Treaty of Tientsin in 18 5 8 War broke o u t again .
in 1 8 60 ; and after the Taku forts had been bombarded

and taken the Manchus summer palace looted and Pekin
,
’
occupied a more permanent peace was established by the

,
Convention o f Pekin which confirmed the Tientsin Treaty .
The English gained as the result of the war the promontory

, ,
o f Kowloon over against the island of Hong kong and

,
-
thus co ntrolled both sides o f the harbour As has already .
been suggested these Chinese wars are not among the most
,
glo rious episodes in English history An adequate case .
co uld be made o u t for them and was made out by men ,
o f the type o f Lord Palmerston There was some incident .
that gave occasion China was under a decaying alien

,
dynasty official c orru ptio n w as rife there was negation o f

, ,
j ustice barbaric cruelty The Chinese as represented by

,
.
,
their rulers were at the time impossible from the point of

,
view of modern international dealings But after all the .

, ,
root o f the matter lay in the fact that Europeans wished

to trade freely in China and that the C hin ese wished to keep
,
themselves and their country aloof from Europeans The .
opium question tainted the English case ; and if forcible

entry into China by Western nations was inevitable at ,
least it can be recognised that there is something to be said

in criticism of a policy which insisted that Western mer
chants and Western missionaries should be upheld by guns
and ships among a reluctant: people rooted in many ,
centuries o f continuous industry and reverence for the ways

of their ancestors .
Cy pru s
.
In 18 7 8 by an Anglo Turkish Convention E ngland gained
,
-
,
THE BRITISH EMPIRE on . W
John Fran klin w ho never re turned and at a later date came

,
Sir George Nares voyage towards the Pole in 18 7 5 Science

’
.
gained geography gained and the o ld hope o f a practicable

, ,
northern route to the Indies was finally put to rest E x .
lo re rs were equa l ly active in the central regions o f the

p
earth Australian discovei y has been already noticed
. .
Better known to the world than the Australian discoverers

A frica . were the men who opened up Africa and greater were the ,
fruits o f their work At the end o f the eighteenth century

.
the same spirit o f enlightenment which killed the slave

trade a nd fo u nded the free colony of Sierra Leone created ,
the African Association for the promotion o f discovery in

A frica and under its auspices Mungo Park made his way
,
to the upper course o f the Niger Park held the Niger and .
the Congo to be o n e and in 1 816 the British Government

,
sent expe di tions which met with little success to explore

, ,
’
either river Clappe rto n carried on Park s work and
.
,
eventually Lander in 1 83 0 traced the true course of the

Niger to the se a A little before 1 8 5 0 began the e x plor
.
ing work o f David Livingstone noblest by far o f all ,
discoverers . He made known Lake Ngami ; he crossed

Af rica first of white men from one coast to the other
, , ,
from Loanda to Q uili m an e He traced the course o f

.
the Zambesi and the S hiré rivers and discovered Lake

Nyasa Speke and Burton discovered Lake Tanganyika
. .
Speke sighted the Victoria Nyanza and with Grant pene , , ,
trate d into Uganda and found o u t the source of the Nile .
Baker discovered the Albert Nyanza Later explorers .

,
notably Stanley completed the unveiling of Africa In all

,
.
the previous centuries Africa nominally a continent had

, ,
been little more than a coast line Egypt h a d run her .
course in touch with Asia rather than with Africa The .
n or th c o ast o f Afr ica h a d been bu t the sou thern frin e of

g
the Mediterranean basin West Africa had been a series .
o f headlands o n the way to the Cape and later the eastern ,
shore o f the great Atlantic Lake over which black men ,
were ferried to its western side East Africa in like manner .

, ,
had been but the western bound of the Indian Ocean ,
dominated by Arab influence At the southern end was .
a peninsula wholly detached from the main continent .
All was now changed Men began to turn their eyes inland
. .
A line of lakes and rivers marked the length o f the continent

from south and north The Zambesi the Congo the Niger
.
, ,
called inland from east and west For the first time in .
history Africa took status as a continent and in this great ,
awakening area awakening j ust as steam and telegraphy

,
were coming into power something like a new British ,
Empire was brought into being .
In 1 8 80 a Liberal Government came into office in England ,
headed by Mr Gladstone Prime Minister for the second

.
,
time Of all English statesmen he had the least love o f

.
annexation the least desire to dominate other lands and

,
peoples He had been the chosen agent to cede the Ionian

.
Islands to Greece and he began his second Government

,
with withdrawal from Afghanistan and retrocession o f the ,
Transvaal Yet it was during these years and in spite o f

.
,
the political views of those who governed England that a ,
new forward movement began which has not yet spent its ,
force .
E gypt .
In the firstlplace from 1882 must be dated the beginning
,
of England in Egypt Egypt is now un der British Pro .
te c to rate and the Hinterland of Egypt the Sudan which

, , ,
has its o w n outlet to the se a at Port Sudan is held j ointly ,
under the British and Egyptian flags The Government .
o f the Khedive was deeply indebted to foreign bond
holders and on their behalf England and France controlled

,
chartered companies in that the charters given to them .
prohibited instead o f conce di ng monopoly o f trade and that ,
the Crown assumed no sovereignty over the territories

which the companies had acquired Thus the o ld tried .
-
British machinery fo r making empire the chartered c o m ,
pany came to the fore again in latter day guise At the

,
-
.
same time the stimulus o f foreign competition was applied ,
for a new and powerful competitor entered the field in

Germany The Franco German War o f 1 8 7 0 had consoli
.
-
dated Germany and following the law o f national develop

, ,
ment United Germany entered upon the path of colonial

,
expansion Africa and the Pacific were the two main

.
parts o f the earth s surface which Europeans had n o t yet

’
wholly divided into lots among themselves ; and here in ,
the eighties Germany took her place in the su n There was

’
,
.
yet another motive force to be reckoned with This was .
the pressure o f the younger peoples o f the British Empire

upon the Government o f the Mot herland Self government .
-
is at once the child and the parent of self c on fi de n c e ; -
young democracies look forward not back and when the ,
youn g and the old are linked together from the young co m e ,
aspiration and initiative with the o ld is the restrainin g

,
sense o f responsibility As far back as 18 7 5 three o f the

.
Australian colo ni es recomm ended annexation o f New

Guinea ; in 18 83 the Government o f Queensland actually
annexed part o f the islan d and the Home G overnment, ,
having repudiated the action taken by the colony was forced ,
to act itself in the following year All these three factors .

,
chartered companies foreign rivalry growing strength and

, ,
sense of strength in the self governing colonies acted and

-
—
reacted on o n e another it wo uld be hard to say which w as
—
cause and which was e fl ec t an dZ all the time the work o f
i ys
R a lwa . railway making and telegrap h laying w as becoming more
- -
and more skilled employment far sighte d men di scerning

,
-
the unrivalled potency o f the railway in controlling and

consolidating inland territories Cecil Rhodes was the
.
father o f the British South Africa Company In October .
18 9 7 exactly eight years from the date when the charter

,
was granted he had completed continuous railway com

,
m u n ic ation from Capetown to B ulu w ayo which in 1 88 9 ,
was but the head kraal o f the savage Matabele King

Lobengula .
These were the ma in sources o f the latest phase o f

British expansion and those w ho wish to trace in detail the
,
acqu isitions made in the last thi rty o r thi rty fi ve years can -
best do so by reference to the international agreements

which partitioned up Africa and the Pacific Wars gave .
something to England in South Africa and elsewhere ; but

more was given by native cession and by peaceful agree
ment with other European Powers contracting as to where ,
o n e European possession protectorate o r sphere o f in

, ,
fl u e n ce should begin and another end as to w ho should ,
take this o r that province or island to which neither of the,
contracting parties had in the origin o f th ings the remotest

claim And yet it was n o t simple greed o f territory that
.
led England on Protection o f natives substitution o f

.
,
civilisation for savagery were in the mi nds o f British

,
Governments as they were slowly and reluctantly driven

,
forward and again forward ; and so with the English

generally It was not trade interests merely that took
.
them into Central Africa It was also the preaching and

.
the example o f Livingstone .
In North America and the West Indies there is no gain o f N rth o
A m ric e a
territory to be chr onicled since 1880 ; o n the other hand d an
these years have been conspicuously a time o f filling empty ifii h

g
r s
11 13 118
spaces o f j oining province to province o f adj usting inter
"
, ,
15 2 THE BRITIS H EMPIRE on .
national questions In 1885 there was a second rising o f

.
i
half breeds in the north west of Canada It was suppressed

- -
.
by the Canadian militi a under General Middleton and Riel ,
who had again led the rebels was taken an d hanged With ,
.
this exception the making of transcontinental railways the

, ,
peopling of the prairies the final settlement o f the boundary

,
—
line with the United States the latest arbitration having
been that o n t he Alaska boundary question in 1 903 — have
constituted the history of the Dominion o f Canada Anglo .
French and Anglo American disputes in connexion with

-
fishing rights o n the coasts and in the waters of Newfound

land have been peacefully settled The boundary between .
British G ui ana and Venezuela o n the o n e hand Brazil o n ,
Th e P cifi c the other has been decided by arbitration In the Pacific

a .
,
.
there have been large gains Various groups of islands .
were acquired in the Western Pacific such as the Solomon ,
Islands the Gilbert and Ellice Islands the Tonga group

, ,
.
The New Hebrides were placed under the j oint control— the
—
condo minium o f Great Britain and France New Zealand .
was given a dependency in the Cook Islands which have ,
since been incorporated in the Dominion and the Common ,
wealth o f Australia one in British New Guinea n o w called ,
Papua This the south eastern end of New Guinea was

.
,
-
appropriated in 18 84 after urgent pressure from Australia

to take action and after Germany had secured her slice
, .
Among other scattered islands in the Pacific unconsidered ,
trifl e s picked up by England at this season was Fanning ,
Island where the Pacific cable is landed o n its way from

,
Canada to Australasia In the meantime Western Au s .
tralia in 1 89 0 received responsible government and by an ,
Imperial Act o f 1900 the Australian colonies were federated

,
into the Commonwealth o f Australia .
In West Africa except on the Gambia River where the

, ,
government in 1 89 3 In 1 884 the Germans came into South

.
West Africa acting whi le the British Government hesitated

, ,
taking all Namaqua and Damaraland except Walfi sc h Bay , ,
over which the Queen s sovereignty had been proclaimed’
in 18 7 8 About the same date began great finds o f gold in

.
the Transvaal bringing in a stream o f immigrants the ulti

, ,
mate cause o f unrest revolution war and annexation

‘
, , , .
The British South Africa Company received its charter

in 1 8 89 in 1 890 Mashonaland was occupied ; in 1 8 91 the
chart er was extended to cover great regions beyond the
Zambesi in 1 893 Matabeleland was conquered and at the
end o f December 1 8 95 Jameson the Administrator o f ,
Matabeleland broke into the Transvaal Republic with a

,
’
small armed force o f the Company s men to precipitate a
, ,
still born revolution After the raid the Company was

-
.
placed under Imperial control ; but in the Transvaal

friction grew stronger between the Uitlanders kept outside ,
the pale o f citizenship and the Boers aware o f their danger

, ,
and arming for war In October 1899 the war began the
.
,
burghers o f the Orange Free State and many of the Dutch

Cape Colonists throwing in their lot with their kinsfolk
beyond the Vaal For over two and a half years the
.
fighting went on until o n the 3 1st o f May 1 902 the Boers

, , ,
accepted the inevitable issue and the citizens of the Orange,
Free State and the South A frican Republic already an ,
n e x e d became subj ects of the British Crown

,
In 1 906 and .
1 907 responsible government was given to the late R e

publics and in 19 10 the four self governing colonies the
,
— -
Cape Colony Natal the Transvaal and the Orange Free

, , ,
S tat%b e c am e o n e under the title o f the Union o f South

Africa In Southern Rhodesia there had been a native
.
rising in 1 8 9 6 a second Matabele war supplemente d

,
by a less dangerous outbre ak in Mashonaland But .

this was the end o f native trouble and the co ming o f ,
the railway facilitated administration and control In .
1 9 04 the line had been ca rried up to the Victoria Falls

of the Zambesi the Falls were spanned and by the end
, ,
o f 1 9 09 the railway reached the frontier o f the Congo Free
State .
The great territory of Northern Rhodesia not far short Ny l d ,

asa an .
of square miles in estimated area has o n its eastern ,
border another British province the Nyasaland Protector

,
ate Here on the western shore o f Lake N y asa and south

.
, ,
of the lake in the S hiré Highlands are the lands especiall y

, ,
associated with the work and memory o f Livingstone .
Missions followed where the great pioneer missionary had

pointed the way and commerce combined with ph ilanthropy
,
to form the African Lakes Company in 1 8 7 8 Nyasaland .
was excluded from the sp here o f the British South Africa

Company when in 18 9 1 the charter o f that Company was
,
enlarged to cover the territories now included in Northern

Rhodesia and in that year it w as formally proclaimed to
,
be under British Protectorate Kn own for a while as the

.
British Central Afr ic a Protectorate it recove red its o ld ,
name of Nyasaland and in history as in geography it holds

, , ,
a place midway between British South Africa and British

East Africa .
In East Africa England might have had for the asking E t as
A fric a
all that and more than is English n o w In 18 7 7 the Sultan .
.
o f Z anzibar offered to Sir William Ma c Kin n o n then Chair ,
man o f the Britis h India Shipping Company w ho traded ,
with East Africa a concession o f the whole o f his coast line ;

,
-
and the coast line of the Sultanate o f Zanzibar meant the

-
coast line o f East Africa northward o f the Portuguese

-
possessions to beyond the E quator But no encouragement.
was given by the Government at home ; while England

waited here as o n the western side o f Africa the Germans

, , ,
came in ; and various international agreements the most ,
important o f which were made with Germany in 188 6 and

1 890 res ulted eventually in the present British Protectorates
,
o f Zanzibar East Africa and Uganda

, Mac Kin n o n and his
, .
friends founded a British East African Association which ,
in 1888 was incorporated as the Imperial British East

Africa Company and for the first few years British East
,
Africa and Uganda were the charge o f this Chartered Com

pany Native interests and suppression o f the slave trade
.
-
had been among the grounds put forward in support o f the

charter ; and travellers reports together with the record ’
o f mission work attracted attention in England to the East

,
African regions As early as 18 7 6 the Church Missionary

.
Society had sent mi ssionaries to Uganda far inland

‘
beyond the Victoria Nyanza Roman Catholic missionaries .
followed and in the centre of Africa the Christians contended

,
with heathendom and also with o n e another In 1 8 8 5 .
Bishop Hannington was killed like Patteson in the Pacific , ,
a martyr to hi s faith ; and when the Company drained by ,
constant expenditure determined in v18 9 1 to withdraw,
from Uganda religion and philanthropy combined with

,
trade interests to stir the Government to action A .
special commissioner was sent o u t to Uganda ; and on ,
receipt o f his report it was eventually decided to buy o u t

,
the Company alike from East Africa and from Uganda ,
to substitute for merchant rule the authority and re

sponsibility o f the Crown Thi s step was taken in 189 5 .
,
a British Protectorate having been formally declared

over Uganda in the previous year and a railway was ,
constructed from the port o f Mombasa to the Victoria

Nyanza connecting the great inland se a with the Indian
,
Ocean Thus at the prese n t d ay Zanzibar East A frica

.
, ,
carved o u t are all under Brit ish Protectorate the island

,
o f Labuan has been incorporated into the colony o f the
Straits Settlements which also includes the rich little phos

,
phate bearing Christmas Island far ou t in the In di an Ocean

-
The island o f Singapore which wise Sir Stamford R aflle s

,
f
took for England is now the centre point o f the British

,
Malay Indies a s m all empire in themselves In China two

,
.
new acquisitions have been made both on lease In 1898 , .
a ninety nine years lease was obtained from the Chinese

-
’
Government o f a mainland area behind and adj oini ng the

peninsula o f British Kowloon and through the leased ,
territory runs a railway which connects Hong kong with -
Canton In 1 8 98 too as against the occupation o f Port

.
, ,
Arthur by the Russians and Kiao chau by the Germans ,
Great Britain obtained the lease o f Weihaiwei in North

C hi na at the mouth o f the Gulf o f P e chilé Like Hong — kong .
,
this dependency consists o f an island and a mainland

peninsula The harbour is a very fine o n e and the
.
,
lease tells us that it was granted in order to provide

Great Britain with a sui table naval harbour in North
China and for the better protection o f British commerce
,
in the neighbouring seas —a so u nd reason which

would account for other British dependencies older than
Weihaiwei .
On a very rough estimate not far short o f three million,
square mi les were added to the British Empire in the reign

of Queen Victoria Y et this last century as has been said
.
, ,
has been sing ularly free fo r England from wars with other
European nations There has been no war with o u r o ld
.
time rivals with Spain o r France o r Holland The main

, .
acquisitions were made in the later years o f the nineteenth

century and they were made not at the behest of the rulers
,
o f England bu t r a ther a ainst their will

g ,
L ust o f conquest .
IV THE AGE OF QUE EN VICT ORIA 15 9
had di ed o u t of State policy but State necessities remained

, ,
and the pressure o f national instinct Hence the British

.
circle grew wider and w ider What was the good o f it all 7
.
The good o f it all w as the Empire which we h ave to day

-
Let us look at it in the comin g chapter.

CHAPTE R V
TH E E MPI R E A T TH E P R E S E NT DAY
A n E mp ire o
f Diversities
TH E British Empire as it stands to —

,
day includes very ,
nearly one fourth of the total land area of the globe Big
-
ness is n o t the same t hi ng as greatness and a nation must ,
be tried by other tests than ownership of square miles .
Much of the vast Dominion o f Canada is in the frozen north ,
much o f Australia is in the central desert Still for an .

,
island in the North Sea to have acquired not far short o f a

quarter o f the surface o f the earth in addition to having ,
given birth to the United States of America is on the face ,
of it a considerable achievement .
The islanders ran to islands to coast lines to peninsulas

,
-
,
.
They did n o t as has been pointed out overrun continents

, ,
after the manner of the Spaniards The English realised .
that in Fuller s words

,
’
Islands are easily shut whereas
, ,
continents have their doors ever open n o t to be bolted ,
”
without great c harges The continental possessions of
.
England are a late development the result o f expansion ,
rather than o f conquest The earliest fruit of conquest

.
in the seventeenth century was an island Jamaica The ,

.
first addition made to the Empire in the eighteenth century ,
made by force of arms was a peninsula Gibraltar The

,
-
,
.
1 60
early English settlements were on islands or by the side of

the sea When the E n glish to o k Canada they took in effect
'
.
,
the valley of the St Lawrence the fringes of a great water

.
,
way leading to the sea The continental part of Canada .
the prairie land o f the North West was a later acquisition -
, ,
gained by gradually moving o n and assured by railways , .
Writing in 1 83 8 Lord Durham in his far seeing Report

, ,
-
makes no reference whatever to the lands beyond the Great

Lakes Canada to him meant only Eastern Canada When
. .
the English took Australia they took Sydney Harbour , ,
Port Phil lip the island o f Tasmania and points on o r within

, ,
easy reach of the sea coast Occupation of the back blocks

-
came later in the day and the process is continuing year by,
year The continental wedges of Africa are recent acquisi

.
tions What English instinct gave to England and what

.
,
the English fought to keep and to multiply was first and , ,
foremost footholds for a sea going trading people whence

,
-
, ,
they moved on to the Hinterlands by measured steps ,
and under stress o f foreign rivalry This has been true .
even in India It was long before the English gained

.
inland possessions in India and after all India is a great ,
peninsula .
The inference is that this Empire is not an Empire

o f continuous subj ect provinces like unto the Empires o f ,
which we read in history su ch as Alexander conquered , ,
only to fall to pieces at his death ; o r even such as the

Romans won by force o f arms and kept by more than force
of arms fo r the Romans had no little o f the qualities which
,
have given the English success It is a growth resulting .

,
in a combination o f communities to an extraordinary ,
degree diverse from o n e another By studying the .
diversities the nature and the essence of the se called British

,
-
Empire will best be understood .

v TH E EMPIRE AT THE PRESENT DA Y 1 63
Take first the di fferent size of the di fferent units Canada .
is of much the same size as Europe Bermuda is less than ,
o n e seventh o f the size of the Isle of Wight

-
Y et Bermuda .
is and always has been a separate entity in the Empire .
It is and always has been a colony in the true sense of the

word not a mere fortress like Gibraltar which again is a
, ,
separate unit very much smaller even than Bermuda

, .
Bermuda was the second British colony to receive repre

se n tative institutions Virginia being the first The little
, .
Bermudian Assembly is therefore the oldest Parliamentary

, ,
institution in the British Empire outside the United K ing

dom and here is a tiny item of the Empire which none the
, ,
less is and always has been a sel f contained fully equipped-
,
-
component part of the whole .
It hardly needs telling that the self governing dominions -
are for the most part in the temperate zones the Crown ,
Colonies and dependencies for the most part in the tropics .
In other words in the temperate zones are the lands which

,
the English with o r without other European races have

, ,
peopled while the lands where the Engli sh do not settle

,
so much as trade and rule are the tropical regi ons This is .
true as a general statement Yet it requ ires great m o difi c a

.
tion The extreme north of Canada is in the Ar ctic Zone

.
,
the northern half o f Australia is in the Tropics A small .
part of the Union of South Africa the north o f the Trans ,
vaal is in the Tropics ; so is the whole of Rhodesia an area

, ,
o f settlement though not yet in the rank o f self governing

,
-
do mini ons The Crown Colonies or semi Crown Colonies

.
-
are not all in the Tropics ; there are the Mediterranean

dependencies for instance ; and if these are sub tropical
, ,
-
possessions there is certainly nothing tropical in the climate

,
o f the Falkland Islands The Tropics too have in certain

.
, ,
instances been homes fo r British settlers Thi s has been .

the case as has already been noticed wi th the West In di an

, ,
Islands o r some o f them There have been generations

.
of English settlers in Barbados and Jamaica the fact

that representative institutions took root in the West Indies
from the early days of the Empire is evidence o f British
settlement Every possible variety of climate from
.
,
extreme cold to e x tre m e heat is to be found in the British

‘
,
Empire the path of the Engli sh overseas cannot be traced

by following parallels o f latitude It can only be said that
.
the race has multiplied and made new Englands mainly in

lands whose climate approximates however roughly to , ,
that o f the old home .
Within this immense range of area and of climate are

to be foun d all the products o f the world We associate .
Canada more especially with corn Australasia more e speci ,
ally with wool South Africa with gold The West Coast
,
.
o f Africa sends among other products palm oil for soap and
-
, ,
candles there are the sugar producing colonies the West

-
Indian islands and British Guiana Natal Mauritius Fij i , , , .
The Malay Peninsula is the richest tin bearing region of the -
world Assam and Ceylon send tea T rini dad and Grenada
send cocoa rubber and cotton come in increasing quanti
ties from many tropical possessions The lists w hi ch have .
,
lately been published o f the gifts made to t he mother

,
country from the dominions colonies and protectorates

, ,
beyond the seas at this time o f war illustrate the number

and the diversity o f the products which the British Empire
contains as well as the good will o f its citizens white and
,
-
c o lou re d a like The Empire is a great storehouse of n ece s

.
saries and of luxuries the component parts supplementing

,
o n e another in what they produce a nd send and when the ,
dependencies are not directly productive they are valu able ,
in di rectly Gibraltar to keep the waterway open and the

,
Power Men talk of the coloured races of the Empire

.
and contrast them with the white as though they were one ,
uniform group Is the gulf between the Englishman and

.
a high class native o f India as wide as between an East

-
Indian and a Solomon Islander Men talk o f India as if

it were one co u ntry with a homogeneous population Its .
unity is derived from British administration and railways

alone ; it is the home o f competing races and religions ,
a land o f diversity n o t of uniformity ,

.
Diverse again are the tenures by which the English own

, ,
their Empire Most of the soil is British soil made British

.
, ,
,
—
however in di fferent ways b y settlement by conquest ,
by purchase or free gift from the inhabitants or the ruler

who represented or claimed to represent the inhabitants
at the particular time The man or woman born on B ritish
.
soil is a British subj ect o r citizen Outside territory which .
is British soil there are territories w hich are British Pro

tec to rate s and the natives of which are not British subj ects
,
by the strict letter o f the law It is o r was till lately not .

, ,
always easy to decide where British soil ends and British

Protectorate begins The Protectorates again vary in kind
.
and degree There are the Feudatory States o f India ;

.
there are the Malay States where the sultans r ule through ,
British o fficers there are the Protectorates of the Western

Pacific where the only rule is British When the nations
,
.
of Europe thirty years ago were pegging out claims in

, ,
Africa there came into being something less than a P ro

,
te c to rate a Sphere of Influence

,
English and French o r .
,
English and Germans agreed that north or south o f a line

,
of latitude or east or west o f a line of longitude o r o n this

, ,
side o r that of a river o n e nation should cease to intrude

, ,
and should acknowledge the intrusion of the other It was .
all irrespective o f native rights o f ownership the one nation

.
v TH E EMPI RE AT TH E PRESENT D AY 1 67
or the other might prote ct or annex the regions so marked

o u t or it might not
, but as against each other the rival
, ,
Europeans were in legal phraseology estopped These .
Spheres o f Influence have shaded into Protectorates ; and

that the Protectorates outside India approximate more and
, ,
more to anne xed territories is shown by the fact that ,
whereas a few years ago great tracts of Africa were in the

keeping of the Foreign Cfli ce they have now with the , ,
exception of Egypt and the Egyptian Sudan all been handed ,
over to the ch arge o f the Colonial Offi ce We have seen .
that the Sudan is nominally under the j oint c ontrol o f the

British and the Egyptian Governments and that the New ,
Hebrides are under the j oin t Protectorate o f Great Britain

and France Cyprus till the other day belonged to
.
, ,
Turkey and was only assigned to Great Britain to be

,
occupied and ad ministered ; yet it w as fo r all practical

purposes a British dependency The leasehold tenure of .
Weihaiwei and the district o f Kowloon h a s been noticed .
Differing in kind and in population the provinces o f ,
the British Empire differ conspicuously in their c o nstitu o
tions and political status The great main division is

.
between the self governing Dominions and the Crown

-
Colonies Between them stand certain colonies which h a ve

.
representative institutions but not responsible govern

,
ment ; while In di a though in effect approximating to a

,
Crown Colony o n a great scale is in a class by itself

, .
When the English first went over the seas they went ,
either simply to establish trade factories as in India and on ,
the West Coast o f Africa or to settle as in the West Indian

, ,
isl a nds in Virginia and New England Those who went

, , .
to settle held that they took with them the rights and the
liberties which they had enj oyed in England As the Greek .
colonists of o ld went out o n terms o f being equal not ,

16 8 THE BRITIS H E MPI RE on .
subor di nate to those who remai ned behind so the Barba di an ,
colo ni sts at the time o f the Civil War in England which ,
had its co u nterpart in Barbados maintained that the y ,
sho uld not be subj ected to the will and command o f those
”
that stay at home Self government in o n e form o r
.
-
another was thus inherent in the early overseas settlements ,
varying in kind and degree accor di ng to their origin The .
Puritan colonies o f New England were the most democratic ,
and Connecticut and Rhode Island elected their o wn gover

nors But there was not responsible government among
.
them as responsible government is understood at the present

,
day In other words they did not enj oy as an acknow

.
, ,
ledged right well de fi n e d self governing constitutions o n

,
- -
the English model if only for the reason that responsible

,
government did not at the time exist in England R e .
sponsible government means party government The .
executive o fficers are chosen from the party which has

ga ined a maj ority at the last General Election They sit .
in o n e o r other o f the two Houses of Parliament and

they are in effect controlled by the electe d H o u se—the
,
'
House of Commons o r rather by the do minant party in that

,
House This is the English system ; the English view of

.
political liberty involves the subordination o f the executive

power to the Legislature The same system does not pre .
vail in the United States where the executive o flic ers , ,
though members o f the party in the State which has gained

the upper hand at the polls and has elected the President ,
are n o t amenable to the Legislature and do not sit either ,
in the Senate o r in the House o f Representatives Still .
less is it the system which prevails in Germany The .
German Chancellor the Prime Minister o f the German

,
Empire is responsible to the Kaiser alone ; he is not re

,
sponsible to and is in no way controlled by the Legislature

, .
retaining the name o f colony The Federation o f Canada .
was followed by the Federation o f Australia the Common ,
wealth of Australia Constitution Act being passed in 1 900 ,
at the time of the South A frican War and nine years later ,
as the result of that war came the Union of South Africa

,
the South Africa Act being passed in 1 9 09 At the present .
day therefore the self governing Dominions include five

, ,
‘
-
colonies or groups o f colonies the Dominion of Canada the

, ,
Commonwealth of Australia the Union o f South Africa , ,
the Do mi nion of New Zealand and the colony o f Newfound ,
land New Zealand which was the product o f an earlier

.
,
federation o f distinct colonies o r settlements in the islands ,
took the title o f Do minion in 1907 .
These federations were in all cases n o t opposed but , ,
o n the contrary welco m ed and encouraged by the mother

,
country There was o n e instance a long time ago in whi ch

.
, ,
the Home Government refused sanction to an attempt at

federation This was in the case o f South Africa in the
.
years 1 8 5 8—59 Sir George Grey was then Governor o f the

.
Cape Colony and having lately as Governor of New Zealand

, , ,
introduced a federal system into those islands he proposed ,
a similar constitution fo r South Africa It involved accept .
ance o f an offer from the Oran ge Free State at the time an ,
independent republic to federate with the Cape Colony ;

,
and the scheme gave alarm to the mi nisters in England ,
afraid o f extending their responsibilities in South Africa .
But n o t very long afterwards in 18 7 5 Lord Carnarvon , , ,
as Secretary of State for the Colonies having in his previous ,
tenure o f o flic e carried the British North America Act se t ,
on foot a movement premature at the time for a possible

, ,
”
union o f South Africa in some form o f confederation .
Thus the policy o f the British Government in the last half

century has been the direct reverse o f the policy divide et
v THE EMPIRE AT THE PRESENT DAY 17 1
imp era . It has been to stimulate and to promote the gro w th

of larger units in the self governing portions o f the Empire -
thereby ad di ng to their strength their self reliance and ,

-
their nationhood .
They differ wide ly from one another these self governing ,

-
dominions not only in the matte r o f race geography and

, , ,
the like but also in the ma tter o f constitutions The

,
.
Dominion of Canada is a strongly bound confederation By -

.
the Confederation Act certain powers are assigned to the

di fferent provinces which have their provincial legislatures
,
but the D ominion Parliament which has like the English , ,
Parliament two Houses a Senate and a House of Com

, ,
mons is the residuary legatee of all the powers which have

,
not been so assigned The Upper House in the Canadian

.
Parliament the Senate is composed o f members nominated

, ,
by the Governor G eneral who nominates o n the advice of

-
his Ministers The Commonwealth o f Australia is a loose

.
confederation o f States j ealo u s of their separate rights ;,
and at the present day State Governors are still sent out from
England in addition to the Governor G eneral o f the Co m
,
-
m o n w e alth In Austra lia the States not the Co m

. monwealth , ,
are the residua ry legatees ; they retain all the powers

which have not been by the Act which formed the Common
,
wealth specifica lly handed over to the central Government

, .
The second chamber in the Commonwealth Parliament ,
the Senate is far more powerful and far more democratic

,
than the Senate in Canada The senato rs are elected o n .
the same franchise as the members o f the Lower House ,
the House o f Representatives the vote being given to all ,
adult white citizens not incapacitated from voting whether

, ,
men o r women But as in the case of the United States

.
, ,
all the States o f Australia return the same number o f

senators irrespective o f population the federal nature o f
,
17 2 THE BRITISH EMPIRE on
the constitution is thus emphas ised and for the Senate each
State po lls as a single co n stituency o n the principle to use , ,
a French term of scru tin de liste with the e ffect that the
, ,
Upper House in the Commonwealth is even more democratic

than the Lower The South African Union is a Union not
.
,
a Federation The four colonies which form the Union o f

.
South Africa great as is their extent cover a far smaller

, ,
area than the Dominion of Canada o r the Commonwealth

of Australia and could therefore more easily be centralised
, .
The Union is n o t as large as the State o f Queensland Here .

,
too the presence of a coloured population outnumbering

, ,
the white men brought home the necessity for a strong

,
central government There are Provincial Councils in

.
the four provinces which deal with certain matters the

, ,
most important of which is elementary education but the ,
Union Parliament is paramount in every respect Traces .
of federation are to be found in the fact that the four

provinces which at present form the Union send an equal
, ,
’
number of members to the Senate but in ten years time ,
from the date of the Uni on this provision may be changed .
The Senators are not elected directly by the people and ,
neither in South Africa nor in C anada has the vote been

given to women .
Widely di fferent are the present self go vern in g dominions -
from the self governing communities whi ch Lord Durham

-
contemplated far wider are their powers of self government

,
-
He recommended with more than the wisdom o f his time

, ,
self government within well defi n e d limits but self govern

- -
,
-
ment whi ch wo uld have left the colonies subordinate to the

mother country The English love of gradual growth
.
,
English contempt for logical reasoning and cut and dried

system the spread o f knowledge the increase o f appre cia
, ,
tion and sympathy quicker and more constant c o m m u n ica

,
Empire is smoothed by discussion of di fficulties interchange ,
of views and friendly agreement between those who for the

,
time being are controlling policy at home and beyond the

seas Gradually and surely there is coming into existence
.
,
by consent a species of machinery for ensuring that the

,
self governing component parts of the Empire shall act in

-
unison for reconciling local autonomy with Imperial unity

, ,
or rather for providing that the whole shall reap the full
advantage o f the diversity o f the parts For the Dominions .
di ffer in kind fr om one another at least as much as any o n e

,
of them di ffers from the mother land This I s a point which .
is too often overlooked Men talk and write as though the

.
Dominions were o n e homogeneous whole ; but while they ,
all as compared with the mother country have the common

, ,
attribute o f youth in other respects they differ from o n e

, ,
another in outlook in geography and history in the

, , ,
colouring which geography and history have combined to

impress upon them The mother country may be regarded
.
from one point o f view as the oldest and predominant

partner but from another standpoint Great Britain is the
,
connecting link between the overseas nations o f the Empire .
Between the self governing Dominions and the Crown

-
Colonies proper there is an intermediate class o f colonies ,
which have representative institutions in a greater or less

degree but hav e not responsible government The most
, .
interesting historically o f these colonies are Bermuda ,
Barbados an d the Bahamas for they represent what

, ,
remains of colonial self government as it came into being

-
in the early days o f British settlement beyond the seas .
The antiquity of the Bermudian House of Assembly has

.
been noticed before the middle o f the seventeenth century

Barbados had its Parliament Afte r the Restoration the .
then Lords Proprietors o f the Bahama Islands sent in stru c

THE EMPIRE AT THE PRESENT DAY 17 5
tions to their Governor to summon all the freeholders in

the islands to elect representatives to form a Parliament .
These were days when Canada was New France when ,
Australia had been sighted but was unknown w hen South ,
Africa meant the Cape with a handful of Dutchmen under

Table Mountain planted there by the Netherlands East
,
India Company to hold a half way house on the way to the

-
East Other islands in the West Indies had their Assem

.
blies ; the colonists of Jama l ca in particular stru ggled

, ,
hard with the mother country in defence o f their c o n stitu

tic h al privileges. The West In dian colonies or some o f ,
them had their own agents in England to safe guard their

,
interests and plead their case As late as the year 1 84 5

.
a Parliamentary Return gave a list of such agents appointed

by the Legislatures o f di fferent West Indian Islands But .
the trend of history in the West Indies was in the direction

'
rather o f restricting than o f extending self government -
This was the inevitable result of the Plantation system and

the multiplication of slaves The white men became more
.
and more small oligarchies in the midst o f a population

w hich had n o rights of citizens hi p and the Imp erial Act o f
,
Slave Emancipation was the strongest possible exercise and

evidence of Imperial control Still Barbados at the present
.
,
time retains in the hands o f its elected representatives

complete power over the local revenues and except th a t , ,
the appointment of most of the higher executive officers

rests with the Home Government the Barbadians are for
,
all practical everyday purposes a small self governing -
community with unbroken tradition o f English liberty and

,
English constitutional rights In Jamaica the constitution

.
has been changed more than once At the present time .
there is a Legislative Council with an elective element b u t ,
a n o flicial maj ority can if necessary be secured In British

, , .
176 TH E BRITISH E MPIRE cu .
Gui a na there is a complicated constitution a legacy from ,
Dutch times and here in regard to financial matters at

, ,
least the elected representatives are in a maj ority Outside

, .
the West Indies Cyprus is a case where the elected members

,
are in a maj ority in the Legislature the elected members ,
themselves being chosen three by Mohammedan inhabitants

,
o f the island nine by non Mohammedans

,
-
Malta has been .
the scene of much const itutional friction and frequent

constitutional changes in its latest phase the constitution
gives an o fficial maj ority over the elected members in the
Legislature .
The normal constitution o f a Crown Colony consists o f

a Governor who is advised by an Executive Council con
,
sisting of the principal officers of the colony and a Legisla ,
tive Council presided over by the Governor and composed ,
o f members all nominated by o r on behalf of the Crown ,
some official some unofficial and representing as far as

, ,
possible different classes races and interests The official

, , .
element is in a maj ority This cardinal fact of the ultimate

.
power resting with the Crown as represented by the Gover ,
nor and his advisers and behind the Governor by the

,
Secretary o f State for the Colonie s is the leading character ,
istic of the Crown Colony The ultimate power is to use a

.
,
’
term which in Lord Durham s time was a term o f abuse in ,
Downing Street not in the colony Against Downing .
Street the colonial reformers of Lord Durham s day poured ’
out vituperation Government from a distance they

.
denounced in the most scathing terms but they denounced ,
it with special reference to commun ities which were English

or European by settlement Lord Durham wrote o f Lower
.
Canada The colony has in every crisis of danger and

, ,
almost every detail o f local management felt the mischief ,
o f having its executive autho rity e x ercised o n the other side

government There have bee n cases notably in New

.
,
’
Zealand where the relations between white men an d n atives

,
have after years o f warfare been wisely and sympathetically

, ,
adj usted by the Government o n the spot ; and there have

been cases more frequent in earlier years notably the case
, ,
o f Lord G len e lg s South African policy in which ignorance

’
in England o f local conditions and disregard o f the advice o f

responsible men in the colony has wrought grievous c on se
q u e n c e s But. the fact that in 1 883 —
8 4 the Basutos
,
who , ,
had been in arms against the Government o f the Cape Colony ,
elected o f their own free will to be severed from that colony ,
and to be placed u nder the direct control o f the Imperial

Government that from that day they have prospered and
multiplied exceedingly ; that recently at the time when ,
South A frican union was being consummated they to , ,
gether with the natives o f the South A frican Protect c rates -
were apprehensive lest they should be removed from the

control of the Home Government may be taken as evidence ,
that the native subj ects o f the King look to the Government
in England for good not for evil ; that the coloured man
,
finds in government at a distance if well represented on the ,
spot in the existence beyond the seas o f an ultimate

,
authority and final Court o f Appeal remote from prej u di ce ,
o f race o r colour the most effective guarantee for protection

,
o f his rights against either a white oligarchy or oppressors
among his own native kind .
The diversity which marks the whole British Empire

marks also the constitutions o f the Crown Colonies We .
have tak en the normal constitution o f a Crown Colony as

including a Legislative Council all the members o f which ,
are nominated n o t elected and in w hi ch there is an o fficial

, ,
maj ority Such is the constitution of the Straits Settle

.
ments but two o f the unofficial members are no min a ted

,
v THE EMPIRE AT THE PRESENT DA Y 17 9
by the Chambers o f Commerce o f Si ngapore and Penang In .
Ceylon there is a further modification four o f the unofficial

members are elected by the European urban residents the ,
European residents in the country di stricts the burghers ,
o r Eurasians and the educated Ceylonese other than the

,
burghers or Europeans Of the unofficial members who are

’
nominated by the Governor two represent the Low Country ,
Singhalese one the Kan dyan s two the Tamils and on e the
, , ,
Mohammedans In Hongkong among the unofficial mem

.
,
bers o f the no m inated Legislative Council tw o are as a rule ,
Chinese and the Justices o f the Peace and the Chamber o f

,
Commerce respectively no m inate a member In this .
colony the Executive Council which advises the Governor , ,
is not composed wholly o f officials but includes two u n ,
o fli c ial members In British Honduras while o n the o n e

.
,
hand there are no elected members in the Legislative Council ,
all being nominated o n the other hand the u n o ffi cials out

,
number the officials and the colony is therefore har dly a

,
Crown Colony Here again the Executive Council contains

.
an unoffi cial element In various colonies there is no

. .
Legislative Council at all At Gibraltar the Governor is .
the sole fountain alike of government and of legislation .
In St Helena there is an Executive Council but no Legisla

.
tive Council ; the Governor makes the laws The High .
Commissioner for South Africa legislates fo r the Crown

Colony o f Basutoland His laws take the form o f pro
.
c lam atio n s .
The constitutions of the Protectorates are as various as

those o f the Crown Colonies Some Protectorates are n o t .
to be distinguished from Crown Colo ni es The East Africa .
Protectorate in which there is a considerable number o f

,
white colonists has an ordinary Cro w n Colony constitution

, .
In the sister Protectorate o f Uganda there is no Legislature .

Here there is a native Kin g and a British administrator or

’
,
Governor with a staff o f British officers under him I n

'
some cases as in that o f Sierra Leone the L egislative

, ,
Council o f a Crown Colony has power to legislate for the

adj oining Protectorate North Borneo is a Protectorate
.
,
though exclusi vely under the control and administration o f

the Ch artered British North Borneo Company Rhodesia .
,
which must also be classed among Protectorates is ad ,
ministered by the British South Africa Company under the

close supervision o f the High Commissioner for South
Africa In Southern Rhodesia there is at the present time
.
a Legislative Council a mi nority o f the members o f which

,
are nominees o f the Company subj ect to the Secretary o f

,
State s approval and a maj ority are elected No Legisla

’
, .
tive Council would be looked fo r in a Pacific Protectorate ,
such as the Solomon Islands The fountain o f law and .
order is the High Comm issioner fo r the Western Pacific ,
acting under the Secretary o f State and through a Resident

Co m missioner and derivi ng his power from the Orders in
,
Council passed with reference to the Western Pacific .
The High Commissioner for the Western Pacific is also

Governor o f Fij i which is a Crown Colony o flicials pre
, ,
do m inating in a Legislative Council which also includes ,
si x elected and two native members .
The term High Commissioner has been much used in the

evolution o f the British Empire Its simple meaning is a .
man who has had an important charge committed to him .
We have seen o n e application o f the term to the representa

tive in England o f o n e o r other o f the self governing -
dominions A colony had or had not an agent in England

. .
The agent of a self governing colony became known as an

-
Agent General and each o f the Australian States which

-
compose the Commonwealth still has an Agent General in -

India and that the expression India shall mean British

,
India together with any territories o f any native prince o r

,
chief under the suzerainty o f Her Maj esty exercised through

the Governor General of India o r through any governor
-
o r other officer subordinate to the Governor General of -
”
India In other words the expression India for legal
.
,
purposes includes soil o f India which is under British

Protectorate as well as soil o f Indi a which is owned by
,
Great Britain Before the time o f Warren Hastings there

.
was no Governor General and Calcutta had no pre eminence

-
,
-
over Bombay and Madras Hence at the present day the .

, ,
presidencies o f Bombay and Madras stand o n a slightly

different footing from the other large units o f British India ,
and the Gove rnors o f Bombay and Madras like the Viceroy ,
o f India are appointed directly fr o

,
m home We have seen .
ho w the ad mi nistration o f India by the East India Company

was placed by William Pitt un der a Board o f Control ,
and ho w at the time o f the Indian Mutiny the whole ad

ministration was transferred to the Crown F o r the Presi .
dent o f the Board o f Control was substituted a Secretary

o f State fo r India This great dependency an Empire in
.
,
itself absorbs the whole attention o f o n e Cabinet Minister

, ,
while another the Secretary o f State for the Colonies takes

, ,
charge o f all the business connected with theother overseas

Dominions colonies dependencies and Protectorates
, , , ,
except Egypt and the Sudan which are in charge of the ,
Foreign Ofli ce and Ascension Island which is in the care o f

, ,
the Admiralty The Secretary o f State for India di ffers

.
from the Secretary o f State for the Colonies in that by law

a Council is attached to his office and the decisions taken ,
are formally at any rate in most cases the decisions o f the

, ,
Secretary o f State in Council The Councillors are nomin .
ated by him to hold office for a term of years and the large ,
v THE EMPIRE AT THE PRESENT DAY 183
maj ority of them must be men of comparatively recent

Indian experience Two of the members are native mem
.
bers T hus is government from a distance safeguarded in

.
the case of India But there is also much government and

.
most effective on the spot In India its elf the supreme .
power is vested in the Viceroy and hi s Co u ncil answering ,
on a great scale to the Executive Councils in the Crown

Colonies ; and this Council is expanded for legislative pur
poses into a Legislative Council in which in addition to , ,
o fli c ials there is n o w an elected as well as a nominated u n

,
o ffi c ial element though a government maj ority is always

,
maintained There are similar Le gislative Councils in

.
Bombay and Madras and in other o f the great Indian

provinces and in them the u n o flic ial element is in a maj ority
, .
Thus for legislative purposes the elective system familiar ,
in England but unfamiliar in India is gradually being ,
introduced and the natives o f India are being given a voice

,
in making the laws which they have to obey But it must .
be repeated and should always be borne in mind that

, ,
India was neve r all o n e even when the Mogul Empire was
at its full strength and such unit y as it possess es is derived
,
from British control The provinces differ widely one from

.
another and outside the

,
square miles which are
actual British territory are nearly square m iles o f
States and Agencies under native rulers such as the Nizam
, ,
o f Hyderabad all o f them in varying degrees subordinate

,
to the Government of India They may be classed as Pro .
te c to rate s their foreign relations are in the hands o f the

,
Government o f India their armed forces are limited and

, ,
British Residents o r political advisers are side by side with

the native administrations They may be said to have .
local self government in the sense that the Government

-
is on their o w n native lines but not in the sense of repre

,
se n tative government In m atters of Imperial interest

.
they are under British control .
It would be diffic ult to overrate the importance o f India

not only as a great unit in the British Empire but also as a ,
factor in making the Empire In moulding India the .
English have been mo ulding themselves Even as a source .
of colonists India has played and is playing a noteworthy

part Reference has been made to the indentured coolie
.
system whereby when slave labour came to an end the

, , ,
sugar plantations in the West Indies and elsewhere were

supplied by voluntary contract with East In di an workers .
The system has resulted in East Indian colonisation on a

large scale The incoming coolies when the time covered
.
,
by their contracts has expired have elected in many cases

,
to stay in the colonies instead o f returning to India and at ,
the present day tw o thirds o f the population o f the African

-
island o f Mauritius are East Indians a little less than o n e ,
half o f the population of British Guiana abo ut o n e third ,

-
o f the population o f Trinidad In Fij i at the time o f the

.
census o f 188 1 the East In di ans numbered about 600 ;

thirty years later at the census o f 1 9 11 they numbered
, ,
between a quarter and a thi rd o f the whole p o pula

tion Tamil immi grants from Southern India form the
.
labour supply o f the tea plantations o f Ceylon and abound ,
in the Malay Peninsula Coolie immigration into Natal has

.
been brought to an end but the Asiatics in this sugar grow

,
-
ing province o f South Africa outnumber the Europeans .
On e view then which may be taken in estimating the

, ,
position of In di a in the British Empire is that as Great ,
Britain has sent its sur plus pop ulation to the self —
governing
Do mi nions so India from her tee ming millions has
,
supplied colonists to the tropical o r sub tropical regio n s -
In the coming time India may be looked on as a kind

men of strong type and wid e outlook Responsibility for .
India has enlarged the horizon o f statesmen in Eng

land because the State w hich they served and serve has
,
meant not merely the islands o f Great Britain and Ireland ,
but also a great Eastern dependency with unlimited possi

,
bilitie s of good or evil for England and for which England

,
has and will have to give account If responsible govern

.
ment has been the making o f the self governing dominions-
by placing upon the children o f the soil responsibility for

the fortunes o f the soil on the other hand responsibility
,
for the security and welfare o f an Eastern empire where ,
the people have never known traditions and methods o f

representative government and have ever looked up to
r ule from above has done much to thrust greatness upon
,
the race which controls and w orks the machinery of

administration .
Th e I di
n an Of all bodies of public o fficials outside the mother
S r vic
e e .
countries the Indian Civil Service is by far the greatest .
For some long time past recruited by open competition ,
from whi ch natives o f India are not excluded and in ,
which they number at the present day about 6 5 out

o f a total o f some 1 3 00 this service has produced a
,
class o r race o f administrators rising from the charge of

,
districts to the government o f provinces The unit of .
administration is the district a dministered by a district

,
officer ; and there are more than 2 5 0 o f such districts ,
varying in size; in geographical con di tions in number and ,
kind o f population The British territory in India as

.
,
opposed to the States under British protectorate is divided ,
into regulation provinces and n o n regulation provinces

-
though year by year the distinction tends to be less clearly

marked The regulation pro vinces are from the British
.
,
point o f view the older provinces which have been longer

, ,
under direct British control and where administration is ,
more highly developed In these regulation provinces.
are some non regulation districts and by their side are non
-
regulation provinces the district officers in n o n regulation

,
-
areas being known as deputy com mi ssioners whereas the ,
di strict offi cers of reg ulation districts are co llector magis

trates In these non regu lation provinces and districts
.
-
in the past at any rate the man has counted fo r more and
,
the system for less than in the older provinces and districts ,
duties being more combined in single hands and in them

members o f the covenanted services are supplemented by
uncovenanted civili ans who have not passed through the
,
strait gate o f competitive exa m ination and by military ,
o flic e rs in civil employ The covenanted civil service

.
,
again is throughout all the provinces supplemented by

,
a Provincial Civil Service o f between 2200 and 2 3 00 mem

bers nearly all o f whom are natives o f India while outside
,
British India proper in the feudatory states Englishmen

, ,
are serving as political o r financial advisers to the native

rulers .
Following the example o f India Ceylon has its Civil ,
Service similarly recruited so have the Straits Settle

, ,
ments and the Malay Protectorates So has Hongkong . .
T hroughout the British East there is a fully organis e d and

comparatively well de fi n e d system o f administration The
-
Sudan is admin istered by British officials ma inly recruit c d ,

-
from Oxford and Cambridge n o t by open competition but ,
by selection for the merits o f open competition have

,
counterbalancing drawbacks and intellectual ability s o , ,
far as success in examination is a test of intellectual ability ,
may be combined with poor phys ique weak character and , ,
absence o f qualities likely to attract and win the respect o f

coloured men In the older communities o f the West
.
1 88 THE BRITISH E MPIRE on .
Indies the ranks o f the Government services are

filled by West Indians only a small minority o f high officials
,
being supplied from home The English officers w ho ad

.
minister West and East Africa o r the Pacific colo n ies and
Protectorates are sent ou t from England selected by the ,
Secretary o f State f or the Colonies Going round the .
world British Government services from the Indian Civil

, ,
Service downwards would be found in di fferent stages o f

,
organis a tion and adapted to di fferent conditions ; and

everywhere it wo uld be noted that as far as possible , ,
British r ule rather supplements than supplants rather ,
works through than overrides the r égime to which the

natives o f the land have been habitu ated Native sultans .
o r kings tribal systems village commun ities all are utilised

, , ,
as machinery which is familiar to the people o f the soil .
The end aimed at is law order and j ustice contentment o f

, ,
the governed development o f the natural resources o f the

,
lands the means to the end are modified according to the

sta tus and the custom o f the natives provided that the ,
custom is not repugnant to British ideas o f humanity .
As admi n istration is adj usted to suit the place and the

kind o f people as there is no o n e uniform system o f British
,
rule so the laws vary provided that n o law is clearly

, ,
contrary to the main principles o n which British law and

j ustice are founded It would be a long and complicated
.
matter to give in detail the many different legal systems

which prevail in the British Empire In the great .
maj ority o f the British colonies to quote Sir Courtenay ,
Ilbert the common law is that o f England either brought

, ,
by the colonists a t the time o f settlement o r introduced by

”
subsequent legislation But as he shows there is French
.
, ,
common law more o r less in colonies which o nce were

, ,
French such as the Provinc e o f Quebec : Roman Dutch

,
under irrigation is considerably larger than the area o f

England and Wales and the canal system o f the Chenab
,
in the Punj ab has turned over 3 000 s quare miles o f desert

into grain growing lands supporting over a mi llion o f
-
human beings In Egypt the Assouan dam controls the

.
flow of the Nile and secures continui ty o f water supply

, .
Railways combine with canals and reservoirs in India to

break the force of the periodical fa mi nes They have .
brought and are bringing in a constantly growing degree

light and civilised life into the centre of Africa The .
English do not stand alone as makers o f railways and irriga

tion works but they may fairly claim to have been among
,
the leading pioneers o f modern days in reclaiming land ,
and carrying road and rail throu gh j ungle and backwood ,
across mountains and rivers Those who study Lord .
Durham s Report will note what importance this reformer

’
o f colonial constitutions attached to public works in the
colonies and to what extent he foresaw that scientific

,
invention would model the future of the Empire The .
effect on native minds cannot be overrated If after they .

,
have found o u t by actual experience that life and property

are secure from tribal raids that they are no longer at the
,
untender mercy o f chief o r king t hat they can obtain even,
j ustice in land disputes and redress when they have been

,
robbed o r maltreated their eyes go o n to tell them that it

,
is made easy to bring their small wares to the best market ,
and that their fields are steadily watered and produce full
crops year after year then they realise day by day that
,
civilisation is better than barbarism and give ready assent

to an alien rule because it is not only j ust but sympathetic
,
and the source o f happiness in everyday life .
The same reasoning applies to another most important

br a nch of the British public s ervices beyond the seas To .
no department o f government activity has more anxious

attention been given by the English in the last thirty o r
forty years than to the medical services and in no direction ,
has Western science proved more e ffective o r made greater

advance Well equipped hospitals are to be found in town
.
-
and country and every colony o r dependency has an

,
organised staff of medical officers At the Colonial Office .
there is an Advisory Medical Committee fo r Tropical

Africa a Tropical Diseases Bureau and a Tropical Diseases
, ,
Research Fund In connexion with the Universities of

.
London and Liverpool there are schools of Tropical Medicine .
There is a Colonial Veterinary Com mi ttee to investigate

diseases of animals Scientific research is conquering
.
malaria the trypanosome and the tsetse fly and unhealthy

, , ,
lands are being made healthy for coloured men as well as

for white fo r animals as well as human beings Here
,
.
again the English are n o t by any means alone in good work ,
but they have been to the front in it and having the wi dest , ,
opportun ities they and their American brethren as illus

, ,
trate d in the Panama Canal zone have produced the most ,
fruitful results .
If the English have achieved success beyond the seas in

the field of administration to what causes is the success to
,
be attributed " On e great cause is that they have been

trained in the work n o t fo r generations merely but for
, ,
centuries Here is one advantage which they possess over

.
their would b e competitors the Germans

-
The Germans .
are newcomers into the field o f colonial administration .
Long years ago towards the end o f the seventeenth century

, ,
when Prussia w as rising under the Great Elector the ,
B ran de n b u rghe rs went to the Gold Coast and like English , ,
and Dutch and Danes built a fort upon the Coast Fort
, ,
Fredericksburg with two or three small outlying forts ;

,
19 2 THE BRITISH E MPIRE on .
but after forty years had passed the forts were sold to the
, ,
Dutch and the Germans thenceforward had n o possessions

,
beyond the seas u ntil after 18 80 That this has been the .
case that the Germans have sought a place in the sun late
,
in the day after most places had already been occupied

, ,
has n o t been due to any malevolence o n the part of other

pe e ples England was never at war with the German nation
.
till the last few months ; she never until the present war ,
broke o u t took a yard o f land from Germany If overseas

,
.
Empires are to be regarded as prizes it was the misfortune ,
of German history and geography that Germany co uld n o t

at an earlier date enter for the competition Uni ted Ger .
many was a necessary preliminary to a German Empire

beyond the seas and United Germany did n o t come into
,
being till 1 87 0 But Empire s are not prizes to be knocked

.
down to the highest bidder ; they are trusts to be adm in is

t ored by skilled and trained trustees This training the .
English have had they have accumulated a store o f ex peri

ence o f tradition o f precedents they have learnt by place
, ,
as well as by time It is not only th a t for three centuries

.
they have been steadily going to school overseas but that ,
they have been learni ng their lesson among all sorts and
conditions of men in all sorts and condi tions of lands and
,
climates they have been taught not only what to do but

also what to abstain from doing which is perhaps the more ,
important lesson fo r those who wish their work to be of

permanent value They have gone through a very long
.
apprenticeship and a long apprentices hi p is needed by

,
nations who would build enduring structures beyond the

”
seas The English may be devoid o f Kultur
. Let us hope ,
that they are if we are to j udge o f it by recent illustrations

,
.
But they have something which is infin itely more valuable

than Kultur and that is practical experience
,
.
ments under whose supervision the Protectorates were and

,
are ad m i ni stered visited the protected Malay State o f

,
Perak The British Resident introduced to him o n e of the

.
leading Chinese capitalists in the State The C hi nese said

.
to the Governor : What a Wonderful Providence is this

by which you English come here and rule and we Chinese ,
come in and make o u r money 2 Such a comment wo uld

n o t have been made in India before Clive cleaned up the
administration o f Bengal ; it might n o t be made to day -
were not English o fli cers at once well paid and the heirs ,
of long and honourable tradition .
A third and perhaps the main cause of British success

,
in the field o f administration beyond the seas is British

character as it has developed under the training which
,
the developing Empire has given There is in the English

.
,
even those w ho do n o t love them will ad mit a strong sense ,
of j ustice and a love o f fair play In the self governing

.
-
dominions and Crown colonies al ike alien Europeans find

that they are at no disadvantage as compared with British
citizens ; coloured men have in nearly all cases more
confidence in English j udges than in those o f their o wn
race The spirit of fair play has been notably fostered by
.
the system o f the great English public schools and a large ,
proportion o f those who go o u t to serve the Government

in India and the tropical possessions have been brought
up under that system But there is another most useful
.
quality which the Englishman possesses The British sailor

.
is called the handyman among Englishmen The English .
man is the handyman among European peoples Of all .
the nations in the world at present wrote Carlyle in P ast

,
a n d P resen t the English are the stupidest in S peech the

, ,
wisest in action It is the practical capacity o f the English

.
man his readiness to adj u st the means to the end his

, ,
v THE EMPIRE AT THE PRESENT DA Y 1 95
indifference to routine and rigid system which under con , ,
ditio n s at once requiring and stimulating this particular

quality o r type of character has enabled the English race
,
to handle with at least some considerable measure of success

great areas and millions o f hu ma n beings .
The British E mpire then is an Empire o f endless diversi

, ,
ties and to hostile critics this is an obvious sign of weakness

,
.
The G erman believes o r professes to believe that it is

, ,
unsound to the core ready to b reak up under any adequate

,
pressure from without o r within The German vi ew and .
the English view are diametrically opposed and the tw o ,
contending principles are at is sue in this war The German .

,
o r at an y rate the offi cial German believes in force over

, ,
powerin g and constantly in evidence in rigid system in , ,
uniformit y The Englishman believes in adequate force

.
,
but n o t more than adequate and as little in evidence as

,
possible he believes to some e xt ent in system for all good ,
government implies some measure o f system but in system ,
combined with elasticity ; he has no belief whatever in

uniformity The German proclaims to the world that the
.
best thing fo r the world would be that it should be domin

ated by German Kultu r and he makes n o secret o f his
strong desire to impose that Kultur by force of arms The .
Englishman may believe that it would be best fo r the

world to be made English but he does n o t say so and he
, ,
does not act as though that were a cardinal article of his

creed Like the Romans o f o ld and to a greater extent
.
, ,
the Englis h have been conspicuous in their Empire for tolera

tion of language race and creed The latest illustration
, ,
.
may be found in the method o f declaring a British Protect

orate over Egypt .The Khe di ve has been deposed but ,
independence from Turkish suzerainty has been coup led

with adherence to the old order by substituting for the
Khedive a Sultan o f the royal or Khedivial stock It has .
been formally announced that the religious convictions

of Egyptian subj ects will be scrupulously respected as are ,
”
those o f His Maj esty s o w n subj ects whatever their creed
’
,
that the strengthening a nd p rogress o f Mohammedan .
institutions in Egypt is naturally a matter in which His

”
Maj esty s Government take the deepest interest
’
Natur .
ally is the word used It is taken to be natural for the

.
Christian English in their dealings with Mohammedans

, ,
to be interested in strengthening Mohammedan institutions ,
because the English have long been called upon to guide the
destinies o f mi llions o f Mohammedans and have realised ,
that respect for and interest in what Mohammedans hold

dear is the o n e sure road to winning assent to British guid
ance and control Lord Durham strong Liberal as he w as
.
, ,
—
looked to the absorption of French Canadian nationality
as an inevitable and desirable obj ect to be aimed at and
worked fo r but as self government in Canada was actually
,
-
—
conceded and elaborated French Canadian nationality has
,
been preserved in full vigour and the French and English ,
languages like the two races who use the two languages
, ,
stand side by side on a precisely equal footing in the

Do mi nion Legislature It is the same in South Africa with
.
language and race The first Prime Minister o f the South

.
African Union was and is the most conspicuous of the Boer

generals who seven years before the Act o f Union was
,
passed had been in arms against the British Government

, .
A si mi lar story is to be told all the wo rld over where the

English have control I mp eriarn g o e s hand in hand with
.
libertas ; there is regard for diversity of blood language , ,
custom and religion

,
.
Is the highest obj ect o f Empire uniformity or diversity 2

and is diversity likely to be an ultimate source o f weakness
1 98 THE BRITISH EMPIRE on :
and higher development to what nature has brought into

existence Uniformity m ay be produced but it can only be
.
,
—
pro duc ed by a killing o u t process ; toleration o f diversity
means the preservation and the betterment o f the di fferent
kinds o f human life and human activity which have given ,
colouring and shade to the world It cannot but be that

. .
human beings if given favourable conditions will develop

, ,
better o n their own than o n other peoples lines and the ’
great merit o f the British Empire is that where E ngland

has gone tw o blades o f grass have grown where o n e grew
before that with many mistakes and shortcomings the
,
Empire is none the less perhaps the most effective human

, ,
machinery which has so far been produced for enabling men

and women in every stage o f development to make the most
and the best o f themselves .
But this may be the case and yet it may fairly o r

,
plausibly be argued that an empire as a whole must be a

weaker structure in proportion to the extent to which its
component parts are diverse from on e another that u ni .
formity must be a source o f strength There is much to be .
said fo r this view and it is not easy to gain gu idance from

,
past history F ar the longest lived empire in hi storical

.
-
times has been the o ld Roman Empire and the Roman ,
Empire was a m ilitary despotism On the other hand the .

,
Romans were conspicuous among all the peoples o f the

ancient world fo r public works for roads bridges w ater
, , ,
works such works as make communication easy quick

, , ,
and constant such as promote the material welfare o f

,
peoples they were conspicuous to o for toleration of local

, ,
customs an d creeds ; their type was that o f Gallio who ,
cared for none o f these things Was it their military .
strength which held their empire so long o r was it their ,
toleration and practical usefulness If it was their military

V
THE EMPIRE AT THE PRESENT DAY 199
strength still they and their empire must be j udged by the

,
standard of their centuries not by that o f ours The

,
.
present war will tell us whether military despotism can in

modern days win an empire .If the Germans succeed the ,
question will still remain Can a military despotism under

,
“
modern conditions hold an empire in permanence Q Un i
formity can only be attained by force But if attained will
.
, ,
it result ultimately in a stronger whole than can be reached ,
though only with a considerable amount o f risk in the pro

cess through diversity " The British nation within the
,
narrow bounds of the United Kingdom is itself a c o n glo m er

ate o f diversities It is a nation and a strong o n e but the
.
,
diversities w ithin it are patent and o n the surf ace as well ,
as fundamental A strong community is a community

.
full o f life A strong body is a body full of life it has many

.
members and all me m bers have n o t the same office S o

, .
with a community ; it has more life in proportion as each of

its component parts has more life and as each gives in full
,
measure its o wn particular contribution to the whole We .
do not want to duplicate each other in sterile repetition ;

we want to supplement one another each to give to ,
the common stock what o u r brethren do not possess

and cannot give That is the value o f diversity if wisely
.
handled it means partnership and c c operation and the

,
-
whole which includes such diversities includes all the

elements o f life in their fullest vigour Diversities may .
be and must be a danger to an empire in the making Thi s .
danger may be eliminated by crushing them o u t but lif e ,
and growth are crushed out with them On the other hand .
,
the danger may be risked and surmounted by wise states

manship and practical good sense with an incomparably
,
greater outcome fo r the future This is the possibility

.
possessed by the British Empire .

CH A P T E R VI
THE M E ANI NG A ND US E o r TH E E MPI RE
W HA T is the conclusion o f the whole matter By way o f

summary let us go back once more to the o ld questions in
,
their baldest form What were the motives and causes

.
"
which brought this Empire o f ours into existence 4 What
was there at work other than ordinary commonplace greed ,
the greed we see every day in public and in private the ,
desire to have w hat we have not but others possess to take ,
it by fair means o r plausible o r fo ul means Setting aside

political incidents and kings and treaties and all the
, , ,
trappings o f history can honest impartial statement set

, ,
down the British Empire to anything else than greed o f

Englishmen private Englishmen associations o f private
, ,
Englishmen governments representing o r professing to

, ,
represent Englishmen
, What substantial evidence again , ,
is t here that the peoples whom the English by whatever

,
means have brought under their control or into their orbit ,
have benefited by being included in this Empire and are

content to remain in it " Statistics it will be said will , ,
prove anything that the English compilers want them to

prove There can always be found a native ruler a chief
.
, ,
a headman who for a consideration will expatiate o n the

, ,
ad vantages o f the British connexion A pretty word like .
Protectorate can always be used The newsp apers like to

.
2 00
forcibly uninvited and undesired against the will o f the

, , ,
then inhabitants o f the island whether those inhabitants ,
were o r were not aboriginal The various invaders and the .
invaded coalesced at any rate in Southern Britain and an

, ,
English nation gradually came into being As this English .
nation came into being and grew o u t o f c hildhood it ,
gradually beca me more and more divorced from the c o n

tin e n t of Europe to which it had been attached all through
,
the Middle Ages ; more and more it developed its o wn

political an d religious type and more and more it tended to
be the dominant partner the n u cleus o f union within the ,
British islands At the time that this home work was

.
being consummated a New World was discovered beyond ,
the seas and a new sea route to the East Other nations
, . .
than the English made the discoveries though England can ,
claim Cabot s discovery o f North America ; and when the

’
E nglish wished to play their part beyond the seas they ,
found that they were to a large extent forestalled .
Reverting to the subj ect matter o f the second chapter -
there is an obvious sequence between di scovery trade , ,
and settlement A man crosses the seas and finds a new

.
land ; the fir st visit leads to further visits to exploiting ,
the products o f the new land and exchanging wares with its
inhabitants if there are inhabitants ; this is trade R e
,
.
e ate d v i sits res ult in some o f the visitors remaining over

p
seas it may be to hold a trade factory it may be because
, ,
the new place attracts as a home this is the beginning o f

settlement The above cannot be called a general rule
.
,
because the exceptions are numberless Discovery may be .
undertaken simply and solely in the interests o f knowledge

and science Modern exp loration of the Polar regions has
.
not led and is not likely to any appreciable extent to lead

, , ,
to trade Cabot s voyages were not followed up im m e di

.
’
VI THE MEANI N G A N D US E OF THE EMPIRE 2 03
ately though they pointed the way to the North American

,
fis heries Trade as has been noted sometimes not only

.
, ,
does n o t promote settlement but is a formidable obstacle

,
to it Still discovery trade settlement form a natural

.
, , ,
sequence In the course o f nature discovery is the parent

.
of trade and trade is more often than n o t the parent either

,
of settlement o r o f permanent footholds in lands which

are not fully civilised as Europeans understand civilisation
, .
The English went over the seas like other Europeans either
, ,
to discover new lands o r to discover new routes to new lands

which other Europeans had already discovered What .
took them across the seas The first answer is the spirit
o f enterprise and especially o f se a going enterprise which
,
-
was innate in this mixed race o f islanders and which as , ,
they came to kn ow the m selves to trust themselves and ,
’
the se a w hich gird e d their island to use the mariner s ,
compass and such inventions as were in their i nf ancy , ,
helping knowledge and seamanshi p woke up within them ,
and gathered strength .
As discovery leads to trade so the spirit o f enterprise

,
must necessarily be alloyed with the desire to gain some

thing If this somethi ng is not personal di stinction o r
.
scientific o r re ligious achievement it is material gain in ,
o n e form o r another ; and the first Englishmen w ho went
over the seas o r most o f them had to the full the acquisitive
, ,
instinct In other words greed came in All trade can be

.
, .
characterised as greed The English were human very

.
—
human They inherited privateering blood T hey meant
. .
their enterprise to be profitable and they made their profit

,
.
Adventurous and greedy as all men are greedy they took

, ,
their way o n the ocean having no empire at all so far but

, ,
making so to speak preli mi nary surveys and experiments

, ,
in the direction o f future empire .

But even at this early stage the total motive force was
very much more than love of adventure and greed o f gain .
The English as has been abundantly shown were not first

, ,
in the field Other Powers were beforehand and one of these

.
,
Powers Spain represented military and religious despotism

, ,
.
What was the result In going over the seas the English
‘
could not satisfy their love o f adventure and desire o f gain
without coming into conflict with Spain ; and at the same ,
time they could not feel sure o f their own political and
,
reli gious liberty at home a s long as Spain was in the ascend

ant The most e ffective method o f defence we are always
.
,
told is to take the offensive No o n e knew this truth better

,
.
than the Elizabethan sailors ; no one ever preached and

practised it more consistently than Francis Dr a ke To .
gratify o n the one hand the spirit of adventure and the love
, ,
o f gain and o n the other to safeguard the shores of England

,
and the political and religious liberty o f Englishmen was o n e ,
and the same process Thus we find a third motive force .
impelling o n the road to Empire the instinct to defend home ,
and liberty and this force has been at work in full potency
,
from the days of Queen Elizabeth to the present moment .
Religious as well as political liberty was at stake At .
the present day religious liberty is such a commonplace and ,
men are rightly so careful to avoid intruding upon religious

tenets and religious prej udices that there is some danger of ,
not crediting religion with all that it has e ff ected in history .
Take religion out o f English history and only the skeleton ,
of a history wo uld remain Try to tell the story o f the .
British Empire ignoring religion and the stor y could not

, ,
be told Religion has been a force at every stage Take

. .
the first discoverers We have seen that Sebastian Cabot

.
,
as the first Governor o f the Muscovy Company in its very ,
first beginnings in the year 1 55 3 gave instructions for the

, ,
Empire though none o f the c olonies whi ch are now under

,
the British flag have been so di stinctively the o ff spring o f

religion as was New England yet beyond all question
,
settlement in the British Empire w as promoted by religious

attraction or religious repulsion Mention was made in.
the second chapter o f one o f the islands in the Bahamas

group colonise d from Bermuda and called Eleutheria n o w
, ,
Eleuthera the island o f Freedom It took its name from

, .
the fact that the first band o f white colonists came with the
intent that every man mi ght enj oy his own opinion o r
”
religion without control o r question .
Protestants were n o t so concerned in early days with

wholesale conversion to Christianity as were Roman
Catholics they were rather con cerned with protesting and
fighting against forcible conversion they opposed despot
ism in religion as in politics ; and at the same time the
Puritans who took the lands of the heathen in possession
, ,
to o often looked upon the heathen from the Old Testament

point o f view In his H oly S ta te published before the
.
,
middle o f the seventeenth century Fuller wrote that he was

,
then beginning attentively to listen after some Prote stants ’
”
fi rst fruits in hope the harvest will ripen afterwards
-
, and ,
in the year 1 6 4 9 a Society w as formed fo r propagating the

Gospel in New England The Society fo r Promoting
.
Christian Knowledge came into existence in 1 6 98 and three ,
years later the Society fo r the Propagation of the Gospel

in Foreign Parts But the mi ssionary spirit the evangelical
.
,
d octrine the desire to spread the good tidings o f the Gospel

, ,
did not make itself felt to any great extent at any rate in ,
the present British Empire until late in the eighteenth

,
century after John Wesley had qui ckened religious life in

,
England and beyond the seas F rom that time missionaries

.
have had much to say to the making of the British Empire .

VI THE MEANING AND USE OF THE EMPIRE 207
As champions o f native races in o n e memorable instance

, ,
that o f the South Af rican policy of Lord Glenelg they had ,
a retarding influence The retrocession of the province o f

.
Queen Adelaide with the di sastrous results which followed

, ,
must in no small measure be attributed to missionaries .
But with this exception one source and an important

, ,
source o f the expansion o f the Empire will be found in the

mi ssion field for the simple reason that missionaries have
,
rightly discerned that protection fo r coloured men a gainst

the inco mi ng w hi te men is to be foun d in placing the white
men under the Britis h Government The Time s o f the 2 4th .
of December last reminds us that on Christmas Day 1 814 , ,
the year before the battle o f Waterloo Samuel Marsden , ,
o n e o f the noblest and purest of mission workers preached ,
the fir st Christian sermon to the New Zealand Maoris at

the Bay of Islands takin g for his te x t
,
Behold I brin g ,
you glad tidings and that o n a plot o f ground given him

by the natives he planted the British flag and flattered ,
himself that it would not be removed till the natives o f

”
that island enj oyed all the happ iness o f Britis h subj ects .
Emphasis has already been laid upon the w ork o f David

L ivingstone Here w as a miss ionary explorer w ho assuredly
.
had n o thought of gain It is not possible to attribute

.
directly to him any extension o f the Empire but in di rectly ,
his intrusion into Central Africa and his continued denuncia

,
tion of the horrors of the slave trade in Central Africa the ,
fruit o f his religion w as a most potent force in taking the

,
English onward in tropical Af rica Any honest review o f .
the British Empire must put religion high up in the fore

front as o n e o f the determining causes and to the English ,
with all their backslidings with all their commercial

,
instincts in spite o f the memory o f such iniqu ities as the

,
slave trade the words o f the book of Daniel may be applied

,
208 THE BRITISH EMPIRE on
The people that do know their G o d shall be strong and do

”
exploits .
Hand in hand with religion goes philanthropy It is .
difficult to distinguish the one from the other The re .
ligio u s man loves his fellow men he is a p hi lanthropist -
, .
Philanthropy has directly added to the British Empire ,
indirectly it has added much Sierra Leone is the most .
notable instance of the direct fruits of philanthropy steeped

in religion the evangelical religion of the Clapham circle
, ,
who gave to Sierra Leone as its Governor Zac hary Macaulay ,
the father of the great historian It was the child o f heart .
whole enmity to slavery and the slave trade and it was the ,
beginning of settlement though colo u red settl ement o n the

, ,
West African coast the beginning o f a colony w ith order

,
’
and organisation as opposed to the trader s factory with the
,
slave barracoon Indirectly philanthropy has been a great

.
Imperialist It has been noted how often the Home

.
Government has refused to anne x b efore finally taking the ,
step The deci ding factor in the Pacific more especially

.
, ,
has been in part at least if not in the main appreciation o f

, ,
the fact that the presence of a growing number of u n co n

trolled white men among natives leads to abuses that those ,
abuses can be and ought to be ste ppe d and that there is ,

'
only o n e effective meth od of prevention the declaration o f ,
British sovereignty o r Protectorate The origin o f the .
acquisition o f Lagos has been noticed England the great .

,
slave trader in repentance se t her hand to suppression o f

-
the slave trade The geographical advantages whic h Lagos

.
possessed as an outlet fo r honest traffic made it a slave

trading centre To put an end once and for all to this
.
nest of slave trading was the plain bon a fi de reason why the
British Government took Lagos now the great port o f ,
Nigeria .
may go to virgin soil so far as white men are concerned

,
this was the case with the Pilgrim Fathers in New England
o r they may go to an already established colony and
strengthen that colony A good instance o f this latter case

.
is the island o f Barbados In the beginning of the troubled

.
days o f civil strife at home the island received a large ,
accession o f settlers from England and as the result Bar ,
bados in turn sent out colonists elsewhere Note the .
character o f these emigrants to Barbados They were not .
burning with religious zeal o r enthusiasts fo r popular liberty .
The account which Clarendon gives is that Barbados was

principally inhabited by men who had retired thither only
to be quiet and to be free from the noise and Oppressions
,
”
in England and without any ill thoughts towards the King
,
.
These emigrants wanted to be quiet and made their home ,
in a West Indian island Here was a source o f Empire

.
wholly removed from greed the plain simple in stinct o f ,
fin di ng a place wherein to be unmolested It was this same .
instinct which in o ld days founded so many Greek colonies .
In the small over populated mother city states o f Ancient

,
-
Greece there were constant revolutions and faction fights .
In consequence Greek citizens went out to make their homes

’ ’
elsewhere and they called a colony an onro m a or leaving
,
i
,
home But the Greek colonists when they went out

.
, ,
abandoned all political connexion with their mother city .
Leaving home in their case w as not a stepping ston e to -
Empire .
We have seen that in the sixteenth century before the ,
Empire was yet in existence a powerf ul motive of Empire ,
was at work the instinct of national defence embodied in

, ,
the war with Spain and finding its expression largely in

,
overseas attack Co mi ng to the eighteenth century and

.
~
the generations o f war with France when so much o f the ,

v1 THE MEANING AND USE OF THE EMPIRE 211
Empire was ac quired by force and conquest when national ,
g reed was apparently so greatly in evidence we shall find , ,
if we look into it that the instinct of defence was at least

,
as powerful a motive force as lust of conquest The decline .
o f Spain left the field to the nations which had been the
c ommon enemies o f Spain a nd o f those nations eventually

,
to England and France We have already put the

.
question Why should England have competed with

,
France at all Why were n o t the English content to keep

their island and their liberties secure instead o f r u nning
,
neck and neck for a world wide dominion -

By way
o f further answer let us ask a counter question
,
If .
England had imposed upon herself a self denying ordinance -
if she had refused to take part in competition overseas if ,
s he had confin ed herself as far as possible to her own shores
and left France to pursue her career of Empire unchecked ,
could she have kept her o w n hearth and home secure "
Could she have ensured the liberties o f future generations
o f Englishmen " What does independence mean in the
literal sense o f the word It means n o t being dependent

for life the right to live and the means o f livelihood o n any
, ,
’
one other than one s self Is it possible at the present day
.
for a small people among great nations to be independent

in this true sense Is it possible for a small people to be
free and self governing by the strength o f its own arm
- "
There can only be o n e answer now there has only been one
,
answer in the modern phase o f great nations When modern .
history was young when science was youn g when great and
, ,
small nations alike were young when the resources of

,
greatness and the shortc o mi ngs o f smallness had not been

fully developed it was possible for the smaller to win their
,
liberties from or to hold their liberties aga inst the greater .
The United Netherlands shook the y oke o f Spain from o ff

their necks the English broke up the Spanish Armada

, .
But as the world has gone o n the small peoples have e xisted
, ,
more and more on sufferance their liberties being guaranteed

,
by the greater nations safeguarded in large measure n ot so

,
much by the generosity o f the great as by the j ealousy which

the great ones o f the earth have o f one another It was the .
Empire which delivered England from living o n su fferance .
It was the fact that England grew and insisted o n growing

p a ri p a ss a wi th the growing power o f France It was the .
wars with France which brought the British Navy to e x

c elle n c e ; it was fighting in all parts of the world that
trained English soldiers The fisheries o f Newfoundland
.
were in fact and were officially recognised as being a nursery

, ,
for sailors Fortresses like Gibraltar were taken to safe

.
, ,
guard the trade which made England grow and to be a ,
check on the growth of competitors Had England taken .
no concern in these things could she have held her o w n with

,
a continental power equipped with great armies and many

ships Would n o t her passive attitude have invited
attack When the attack came wou ld she have been ,
able to meet it " Nations like men cannot stand still ;

, ,
they grow o r they decline there could have been an

England if there had bee n no English Empire but it would ,
have been a dependent England If England has made an .
Empire equally the Empire has made England

,
.
On e step leads inevitably on to another and the last ,
motive o r cause o f the Empire which need be noticed is the

irresistible pressure which circumstances of place and time
exercise upon a people having once entered upon the path
o f overseas enterprise o r dominion the impossibility o f
,
standing still the extraordinary diffic ulty o f retracing

,
steps and the disaster which usually follows upon any

,
attempt to do so This is illustr a ted by the history of the

.
was endangering the whole of South Africa including the ,
British colonies The English as we all know shortly

.
, ,
afterwards retired from the Transvaal a case of going back ,
fo r which there had been precedents in British hi story in

South Africa su ffi ciently noticed already All this going
, .
back in South Africa had but o n e result confusion and

. ,
bitterness at the time which is the inevitable res ult o f

,
undoing and eventually moving forward again The price .
o f undoing in South Africa was two and a half years o f the
last great South African War In Egypt England inter.
ve n ed simply to restore order as being one of tw o Powers

,
s pecially responsible in the matter The intervention was .
avowedly intended to be temporary only But having .

,
once intervened the English were compelled to stay and

, ,
not to stay only but to take full control alike o f Egypt and
o f the Sudan .
It would be futile to pretend that the E nglish have in ,
making and adding to their Empire been solely actuated by ,
disinterested motives Like their neighbours they have

.
,
had a keen eye to the main chance But it is equally futile .
to portray the British Empire as the res ult o f greed Wrong .
conceptions of the Empire arise from regarding it as the

outcome o f deliberate purpo se that purpose being always
,
to gain more land and more peoples and more material

advantage It should be regarded rather as a growth
. .
Professor Seeley s term the Expansion o f England most

’
, ,
tr uly expresses the nature o f the Empire and the kind of

forces which have made it Statesmen have struggled
.
against expansion they have at times insisted on subtract

ing instead of adding Adam Smith wrote
. No nation
ever voluntarily gave up the dominion o f any province ,
”
how troublesome soever it mi ght be to govern it He could .
not have written these words at the present day fo r cases ,

vr THE MEANING AND USE OF THE EMPIRE 2 15
to the contrary could be quoted against him from the

colonial history o f England in the past century The cession .
o f the Ionian Islands for instance was a voluntary abdica

, ,
tion o f what w as de facto British sovereignty ; and this it ,
may be noted was one o f the very few cases in which going
,
back was fina l and had a satis factory issue When English.
statesmen have subtracted or when they have refused to

,
add the usual res ult has been one and the same sooner
,
—
o r later their policy has been overborne The determi n ing
.
force has n o t by any means be en simply and solely the

acquisitiveness o f individual or collective Englishmen the
missionary and the philanthropist have pressed a forward
policy as much as the trader and the concessionaire The
, .
free will o f the inhabitants o f the lands into which the

English have intruded has on occasions contributed to the
same result ; good causes and bad m ixed motives have
, ,
combined to make this Empire Or rather it is more

.
accurate to say that the Empire has not been made so

much as it has grown It has grown wit h the growth o f a
.
partic ular race a race whose power to replenish the earth

,
and subdue it—the soil o f the earth its mo u ntains forests

, , ,
and waters no less than its ma n ifold inhabitants—and whose

capacity for a dministration account for the Emp ire at least
as much as its aptitude fo r making money .
The second question is What valid evidence can be

,
adduced to prove that races and peoples n o t of English

blood who have come under English control have benefited
, ,
by that control and what signs are there that they appre c i
,
ate the British Empire as a benefit o r at any rate do not

,
resent it as an inj ury " It would be easy to give figures

showing that growt h o f population and increase of trade
have followed where the English have come in ; but as ,
has been said fig u res are often suspect they are unless
, , ,
skilfully han dled so m ew hatHifele ss and they have been

, ,
elimin ated from this book as far as possible It wo uld be .
easy again to give further illustrations than have already

, ,
been given o f the adva n tages which lands and peoples

have derived from the public works initiated and carried
o u t by E n glish he ads and hands to point to the prevention,
‘
or relief o f famine the increase o f food supply the stoppage

, ,
o f disease to irrigation to reclamation to the road and

, , ,
the rail All these material benefits however flow in a

.
, ,
greater o r less degree from the establishment o f any strong

govern m ent whi ch maintains law and order and uses ,
civilised mac hi nery with vigour and effect They may .
be given under a German system as under English admin is

tratio n and they are compatible with a rule of force and
,
with absence o f any vestige o f freedom A strong govern .
ment even if oppressive causes less mi sery to human beings

, ,
than a weak rule ,however well meaning The words o f the .
Atheni a n democrat have held true to all ages that a state ,
which has worse laws but abides by them is preferable to a

state which has better laws that are not obeyed Adm in is .
tration o n European lines must be bad if it is n o t an improve

ment upon most types o f native ad mi ni stration but this ,
does not by itself prove any very special merit in the British
Empire except so far as the English are proficient in
,
public works .
Let u s try the Empire by slightly di fferent tests and first ,
take a negative test What occasions have there been on

.
which the subj ects o r citizens o f the Empire have risen

against the Empire There have been many occasions o f
the kind before the various component parts of the Empire
,
were given final form and shape in most cases while they ,
were border lands not yet actual provinces o f the Empire

, .
Numberless n ative wars have been recorded in the fore

in strength and independe nce In connexion with thi s .
war it is noteworthy that the lately conquered French

,
Cana dians though invited to rise against England by the

,
revolting English colonists did n o t do so to any appreciable

,
extent ; some sided with the colonists a few with the ,
English ; most remained neutral It is true that those .
who incited t hem to rise were themselves English and ,
English who had been their special foes and rivals Still .
,
they were o ffered the picture and the prospect o f liberty ,
and their o ld mother country j oined the ranks against

England French Canadians can hardly have felt the
.
burden of British rule or they would have risen en rnasse

,
against it English toleration for their customs and their

.
religion embo di ed in the Quebec Act which angered the

,
overseas English and the sympathy which English sol di er

,
governors showed for the people against whom they had

lately been fighting kept that people not firm in allegiance
, ,
perhaps but at least reluctant to rise against a r ule

,
which had already given them more liberty than they

had ever known while they were subj ects o f the King
o f Fran ce .
By far the greatest native rising against the English in

their Empire has been the Indian Mutiny Here again .
, ,
adiscussion o f the causes o f the rising wo uld fill a chapter

a discussion as to how far it was a military rising a mutiny , ,
how far a revolt o f the people or peoples o f India Lord .
Roberts in his autobiography F orty on e Years in I n dia

, ,
-
thinks that it was not who lly a military revolt but a mutiny ,
of soldiers which wo uld not have taken place without a

backing o f popular restlessness and discontent His .
j udgment is o f special value as being the view of a great

,
soldier It would seem that it w as the outcome o f a time of

.
change and unrest a time o f suspicion a time when new

, ,
v1 THE MEANING AND USE OF THE EMPIRE 2 19
wine was being po u red into o ld bottles with the result th a t ,
the bottles burst when measures taken for the amelioration

of the many such as the annexation of Oudh created alarm
, ,
and discontent ; when religious apprehension was aroused ,
and the ill disposed the disappointed and the intriguers

-
, ,
were supplied with arguments The names o f the English .
men w ho were prominent in the crisis are it must once more ,
be said the names o f men w ho stand hi ghest in o u r roll o f

,
honour for devotion and humanity their names alone would

preclude the conclusion that the Mutiny was the result o f
widespread oppression and even as newly conquered
French Canada was n o t alienated and lost through the War
of American Independence so the Punj ab under John ,
Lawrence won but a few years back after the hardest

,
fighting sent Sikh horsemen and infantry to carry the

,
English cause into safety and success .
The Boer Wars in South Africa are difficult to cla ss in

any category They were partly foreign partly civil wars ;
.
,
but as has been already suggested they were in reality

, ,
rather risings within the Empire than attacks from without .
What estimate shall be given o f them " It can only be

repeated that the English brought the trouble on them
selves by not knowing their o wn minds The ris ing o f .
Dutch against English originated as the American War o f ,
Independence originated n o t in oppression but in mis ,
management from home dating from the early years o f the

,
nineteenth century The repulsion the race ani mosity is

.
,
gradually abating now that the fight has been fought o u t

,
and that South Af rica is a self governing do mi nion If the -
great South Af rican War is quoted as an instance o f aversion

by a non British race to British domination then in fairness
-
the sequel o f the South Af rican War and the events w hi ch ,
are happening to day must also be quoted as evidence o f

-
,
British capacity for conciliation and win ning confidence

by the grant o f freedom withi n the Empire .
Turn from what may be called negative evidence drawn ,
from the important uprisings within and against the Empire ,
to more positive evidence as to the benefits accruing from

the Empire and appreciation o f the benefits It must be
,
.
borne in m in d that discontent may be the offspring of a

‘
good empire because it is good no less than o f a bad empire

,
because it is bad and that di scontent may even be fostered

by the fact that a good empire has been long in existence .
A people transferred from bad rule to good rule welcome

the change with gratitude they realise the advantage o f
,
the new conditions and contrast them with the o ld But

, .
in a few years a generation rise s u p which has never known

the o ld bad conditions Living in their own land and most
.
o f them never moving out o f it they are n o t able to compare

,
the regime under w hi ch they live with the order under which
other peoples pass their lives To them what is good in
.
their government has become a matter o f course ; while any

defects— and there may be and constantly are defects ,
many o f them handed on from the time before the new

rulers came in —become the subj ect o f complaint and the ,
motive of di scontent ; whereas in the less enlightened time

they wo uld have been passed over or accepted with ,
resignation as the natural and recurring accompaniments

,
of l ife A policy too such as the British policy the

.
, , ,
policy of diversity to whi ch the last chapter was

devoted the policy o f giving full play to the cus toms
,
and traditions o f the soil a policy which tends to

,
encourage what is called nationalism breeds at once ,
content and discontent ; content because the people have

so much their own way di scontent because havi n g so
, ,
much they have not more Discontent is synonymo u s

, .
they are taking part in en suring a successful issue and

, ,
thereby securing the maintenance o f the Empire " Is it

not certain that the one main apprehension in India was
lest they should be given no part to play in the war in which ,
they feel that as members o f a common Empire they can

, ,
claim a rightful share " Is it to be supposed that princes

and people are giving their lives and their princely gifts
~
without any heart behind them If so it is contrary to ,
the teaching alike o f hi story and o f common sense The same .
story comes from Canada It is reasonable to suppose that

.
French Canadians are in part at any rate attracted by the

, ,
alliance of England with their o ld motherland but whatever ,
be their motive they are sending their sons side by side with
,
English Canadians to fight fo r the cause as partners in the

Empire This partnership is the theme o f the late Prime
.
Minister of the Do mi nion the great French Canadian , ,
Sir Wilfrid Laurier no less than o f the present Prime

,
Minister of British descent The existence of Canada is not

.
threatened nor likely to be threatened Canada has n o

, .
German colonies o r possessions within her o w n horizon but ,
the horizon o f the Empire is hers she takes her part and
sends her men In South Africa with the Great War but
.
,
a thing o f yesterday race feeling and Dutch nationalism is

,
o r has been strong Here are Germans hard by to fan it

.
,
to supply munitions of war to stimulate and sti ffen re ,
bellion Yet from South Af rica there is in the main the

.
same story to tell Dutchmen have crushed their recal

.
c itran t kindred and j oin with English fellow citizens to -
square accounts with the German enemies o f the Empire .
The same 1s true of all lands and peoples wherever the

British flag flies The native races offer service
. the
islands o f the seas send gifts There has been no pressure .
from a do minant power ; wh a t h a s been done what has ,

been o ffered has been spontaneous diversities contributing

, ,
and bearing testimony to unity .
Let us take a wholly different test Under a strong .
government even if it is a government of force the in

, ,
digenous population may grow ; slaves will multiply if ,
their material condition is cared for and it is quite possible

and likely that aliens may imm igrate in order to be under
a strong government even though it is oppressive provided
, ,
that their lives and property will thereby be more secure

than in their o wn native homes But it would be very .
difficult to find a complete parallel to the volume of Chinese

immigration into British territory o r territory under British
protection The Chinese will be found n o doubt in numbers
.
, , ,
wherever in Eastern o r Pacific re gions the lands are open

to them and where European order reigns but hardly to
, ,
the extent to which they have come in where En glishmen are

supreme At the present day Sin gapore is largely a Chinese
.
city In the whole colony of the Straits Settlements the

.
,
Chinese now outnumber the Malays they outnumber them

in the Federated Malay States It is true that this would or
.
mi ght not be the case were they n o t attracted by the tin

,
mines but the tin mines would not a fford sufficient attrae
,
tion unless the profits from mining were secure lives safe , ,
and j ustice assured The island o f Hongkong when the

.
,
Engli sh annexed it in 18 41 was inhabited by some 7 5 00

,
Chinese fishermen and others

, It has n o w a Chinese
.
population o f over The Chi nese are a very

conservative race very shrewd very industrious and c o m
, ,
m ercial they know what good rule means to the governed ;

apparently they appreciate British rule There is a white .
race also w hi ch seems to appreciate British rule This .
is the German race The self governing dominions

.
contain large numbers of German settlers who become ,

2 24 THE BRITISH E MPIRE an .
excellent citizens The great commercial centres in

.
the Crown colonies such as Singapore and Hongkong

, ,
contain o r have till these last days contained among their

, ,
most prominent merchants German firms Is this only , .
part o f a far sighted patriotic policy o f supplanting England "

-
Is there not also some attraction in British j ustice and

freedom It may be noted that Singapore and Hongkong ,
the two cases taken for illustration stand o u t conspicuous ,
in the British Empire as being free ports to the whole world .
Perhaps it is unnecessary to multiply evidence further

‘
to quote again cases in which peoples have invited British

rule to argue that the Sudanese peasant is better o ff under
,
a British Protectorate than under the Mahdi and knows that ,
he is better o ff When war was recently declared between

.
England and Turkey Sir Reginald Wingate at Khartoum

,
was able to say to the religious sheikhs and ulema o f the

Sudan : Each o n e o f yo u present can bear witness that
the British Government has brought peace and security o f
in di vidual life and property to the Sudan in a degree that
has never been seen before at any previous time Y ou can .
bear witness that we the English here as throughout ou r

, , ,
dominions have wronged no man willingly have e n

, ,
deavo u re d to give equal j ustice to all and have spared ,
no pains o r expense to improve the lot o f the people in every

”
way His words w on w illing assent The translation
. .
o f a letter to him from a Sudanese chief runs Under

your flag which protects many millions o f other Moham
,
m e dan s we are enj o ying f ull liberty in the exercise o f our

,
religious duties as well as our daily work in the same way

, ,
as all the other millions of Mohammedans under your rule .
It is to o often forgotten especially in this land of party

,
government that the maj ority o f men and women are n o t

,
vio lent politici a ns ; the y are mainly concerned with living

-
In the first place an En glishman s question ’

What is ,
the good o f the Empire to me is somewhat mea ningless .
It has as much o r as little meaning as the question What ,
is the good o f being an Englishman " o r What is the

good o f being born John S mi th must quarrel with the
parents who brought him into the world without consulting
hi s wishes and who
,
in S pite o f all temptations to belong to
,
”
other nations decided that he shoul d be an Englishman
,
.
Being born an Englishman he was born a member of a

,
particular race which has run a particular course has had ,
certain instincts and taken a line o f its o w n He may

, .
have preferred not to have been born o n an island but he ,
cannot help himself ; no more can he help having been

born o n an island which has developed into an Empire .
He may persuade himself that all English history has been

a mistake ; he may cast his vote against any further addition
to the Empire and in favour of any subtraction from it ;
but he cannot alter the fact o f its present existence ; and
only by extraordinary ignorance or misreading o f hi story
can he imbibe and propagate the doctrine that the Empire
has been the work o f the grasping insidious few a crime and
, ,
a blunder w hi ch wo uld never have been perpetrated if the

,
workers had had the reins o f power Such a doctrine pays

.
to o high a compliment to the few ; it implies a kind o f

apostolic succession with continuity o f thought and
,
design among a very li mi ted class of English leaders It

, .
entirely ignores the startling facts that in the reign

of Queen Elizabeth when all the misc hi ef began the
, ,
people were heart and soul in it ; that when the ,
people had for a while done with Kings and Bishops

and Houses o f Lords and put their o wn special man
, ,
Oliver Cromwell in supreme power he was heart and

, ,
soul in it too John Smith a n d the like o f him have to

.
learn that there is evolution in the life o f nations as in

p
all forms o f life .
But has the Empire done nothing fo r the poor working Wh t th a e
“ n 7
0‘
man of England He is ba dly o ff in England could not m g i s ,
an a n
be worse he says There are the Bri ti sh Domi ni ons beyond fr m the
, .
o
m
the seas not o nly sen ding corn and beef and mutton and ffgffig
‘
,
wool but offering homes and chances n o t of live lihood

,
$1353} ,
merely but o f comfort and even riches to those who are

, , i e n c es .
not wasters It costs money to cross the seas ; but there

.
are many agencies for helping the wo u ld b e emigrants to -
lands where they will be under the same flag under similar ,
laws under si m ilar but even more democratic conditions

, ,
where the same language is spoken where the same customs , ,
traditions forms o f religion prevail Is this nothing "

, .
There are the tropical possessions o f Great Britain D o the .
working classes a t home rea lise ho w much o f their food and

their clothing and o f the raw material which gives the
employment and fi nds the wages come from the tropics , .
’
Ask at Price s candle factory at Lever s soap works at ,
’
’
Cadbury s cocoa mills What feeds the cotton mills o f
.
Lancashire " Where does the rubber come from for the
Coventry mo tor works " Where are the bananas grown
which the costermonger is selling in the streets " The
answer comes back : all t hi s is true It is true and we know .
,
it that it is a great thing fo r starving Englishmen to have

,
homes open to them beyond the seas It is true and we .

,
know it that our tea and sugar and tobacco and cotton
,
come from tropical lands But this does n o t prove the value
.
of the Empire There could be homes for Englishmen

.
beyond the seas as for Germans without any Empire at

, ,
all and as a matter o f fact till a few years ago infinitely , ,
more Englishmen went to the United States whi ch ,
cut themselves a dr ift from the Empire than to all the ,

British do mi nions put to gether The same reasoning .

'
applies to the tropical products They need n o t be grown .
under the British flag and do not grow any the better for
,
having the shade o f that flag As a matter o f fact a large

.
,
proportion comes from co u ntries which have nothing to do

with the Empire How much Lancas hi re cotton comes from
.
the United Stat es 2 What provi nces o f the Empire produce

tobacco to any appreciable extent " J a maica sen ds some ,
and Borneo but what percentage does it bear to the

,
foreign grown tobacco " How much co ffee is imported

-
from British possessions in proportion to the total import

of co ffee
The case has been stated as above in order to emphasise ,
what appear to the present writer to be two arguments in

favo ur o f the Empire whi ch are wholly based on modern
conditions and which seem likely to become more and more
,
important The Free Trade movement in England and

.
,
its success amoun ted to a decision by the people o f the

,
United Kingdom which went far beyond the immediate

question o f the day It w as a decision that the future o f
.
E n gland sho uld be almost wholly the future o f a manu

fac tu rin g importing and exporting land ; that agriculture
, ,
should be in the background ; that E ngland sho uld be not

s o much a country as a collection o f great cities This .
decision involved the necessity o f dependence upon other

lands for the n ecessities o f life Richard Cobden the great
.
,
apostle o f Free Trade among all English public men was

, ,
perhaps the most indi fferent to Empire ; indeed he w as

actively hostile to it He believed that there was no gain
.
to England in retaining her colo ni es and no gain to them , .
He believed that the obvious advantages o f Free Trade

wo uld cut the ground from under E mpire and that the ,
world would become on e great peaceful m a rket The .

of a family will stretch a furth er point fo r o n e another than

would be conceded by strangers .
While England has become more and more dependent o n

supplies brought over the seas scientific invention to which , ,
some further reference must now be made has grown apace , .
All forecasts o f the future o f the Empire and of the world

must be wide bf the mark unless full allowance is made ,
for the limitless possibilities o f science Two e ffects o n .
England may be specially noted The present war and the .
exploits o f aviators in it teach us that England is ceasing

to be an island London was not darkened at night when
.
Napoleon gathered his forces at Boulogne to invade England .
The England of to day in relation to the continent is n o t

-
, ,
the England o f a hundred y e ars ago The arguments .

,
therefore that no Empire is needed because o f the insular

,
position the self contained security of the motherland are

,
-
, ,
like unsound o r damaged aeroplanes rapidly falling to the ,
ground Home defence o n land has become more important

.
than ever and England is gradually exchanging the position

,
o f a unique European Power unique because of her se a girt ,

-
shores for that o f a European Power somewhat less easy

, ,
to attack than the others n o t by any means in the first ,
rank in area and in population far below Russia and

,
Germany In order to hold her o w n with the other fi rst

.
class Powers she must in a more real and more vital sense
, ,
than ever before include in her estimate o f herself and in

, ,
the estimate which others form o f her the area and the ,
population o f her overseas Empir e The mother country ,
must identify herself absolutely with the Empire as the o n e ,
road to national salvation This is becoming increasingly .
possible ; for while science is weakening the position o f

,
England as an island kingdom it is greatly strengthening the ,
position o f England as an Empire Attention has already .

v1 TH E ME ANING AND USE OF THE EMPIRE 2 3 1
been drawn to the great importance to an Imperial Power of

the constancy and certainty as well as the speed o f com
m u n ic atio n which telegraphy submarine and wireless pro
, ,
vides But it is not merely a matter of sending messages to

.
distant lands and peoples the lands and pe e ples themselves

are more and more ceasing to be distant The miles are .
there but they are n o t the miles that they once were The
,
.
powers of steam grow aviation is only in its infancy the

same forces which are making England continental are bring
ing the di fferent pa rts o f the Empire closer together As .
the necessity fo r broadening the basis o f the English nation

increases as the conviction grows that the basis can n o
,
longer be an island th at it must be an Empire so the

, ,
faci lities for broadening the basis increase What w as im .
possible in past centuries is possible n o w What seems to .
be but a dream n o w will if we reason from the past to the

,
future and bear in mind that under the rule o f science the
,
world moves at a constantly accelerated pace become a ,
waking reality .
But John S mi th does not reason thus The coming . .
time fo r him may take care o f itself He is concerned with .
the present He only knows that it is hard enough to win

.
his daily bread ; if he is told that his bread comes in the

form of grain from Canada that the wool which made his
,
coat was once on the back o f sheep o n the Darling Downs in

Australia that West Af rican palms gave him hi s o il and his
,
candles he may o r may n o t beli eve it ; if he believes it

, ,
he will find some o n e to tell him that all these good thi ngs
might and would have accrued without the Empire If .
,
again he is warned that in that case a war might cut

,
them o ff he answers that if statesmen were wise and if the

, ,
working men controlled the state there wo uld be no war , .
Then war comes as it has come at the present time In

, .
time o f peace he has been at pains to explain that he could ,
not have been worse o ff if he had been a Ger m an than he is

as an Engl ishman that the state would have looked better
,
after him and at any rate he wo uld have had employment

, .
At the same time with some inconsistency he has inveighed

, ,
against any proposal to introduce the comp ulsorymilitary

system o f Germany into England He has been quite safe .
in saying that he wo uld as soon be a German as an English

man because he has never been and is not likely to be a
,
German n or have any o f his fr iends who might otherwise

, ,
possibly have contradicted him He is dissatisfied with his .
lot in the world ; and never having known any other than
English conditions he concludes that different conditions
,
must be better But war comes serious and full o f danger

.
, ,
to England coast towns are bombarded and little children

killed if he is at all typical o f the large maj ority o f English
men the poorest as well as the richest the miner as well as
, ,
the Duke s so n and if he is within the age limits he thinks

’
, ,
about j oining the forces Why He will not hear o f

.
ceding a yard o f British territory anywhere in the world

he welcomes the advent of troops from Canada Australasia , ,
India Why . He is n o t compelled to fight o r to do any

thing he can sit at home and go o n using the same phrases
as before But he realises that there is something in English
.
liberty there is something in belonging to E ngland which is

,
worth fighting for and if necessary dying for ; that he

, , ,
would rather remain a British subj ect than be the subj ect
o f some other Power ; and so far as Canada Australia New , ,
Zealand South Africa Ne w foundland India and the other

, , , ,
provinces of the Empire are fighting the English fight he ,
is heart and soul with them This is not the same thing
.
as reasoned belief that the Empire is a political necessity ;

but it is the same instin ct as th a t w hi ch in the John
given life and strength to the British Empire It may all be .
expressed in terms of the British instinct to do and the British ,
capacity for doing a good piece o f work The artisan who

, .
,
sees no advantage in the Empire at least knows a good piece

,
of work in his o w n trade when he sees it ; and if he is cast in ,
the mould after which British workmen have been fashioned

“
in the past he will not lend his h and to a bad piece of work
, ,
not merely because he is an honest man but because it wo uld ,
be contrary to his workmanlike instinct This is the quality .
o r characteristic on a great scale which has b ui lt up the
Empire British sense o f j ustice has done much for the

.
race in dealing with other races ; but sense of j ustice is only

another term for sense o f proportion seeing men and things ,
as they are , taking a true and not a faulty per

s e c tive The man who sets o u t to build a good house
p .
means to be paid well fo r hi s work the people who construct

,
an Empire mean to make their profit but the o n e and the

other have something in view besides gain they set them ,
selves to prove to themselves an d to whomever it may .
concern that they kn ow their j ob that they are capable ,
workmen The Empire then ought to appeal to the work

.
, ,
men o f England if only as the largest illustration that can

,
be taken of the constructive power of Englishmen This .
point of view wo uld be appreciated if the hi story of the

Empire were taught without mini mi sing any of the wrong
,
doing o f the past o r the present without attempting to ,
deny that sor di d motives have had play as well as higher

aims but with due insistence that it is contrary alike to
,
reason and to the facts of history to represent the acquisition

by England o f an overseas Empire as an artificial process ,
the product o f a line of self seeking men solely intent o n

-
personal advantage and not as it actually has been a

, , ,
natural and national growth necessary to England fo r the

,
VI THE MEANING AND USE OF THE EMPIRE 23 5
defence o f England congenial to Englishmen as the kind o f

,
work for which their character and their training have

adapted them and incumbent upon England as the part
,
which has been assigned to thi s particular land and people

in the evolution o f the world .
F o r some Englishmen at any rate especially if it is , ,
brought home to them what a force religion has been in

the overseas history o f England and what a large proportion ,
o f the principal acto rs in that history have been in one form ,
o r another religious men will rise from a study o f the Empire

, ,
with a stronger conviction than before that

There ’
i v in i t y tha t ha pe s o
s a D s ur en ds ,
R o u gh he w th m h w w w ill
-
e o e ,
—
and to supplement Shakespeare s words with Tennyson s ’ ’
that
thr o u gh the i cr ea i g p urp o e ru
ag e s o n e n s n s n s,
A n d the th o u ght s of n d w i th th p r o c s o f the s u

’
m en a re w ide e e s n s.
There has been rough hewing enough and to spare in the

-
methods by which the British Empire has been brought to

its present stage ; but there has been e vidence o f an increasing
purpose and most assuredly a widening o f the thoughts
,
both o f the race which has extended its Emp ire and o f the
races over which the Empire has been extended There .
is no cant o r hyp ocrisy in the vie wthat all peoples have their
work to do in the world and that the English are o n e o f the
,
races to whom overseas work has been allotted It is .
obvi ous that doctrines o f this kind may be used to cover a

multitude o f sins but this fact does not make the doctrin es
,
untrue and if they are honestly held they tend to higher

, ,
aims and purer actions to stronger resolutions to more , ,
persistent pursuit o f Justice By their fruits ye shall .
”
know them If the end of England came to day and the
.
-
,
THE BRITISH EMPIRE on . VI
island were merged in the se a which has ever b een its good
friend the work would remain behind and the world wo uld
, ,
be a better world for the fact that Englishmen had lived and
wrought in it and left their posterity beyond the ocean to
,
carry on their working capacity and their sense o f fair play .
But the island is n o t yet submerged It stands four .
square still the original home o f the race the corner stone
, ,
-
o f the Empire It has been attempted to trac e the steps by

.
whi ch thi s small area o f land which was once the extreme
,
north western corner o f the o ld world became in a great

-
pool a swan s nest as the horizon broadened fr

’ ”
,
om the
Narrow Seas to the ocean which compasses the earth .
But it is only when Englishmen cross the ocean that they

realise what the Empire means and what the island stands,
fo r in the minds o f mi llions It is the Mecca o f the race and

.
,
to multitudes who are n o t of the race it is more than o n e o f

many lands B y the smaller peoples an d by the native
.
races it is associated di mly o r clearly with liberty It is

, , .
a new thing in the exp erience o f men that a people who have ,
been constantly taking and constantly profiting have none ,
the less been constantly giving and that in some strange way
,
annexation has spelled freedom Englishmen would per .
haps value the Empire more if they appreciated the value

,
which is placed upon it by those who are n o t English ;

they would think o f their island as something more than the
partic ular spot o f the world in to which they have been cast
by the accident o f birth if they realised the love and the
,
confidence which is centre d in it from beyond the seas .

THE BRITISH EMPIRE
A m ric N o rth contin ue d
e a, -
B ac o Fr n ci 2 0 5 4 62 7 3 2 05
n, a s, , , ,
Briti h c ol on i ti on 4 2 46
s sa , , , 48 t
e
‘
o H ry VII 2 0
n en
seq . o pl ta ti n s 7 3 2 05
n an o , ,
C d S ee Cana da
an a a. o n tr p o rtati on 62
an s ,
di c o v ry 2 1
s e B ffin 5 3
a
Fr c h N orth Am e ric an E m pir e

, ,
en B h m s 57 174
a a a , ,
S ch e m e 8 6 , l gisl tur 17 4
e a e,
sl va tra d S ee S l v tr de
e e. a e a B ker 14 6
a ,
Un it d S ta t s S ee Un ite d S ta t s
e e . e B alti m o r L rd 5 0 e, o ,
Am e ric S uth d Ce tr al
a, o an n B d 65
an a,
Mo r oe d o ctri
n S eM o e d oc ne. e o nr B ks S ir Jose ph 102
an , ,
tri ne B ta m 6 3 6 5
an , ,
sl v tr d S ee S l ve tr de
a e a e. a a Barb dos 42 5 7 60 16 4 17 4 2 10
a
Am ric S p i h— l ve tr d 60
, , , , , ,
e a, an s s a a e, Briti h c ol is ti 5 7
s on a on ,
A m eric War of In de pe d n c e 7 7
an n e , l gisl t r 1 7 4
e a u e,
9 5 , 2 17 B r tapl e 69
a ns ,
A mh e rst G ral J ffr y 89 , en e e e , Barton An dre w 1 1 , ,
An gl o S x n in vas i o n of Brita in 8
-
a o , B ra 6 4
as ,
An so Lord 101 1 13
n, , , B sutol d 1 2 9 1 7 8 17 9
a an , , ,
An t rctic e x pl r ti 1 4 5
a o a on , B thur t 12 3
a s ,
An ti C or Law Ass ociati on 1 1 7

-
n , B ec h uanal d 15 3 an ,
An tigua 5 7 , Be lgi re f ug s in E gl d 4 4
an ee n an ,
Ar bi P sha 14 9
a a , B lgiu m G rm n in v i on (vi ol ti o
e , e a as a n
A c t 94
r o , f utr lity ) 2 4 3
o ne a , ,
Arctic e xpl r t i o 145 o a n, B liz e 105

e ,
Aristo tl e 7 8 , B c ol e 6 5 1 13
en o n, ,
Arm da S ee S p nis h Ar m d a
a . a a B g l 64 9 4 9 8
en a , , ,
Artillery fi t pi c es m d i E g
, rs e a e n n B ni 3 4
e n,
l d durin g Hen ry VI I I s re ig
an .
’
n, Be rm ud s 42 5 4 163 17 4a , , , ,
24 l gi l tur 17 4
e s a e,
Asc si o 105
en n, B rn d otte 9 9
e a ,
Asha ti w rs 124
n a , Bid f rd 69
e o ,
As sam 1 1 3 , Blacksto e on th Kin g s S O n ,

e
’
VO
Ass y b ttl e of 101

a e, a ,
re ign t
y, 3
As i en t o 8 4
s , Bl ke Ad ir l
a , m a , 71
As sou dam 190 an ,
B 1ank ct 15
Aus tr li a a Bl n k t Th o mas 15
a e , ,
Briti h s ttl m t 4 2 83 102 1 6 2

s e e en , , , , Bl axl d 1 3 4 an ,
bushr ge r 1 3 5 an s, Bligh C pta in 1 3 9

, a ,
Co m m o w lth Act 15 2 1 7 0 n ea , , Bl oe mf o t in 12 8 129 n e , ,
c o tituti on 17 1
ns ,
B rd of Tr ad e d Pl tati
oa an an o ns , 72
e x pl o r ti o 13 4 a n, 107
g o ld disc o v ry of 13 3
, e ,
B oe rs , 1 16, 12 5 , 15 3 , 1 9 6, 2 2 1 . S eé
Parli m ts 17 1 a en , I
also Tran s vaal , an d So uth Afri
rac es 1 65 , c an wa rs
st te rig h t
a 17 1 s, B oe r w r S e S o ut h Afric
a s. e an wa r s
tr p rtati o 62 102 ab oli sh d

an s o n, ,
e , B m b y 65
o a ,
13 2 B m bay pr es id cy 182
o en ,
Austri a, Briti h tr ty s ea w ith B o o m p la tz , 12 8

1 13 B or n eo , 65 , 14 3 , 14 9 , 15 7 , 18 1
INDE "
B o rn Briti h N o rth 14 9 180
e o, s , , British N orth B o r neo C om p y an . 15 7 ,
B osc w n Adm ir l 89 101
a e , a , , 1 80
B st
o on 14 Briti h s So uth Afric C o m p y a an , 14 9 ,
B tn
os o 50 15 4 , 180
B t y Bay 103
o an , Br k C pt i 100
o e, a a n,
B ug in vill D 102 1 13
o a e, e, , Bro kh r t S p uit 13 1
n o s r ,
Brab t J h Duk of 17
an , o n , e , Broo k R j h J m 14 3
e, a a a e s,
Br dd ock G e r l 80
a , ne a , Brun i 18 1 e ,
Br d (H ty o f 5 1
e a, ea , Bull r Ch rl 1 18
e , a es ,
Bri sb 13 3
an e , Bull r S ir R dv rs 13 1
e , e e ,
Bri st l 14 15 69
o , , , B ulu wayo , 15 1
Brit i R o m 6
a n, an , Burk E d u d
e, m n , 96 , 1 3 4
Britis h ch r cte r 19 4 et seqa a , . Bur m a, 14 1, 15 7
Briti h C lum bi 1 19
s o a, Bur m se W e 113 ar 1 4 1, 15 7
Briti h C tt G r w i g Associ ti o
s o on -
o n a n, Burt 14 6 on ,
2 29 Bushir 64 e,
British E t Af ric as an As c i ti so a on , Bus y Marq uis de 9 3

s , ,
15 6 Butt 5 3 on,
Briti h E m pir
s e Byn g Ad m ir l 100
,
a ,
ad m inis trati o n, s ucces s of Briti h s , By g th ld r 100

n , e e e ,
19 1
A m ric a W r o f I d p d c
e n a n e en en e, Cab o t J ohn 2 1 2 2 5 4 62 2 02
, , , , , ,
ff ct f 9 7
e e o , Cab o t Se b tia 2 2 2 5 2 04
,
as n, , ,
appre ci ti o vid c of 2 2 0a n, e en e , Cabul 140 ,
b fi ts to
ene B riti h pe pl n on -
s o es Ca diz 205 ,
w it h i th E m pir 2 15 et seq
n e e, . C l is 1 1
a a ,
Briti h ig ora ces d s u pici o n n an s n Calcutta 6 6 9 4 , ,
o f, 1 Califo rn i 3 5 a,
cli ma te 1 63 , Ca md n 3 1 e ,
c l isati
o on firs t tte m pts on , a at, 34 Ca m pb ll S i C lin e S ee Clyd L rd
, r o . e, o
ci seq . Cana da
dive r iti s 162 195
s e , ,
Adv tur r t C da 5 2 en e s o an a ,
E glish d ire fo E m pire

n es r ex Briti h c q ues t f 8 9
s on o ,
pl in ed 4 1 et s q 109
a , e .
,
Briti h pr f r c 7 1 s e e en e,
G rme m is c c pti ns l 19 5
an on e o , ,
c ol isa ti 5 2 16 2
on on , ,
gr ow th its gr du l 2 14, a a ,
c n f ed r ti n 1 19 16 9
o e a o , ,
m ea i g its 2 00 et eq
n n , , s . c tituti 17 1
o ns on ,
m tiv s f E m pir 2 03 ci seq

o e o e, . dis c o v ry 2 5 e ,
origins 5 ,
F r c h C n di ns 19 6 2 18 2 2 1
en a a a , , , ,
o v rs as
e te rpri
e d xp nsio en se a n e a n, 2 22
5 , 18 ci s eq . , 109 , 2 01 g vr
o e n men t r p
ibl 1 18
,
es on s e,
products 164 2 27 , ,
H uds o n B ay C o m p y s te rrit ri an
’
o e s,
r c 1 65
a e s, 12 1
r in g g ins t 2 16
is s a a ,
l oy l t r f ug es fro m Un ite d
a is e e
siz 1 60e, S ta tes 1 16

P rli m e t D o m ini o —p owe rs 17 1
,
te ur s 16 6
n e ,
a a n n ,
u se , its, 2 00 et s eq . r ces 165

a ,
value t Briti h pe o pl 201 2 2 5

o s e, , r il w y 1 19
a a s,
Briti sh H o duras S ee H n dur s n . o a , ri i g i

s n rth w st 15 2 n no -
e ,
British Un i o Act n 1 19
2 40 THE BRITISH EMPIRE
C i g G rg
ann n , eo e, 114 Ci qu P rt 12
n e o s, , 70
C t 6 5 14 3
an o n , ,
Civil r vic c l se es , o o ni a l , 187 , 1 9 3
C ut Ki g 8
an e, n , l ri es 193
sa a ,
Can yn ges, Willi m 1 4 a ,

Civili in g i nfl u c o f Briti h r
s en e s ule , 189
C p e Br t Isl d 8 3 90
a e on an , , Cl ap h m circl 2 08
a e,
Cape C o st C tle 5 9 12 4
a as , , Clap pe rton, 1 4 6
C p e Co l o y
a n Cl d
aren o n , 2 10
Briti h o ccup ti on 102 12 5

s a , , Cl rk
a s o n , 107
g o ve r m e t r sp ons ibl 12 9
n n , e e, O iv b rt
l e , R o e , 86, 9 2 , 9 3 , 9 7 , 9 8, 106 ,
te rrito ri al e x p nsi o 12 9 a n, 1 93 , 19 4
tran sp ortati on 62 , Cl th tr d
o a e 15 , I 7 ,
C pe of G o o d H p e c ircu mn aviga
a o , C yd L rd
l e, o , 14 1
ti on of 2 1 , C bb tt Wil
o e , li am , 1 14
Caraus ius , 6 C bd
o en , Ric h rda , 1 1 8, 2 2 8
C rlyl
a E gli h c h r ct r 2 3 3
e , on n s a a e , C c K li g I l d 1 13
o os -
ee n s an s,
C r rv L rd 170
a na on , o ,
Cl Bi h p 1 3 0
o e ns o , s o ,
C r tic 9 3
a na ,
C ll y S i G rg 1 3 1
o e , r eo e,
C r li 3 6 5 1 6 2
a o na, , , C l i l O ffi c 7 2 107 142
o on a e, , , , 17 7
C rt g
a a 100en a,
C rti r J cqu 2 5
a e , a e s, c onstituti on s 1 67 et seq ,
.
, 176
C tri h rb u f 9 2
as es, a o r o , Cro wn 167 17 6 et seq , ,
. c ons titu
C th y 2 6
a a , ti s 17 8 on ,
C th y C m p y f 3 2 5 3
a a , o an o , , f d r ti o 169
e e a n,
C th ri f Br g z 65
a e ne o a an a , g o ve r m e t res p o ibl e
n n ,
ns , 1 1 8 , 12 9
C v di h Th m 29
a en s , o as, 1 69
C l b 65
e e es , g ve rn m e t self 15 0 168
o n , , ,
C t w y Ki g 1 30
e e a o, n , r pr es e tative i tituti n s
e n ns o ,
C yl 6 4 101 17 9 1 84 18 7
e on , , , , , ni w ith 1 7 4
o es ,
c ons tituti on 179 , Co l on i S ecr tary f S tat e for

es , e o , 1 7 6,
Cham pl ain S m u l 5 2 8 5 , a e , , 1 82
Ch c ll o r R ic hard 2 7
an e , , C l i ti
o on sa on , 3 4 , 4 3 , 2 09
Chan d r g ore 9 3 9 4 140
e na , , , E gli hn p h c ol on i l his
s an d S ani s a
Ch rles I 67
a .
, to ry c o m par d 40 e ,
Ch rl IL 5 1
a es ,
En gli h atte m pts rly 3 4 4 3
s ,
ea , ,
Cha rt re d c o m p an i es 2 6 3 1
e , , et s eq tr de rel ati on t 46 65 69 2 02 3
a , o, , , ,
-
14 9 Co lum bu Chris to phe r 2 1 s, ,
Ch th m L rd 88 9 5
a a , o , , , 98 Co m p an i s c ha rte red S ee Char
e ,
.
Ch th m Ch t 3 1
a a es ,
”
te d c o m p re i es an
Ch l m f rd L rd 13 1
e s o , o , Com pani s jo in t to ck S ee Jo in t
e ,
-
s .
Ches ap eake, 100 s t o ck c o m p n i es a
Ch t r
es e , 70 Co m p anies m erc han t S ee Mer ,
.
Ch i na c h t c o m p i es
an an
Briti sh p oss i o s 65 1 4 3 15 8 ess n , , , C o g o 14 6

n ,
E ur o p n in tru i 4 3 144
ea s on , , Co cticut 168
nn e ,
Chin esei m migrati n in to Briti h o s Constituti on al govern m en t 7 7 167 , ,
te rrit ry 2 2 3 o , et seq .
Chi s w rs 14 3
ne e a , Co ns tituti ons d o m in i ,
o n an d c ol on i l a ,
Chins ur h 9 3 1 40 a , , 16 7 et s eq .
, 1 7 6, 1 7 8
Christm as I l n d 158 s a , C k C pt i J
oo , a a n a m es, 102 , 12 0, 1 3 5 ,
Ch urc h Mis si onary S oci e ty 1 35 156 , , 145
THE BRITISH EMPIRE
E gl d
n an -
{ o min u ed Fr bi h r M rti
o s e , a n, 2 9 , 3 1, 3 2 , 5 3 , 6 2 ,
R o m an in fl u ce 6 en s, 2 05
c tl d uni o w ith 5
S o an ,
n , F ll r
u e , 7 3 , 13 2 , 160, 2 06
se ve t e t h c en tury p litic l his
n e n , o a
to ry f 4 7 o , Gl a am , 92
E gli h c ha r ct r dive r el m ts
n s a e , se e en G allic , 19 8
o f 5 ; C arlyl
, o 233 e n, G am bi
a, 5 8 , 1 2 4 , 1 5 2
E t rprise
n e G eo rg
ia, 5 1, 6 2 , 85
m tiv e f E m pir e
o s 2 03 o , a a, G r
e ma n,i L rd G rg
o eo e , 1 07 .
o v rs a e S ee Ov rse s
e te rpri
s. e a en se G e m anr i i r ti
mm g a o n i t British
n o
E pe b l c of p ow r 7 9
ur o an a an e e , p os ssi ns 2 2 3 se o ,
E xecutiv Co u cils 1 7 6 e n , G rm y
e an
E xpl or ti o 1 45 a n, c ol i l xp ns i
on a d c l ni l e a on an o o a
E yre G o ve rn o r 123 13 4 13 5
, , , , p olicy 1 5 0 1 5 4 15 6 19 1 , , , ,
go v r m e t b s lute 169
e n n , a o ,
F lkl d I l d 1 13
a an s an s, i vas i on of Belgium 2 4 3
n , ,
F l m th 69
a ou ,
u if rm ity G r m an beli f 19 5
n o , e e ,
F i g I l d 15 2
ann n s an , w r e x pl in e d the pr se n t 7 7
a a ,
e ,
F d r t d M l y St t
e e a e a a a e s. S ee Mly a a Gh zni 140
a ,
t te s
S a Gh t Treaty of 100
en , ,
Fe d r ti on c ol o i l 1 69 et s q
e a ,
n a ,
e . G ibb o c om m t o Cn, ius 6 en n araus ,
Fiji 189
, G ibraltar 13 9 160 1 6 3 179 , , , ,
Fitz he rb rt H u m p hr y 5 2 e , e ,
G ilbe rt S i H u m phr y 2 6 3 0 3 5
, r e , , ,
Fl em i h s ttl m t i E gl d 15
s e e en n n an , ,
45 G ilbe rt Isl d 15 2 an s,
Fl orid 3 5 9 2 a, , G in gihlo vo , 13 1
F rb es 89
o , G ipp G rg 13 6
s , S ir eo e,
F rm osa 64
o , Gl d t
a 148 s on e,
F rr st S ir J h 1 3 5
o e , o n, Gl lg L rd 12 6 17 8
en e , o , , , 2 07
F ow y 13 6 9
e , , G oa , 14 0
F o x , 107 G ld C t 5 8 12 3 15 3 19 1
o o as , , , ,
F x 53
o e, G rm ttl m t 19 1
e an se e en ,
F c
ran e G m br , 64
o oo n
E gl d n an ea rly re lati ns bs o su e G rd G r l 14 9
o on , en e a
No rm C on q u t 9 ;
, ,
q u e t to n an es , G r i l d f 92
o ee, s an o ,
w rs w it h 7 7 et seq 9 8
a ,
.
, G o u rkhas , 101
I di p
n i o s 1 40
an o sses s n , G vr
o e n ment
N w Z l d cl ai m to so v reign ty
e e a an ,
e c o nstituti o l 7 7 16 7 et seq na , ,
.
o f, 13 6 r epre se tative 1 7 4 6 n ,
-
se ve tee th c e tury d vel op m en t

n n n , e resp o ibl 1 18 168 et seq 1 7 7
ns e, ,
.
,
in the , 4 7 G r f R in e t 12 5
aa e ,
Fr kli S i J h 14 5
an n, r o n, G r d P ré 8 8
an ,
F d rick th G r t f Pr i
re e e ea o us s a, 7 9, G r t 1 46
an ,
88 , 2 3 3 Gr ves Admir l 100

a , a ,
Fr d rick burg F rt
e e s , o , 19 1 Gr d as m o tive of E m pire 203 2 14
ee , a , ,
Fr t w 106
ee o n, Gr k c l i 2 10
ee o o n es ,
Fr Tr d 2 28
ee a e, G r J R 2 05
ee n , . .
,
Fr c h C di s 19 6
en an a an , , 2 18 , 2 2 1, 2 2 2 Gr wic h H ospital 3 1
ee n ,
Fre c h R voluti o 9 8
n e n, G rena da 9 2 ,
Fr r S i B rtl 1 3 1
e e, r a e, Gr din s th 9 2
en a e , e,
Fri dly I la ds 1 3 8
en s n , G r y Lo rd 12 9
e , ,
INDE "
G y S i G rg 13 4 17 0
re , r eo e, ,
H ud so n B ay, 8 4
G ri q u l d W t 1 30
a an es ,
H ud son B ay o m C p an y, 5 4 , 8 4 , 1 2 0,
Gu d l up 92
a e o e, 12 1
G ui Briti h 5 7 102 184
an a , s , , ,
H ug h es, S ir E d w rd a ,
100
b o un dary qu ti n 15 2 es o ,
H ugu e n o s, t 4 4, 5 2
l gi l tur 1 7 6
e s a e, H u ll, 1 3
G ui —British e x pe diti n
n ea o , 34 Hyd r b d 9 3
e a a ,
G uy Jo hn Ald r m an 5 4
, e ,
H yd r Ali 9 7
e ,
H yth 12 e,
H kluyt R ic hard 2 4 2 7 3 3
a , , , , , 3 6 , 48
Halif x 87 a ,
Ib rvill L M y d 8 4
e e, e o ne
’
, , 86
Hali f a x Lo rd 87 , , Il b rt S i C ur t y 188
e , r o en a ,
Ha m burg C o m p an y 18 S , . ee Me r I mmigr ti i t Briti h p

a on n o s i
oss es s o n s ,
c ha t dve n ture rs
n a 223
Ham ilt Al e x d r 9 6on , an e ,
I m p ri l Briti h E t Afric
e a s as a Co m
H m pd Jo hn 7 0
a en , , pa y 14 9 15 6 n , ,
Ha in gt Bi sh p 15 6
nn on, o , I mpe rial C o n f r c 17 3 e en e,
H n o ve ri n S ucc si 7 5
a a es o n, I m pe ri l c tr l 17 3 17 5 17 6
a on o , , ,
Han m rc ha t I 4 18
se e n s, , I m pe rial un ity 17 4 ,
H sti g 12
a n s, I de pe n de c 2 11
n n e,
H ti gs W rr n 9 7 98
as n , a e , , In d ia
H van a 9 2
a , d m i i tr ti o 18 1 186 et seq
a n s a n, ,
.
H avel ock 14 1 , d m i i str t rs

a n trai n i g gro d a o , a n -
un
Hawk e Ad m iral 8 8 101

, , , f r Briti sh 18 5
o ,
H w kins S ir J oh 23 3 0
a , n, , , A gl Fr c h w rs 80
n o -
en a ,
58 A gl o P rtugu Tr ty 8 1
n -
o ese ea ,
H w ki S i R ic h rd 3 0
a n s, r a , Briti sh In di E mpire o rigi n f an ,
o ,
H wki Willi m 2 5 2 9 3 3
a ns , a , , , 3 4, 6 5
H wki f m ily 2 9
a ns a , Briti h s o ccup ti a on, re as o ns fo r,
H lig l d 101
e o an , 68
H ri tt M ri 5 0
en e a a a, Britis h pred o mi c 9 2 n an e ,
H ry IV 19
en .
, Briti h te rrit ri l acquisiti o ns
s o a , 65,
H ry V 1 1
en .
, 9 3 , 16 2
H ry VII 19
en . Civil rvic 186 ; al ari es 19 3
Se e, s ,
H ry VIII 10 11 2 0 2 3
en , , , c nstituti 18 1
o on ,
H rb rt f Ch rbury L rd qu t d
e e o e , o , o e , C u n ci l 18 2
o ,
24 Crown tr f r f d m in istrati
, a ns e o a on
H ig h C m mi i r 17 3 180o ss o n e s, , to , 14 1, 14 2
Hi p i l 5 5
s an o a, Dutc h ctiviti 9 3 9 4 a e s, ,
Hb o C pt i 1 3 6
so n , a a n, E t I di C m p y S E t
as n a o an ee as
N th rl d
.
H ll d
o S an . ee e e an s I di C m p y
n a o an
H dur Briti h 1 04 17 9
on as, s , , I te rpr t ti A t d e fi d in 18 1
n e a on c , ne ,
c ons tituti o 1 79 n, irrig ti 190 a on ,
H gk o g 14 3 2 2 3
on n , , l b ur i d tur d 12 2 18 4
a o , n en e , ,
c o ns tituti 17 9 on, la w , 189

H od Ad m i al 101
o ,
r , L gi l tiv C u cil 18 3
e s a e o n ,
H oo ghly 9 4 , M gul E m pir d cli

o e, e n e o f, 92
H w rd of E ffi gh m L rd
o a n a , o , 2 05 na tiv t tes 16 6
e s a , , 18 3
H o w L rd 9 6 101
e, o , , na tiv w r 1 13e a s,
H ud o H ry 5 1 5 3
s n, en , , pu b li w rk 19 0
c o s,
2 44 THE BRITISH E MPIRE
I di
n a — co n tin ue d L b urd
a o i 86 9 3 on na s , ,
railway s 19 0 , L bu 14 3 15 8
a an , ,
S e cre ta ry of S tat e for, 1 42 , L f y tte 9 6

a a e ,
182 L g 12 5 15 3 2 08
a os, , ,
V ic r y C u c il
e o
’
s o n , 183 L h r 64
a o e,
War , a ttitude towards presen t L k L rd 101

a e, o ,
Eu ropean , 22 1 L lly C u t d 9 4
a , o n e,
In di an Mutin y , 14 1, 2 17 , 2 18 L c hi e c tt i d try
an as r o on n us , 70
I di
n ans , No rt h A ric m e an , un s cru pu L c t r J m 3 4 63
an as e , a e s, ,
l ou s u s o en 87
e f by F r c h
, , L d r 1 46
an e ,
I n dustria l R e vo lution 108 , Lan galib alele , 1 30

In gog 13 1 o, L g
an
’
s N e k, 1 3 1
In trusi on in to o the r l an ds p olicy , of, l

La S al e, 86
4 1, 201 L uri r
a e , S ir i , 2 22 W lfrid
I i I l n d 1 13
on an s a s, , 148 , 2 15 Lawre n ce , o n , 14 1, 2 1 9 Jh
I l f D vil
s es o e s.
”
S ee Be r m udas L r
aw e n e , ajo , 9 4c M r
L r
aw en e o c br th r
e s, the , 1 4 1
Jamaic a 5 5 62 160 1 64 , , , , Lwa s on , 13 4

Briti sh acquisiti on 5 7 , Lgl
e yste m s 188
a s ,
c on stituti o n suspe ns i on , o f, 12 3 L gi l
e s ativ e C un cil s 17 6 17 8 o , ,
l egisl ature 17 5 e gisl atur es S ee Parli amen ts

, L .
J am es, 53 Le ic hh rdt 13 4 a ,
James I 5 , 46 .
, Le van t C o m pan y 3 2 ,
Jam e son a , 15 4 r id Le van t trad e 2 5 3 2 , ,
J t
am e s o w n , 4 8 Libe l of E nglis h Policie qu o te d , ,
Jp
a an , 6 5 11
Jv
a a, 63 , 65 Lib r l p licy 117
e a o ,
Jud
Je fl re ys, ge, 4 7 Lib rty 2 3 2
e ,
Jen kin so An th on y 2 6 3 2 n, , , , 33 m tiv f E m pir

o e o e , as a, 2 04
J rvi s 101
e , Li c l 16
n o n,
J hn son D oct or 107 1 14

o , , , Littl E gl d r e n an e s, 1
J ohn son Willi am 80 , , Liv rp l 7 0 108
e oo , ,
Join t stoek c o m pan ies 2 7

-
, Livi g t n D vid s on e, a , 4 2 , 1 28, 1 46, 155 ,

2 07
Kafl ir wars 126 12 8 13 0
‘
, , , Lo b g en ula, 15 1
K a ffr ri Briti h
a a, s , 12 8 L ok, Mi ch e l 3 2 a ,
K b ula 13 1
am , Lon don Missionary S ocie ty , 1 35 , 13 7
K r ac h i 1 4 0
a , Lon d on p o rt of 1 3 69, , ,
K d ah 6 5 104
e , , Lo uis "I V 7 8
K e rse y 15 ,
”
Lo uis b o urg 82 8 5 8 7 89 , , , ,
Kh rto um 14 9
a , Lo uisi n a 8 6 90 a , ,
Kiaoc hau 15 8 , Lyn n 13 ,
K im b rl y 130 e e ,
Ki g t n H ll 13
s on on - -
u , M c r 65
a as sa ,
K irk D vid 5 2 e, a , M c ul y Z ch ry 208

a a a , a a ,
K itc h r L rd 14 9 en e , o , M C thy I l d 12 5
‘
ar
’
s s an ,
K l dyk g ldfi ld 122

on e o e s, M c hi ry dv t f 108
a ne , a en o ,
K wl o 144 15 8 1 6 7
oo n , , , M K ac i Al x d r 12 0
en z e, e an e ,
K ltur 192 19 5
u ,
”
, MacKin n on S ir ,
Willi am , 15 5
K ri M ri I l d 13 9
u a a a s an s, M cl a e an , C pt i a a n, 124
THE BRITISH EMPIRE
N vy—
a c ti on n u ed New Orl 90 e ans ,
Eliz b th a e an s eam e n s
’
ex pl its o b ttl f 8 1
a e o ,
g i t S p i 2 8 t eq
a a ns a n, e s . N w P ly m uth 50
e o ,
Fr ch w r i fl u c f 2 12
en a s, n en e o ,
N w S uth W l s 1 3 3 13 9
e o a e , ,
H ry V I I p licy 20
en .
’
s o ,
N w Y rk 5 1
e o ,
H en ry V I I I s p licy 2 3 ,
’
o , N w Z l d 102 13 5 1 7 0 18 1
e ea an , , , ,
n ti o al r p ns ibility b gi i g
na es o , e nn n Briti h s v r ig ty 13 6
s o e e n ,
o f, 70 c l o i ti 1 3 5
o n sa on,
N vy B rd cr t d
a oa ea e , 24 D om i i o f r m d 17 0
n n o e ,
o rigi n s, 6 8 , 10 ex pl or ti 102 a on ,
Nl
,
101
e so n , Fr c h cl i m t so v r ig ty 13 6
en a o e e n
N th rl d
.
e e an s, 2 8 , 5 1, 5 9 , 6 4 , 66 , 9 3 , 9 4 , g o v r m t r p o sibl e 1 3 7
e n en , es n ,
104 , 113 , 1 2 4 , 1 4 0 M o ri ri i gs 1 3 6
a s n ,
A frica , se ttl e m en s t in West , 5 9, na tiv qu ti ns 1 7 8

e es o ,
12 4 N w Z e l d As o ci ti o
e a an13 6 s a n,
A m ric Dutc h ttl m t in 5 1

e a, se e en s New Z l d L d C o m p a y 1 3 6
e a an an n
Ng mi L k 14 6
, ,
E st I di
a ttl m t 6 4 104
n an se e en s , , a a e,
Ni g ra fo rt f 8 9
,
11 3 , 1 40 a a o
Nic h ol s n J h 1 4 1
, ,
E gl d c l i l riv lry w ith

n an o on a a 5 1, o o n
Nig e r 14 6
, , , ,
5 9 , 6 4 , 104 , 1 1 3 , 12 4 , 140 ,
I di Dutc h ctivity i 9 3 9 4
n a, a n, , Nig ri 15 3 189
e a, ,
St H l ccup ti f 66
e en a, o a on o law , 1 8 9
Nil 1 4 6
.
,
S p i w r w it h i x t
a n, th c tury a s s e en en , e,
N c f rm i t N th r
,
28 on on o s e mi gr ti o a n to e e
N th rl d E t I di
e e an s as n a C mp y
o an , l ds 4 9an
N rf olk I sl n d 103 1 3 8
,
12 5 o a
N vi N rm n Con qu st 8
, ,
e s, 57 o a e
N o rt h E s t P ss g 14 5
,
N ew A m t rd m 5 1 s e a -
a a a e,
No rth W st C o m p y 120
,
N ew Bru sw ick 1 1 6 n ,
-
e an
N o rt h We st Passag 3 1
,
Ne w C l do i 13 8 a e n a, -
e, 3 2, 5 3,
N w c a tl e o Ty e 13
,
e s -
n -
n 14 5
N tt 14 0
,
N e w E gl d 4 6 4 9 n an , , 8 1, 9 6, 2 06 , o ,
N v Albi
,
2 10 o a on , 35
N w f u dl d
e o n an , 2 5 , 3 5 , 4 6 , 5 4 , 8 3 , 90, N v S c ti
o a o a, 5 2 , 83 , 8 7 , 9 0
9 7 , 1 22 , 15 2 , 169 Fre c h c ssi on t E gl an d
n e o n 85
Nyas L ke 146
,
Briti h nn x ti o 3 5
s a e a n, a, a
Nyas l an d Pr o tect rate 15 5

,
Briti h c ol i ti 46 5 4 12 2
s o n sa on , , , a o ,
Ca di na f d r ti o an x clu i o e e a n, e s n
fr m 1 69 o , Ogl th o rp Jam es 6 2 85
e e, , ,
fi sh ri s q u sti o
e 2 5 8 3 8 4 90
e e n, , , , , Oil R iv r Pro te ct o r te 15 3
e s a ,
9 7 , 15 2 Oléro n , aw s o f, 10 L
U tr c ht Tr ty
e , ea o f, British p oss es O du
m r m an , 14 9
i c o fir m e d by 83
s on n , O t ri o 1 16
n a ,
N w Fr c 4 6 5 2
e an e, , Opiu m q uesti o 14 3 n,
N e w G ui e 15 0 n a, Oran g Fr ee S ta te 12 7 12 9 15 4
e , , ,
Briti h S P pu s . ee a a Briti h x ti n 15 4
s ann e a o ,
G rm 1 5 2 e an , Ora ge R iv r S o ve r ig ty 12 8
n e e n ,
N w H brid es 1 5 2 1 6 7
e e , , Or g on b u d ry qu esti o 1 20
e o n a n,
N ew H ll d S e Au tr li
o an . e s a a Os w g o f ort of 89
e
N e w N th rl d s
, ,
S ee N w
e e an . e Yo rk Oudh 14 1 ,
INDE "
Outram 14 1 , P try
oe , e ff ct f Eli b th
e o z a e an vo y
Ove rse s te rpri a en se an d e xp i
a ns o n , g
a es o n E gli h v r 3 7 n s e se ,
5 , 18 , 2 1, 2 5 , 109 , 2 01 P l r xpl r ti 14 5
o a e o a on ,
na ti l unity on a a n e essac ry p re P litic l lib rty 118

o a e ,
li m i ry 5 na , P ll ck 140
o o ,
O xl y 13 4
e , P dic h rry 9 3 9 4 140
on e , , ,
P l 70
oo e ,
P ci fi c H ig h C
a , o m m ss o ne i i r fo r the P rt Arth ur 15 8
o ,
W ste r 180 e n, P rt Eliz b th 12 5

o a e ,
P cific Isl ds 13 7 15 2 180

a an , , , P rt J ck
o 103
a son ,
P l m e rsto Lo rd 14 4
a n, , P rt Ph illip 134
o ,
Pa gk o r 14 2
n , P rt R i 5 5
o o ce ,
P ri P c of 90
a s, ea e , P rt Briti h
o s, s
P rk M u g 14 6
a , n o, rly h i t ry d d v l p m t
ea s o an e e o en s , 9
Park m n Fra cis 8 8 a , n , di e v l d v l o p m en ts 12
me a a e e ,
P rli m e tary sys te m 16 8

a a n , Po rtug l 2 1 5 9 6 3 a , , ,
Parliam e t n d l egisl ature 13 7 n s a s, , 16 3 , Eas t I dia tr d m o n o p o ly of 63

n n a e, ,
1 7 1, 1 7 4 o v rsea s di c v e ri e s
e n d c o l o i sa s o a n
P r m Duk f 2 9
a a, e o , ti 2 1 on,
P rry 14 5
a , Wes t Afric se ttl e me ts 5 9 an n ,
P t i 65
a an , P rtug l Prin c e H ry f 2 1
o a , en o ,
P t m cr t 9 8
a n a, assa e a , Prefe re c tr d e 7 1 n e, a ,
P tt
a Bi h p 1 3 8
es o n , s o , Pre to ri a Co ve ti o n 13 2 n n ,
P l G rg 3 7
ee e, eo e, Privatee ri ng i xte t h c tu ry 2 8 , s en en ,
P gu 6 5 14 1
e , , et s eq .
P ki C v ti f 14 4
e n, on en on o , Pr t cti f tr d
o e on o a e, 71
P g 103 17 9 2 13
en an , , , Pr t ct r t 166
o e o a es , , 17 9
P Willi m 5 1
en n , a , Public w rk 190 o s,
P ylv i 5 1
e nns an a, P ul R o65 oo n ,
P r k 142 19 4
e a , ,
P ri m 13 9
e , Q ue be c 5 2 8 2 35 ,89 1 1 6
, , , ,
P r i 64
e s a, Q u een Ad e l a id e Pr o v in c e o f 1 2 6 , , ,
2 07
P r i G ulf 6 4
e s an , Q uee n sl a n d 13 3 134 , ,
Phil d lph i 5 1
a e a,
Phil t hr py
an m tiv o as a o e of E m pi re , Ra dical s , 118
208 f
R a fl es , S ir S a m t f rdo , 1 13 , 15 8
Philip K i g Ch rt r t M u c vy
, n , a e o s o il y
R a w a s, 15 0
C mp y 27 o an , Ra l eigh S ir a
, W lte r , 3 0, 3 5 , 3 6 , 40 ,
Ph illip C pt i 103 , a a n, 5 8 , 6 2 , 1 08
Pi t r m ritzburg 12 7
e e a , R an g o on, 14 1
P ilgri m F th r 5 0 205 2 10 a e s, , , y
Ra mon , 3 4 d
Pit ir I l d 13 8
ca n s an ,
R ed R e iv r E x pe diti 12 2 on,
Pitt th y u g r 9 8 107
, e o n e , ,
R d R ive r Se ttl m n t 12 1
e e e ,
Pitt burg city f 89

s , o , R e f o r m Bill 1 17
Pl c ti 8 4
a en a, R e ligi n as a m o tiv e o f E m pir e
o ,
2 04
Pl t ti
an a 72 on s, R e prese ta tive ins tituti o
n ns . S ee
Pl y b ttl f 9 4
asse , a e o ,
P rliam t a en s
Plym uth 13 69 o , ,
R h od Isl d 16 8e an ,
Plym ut h C m p y 4 8 o o an , R h o d es Ce cil 15 1 , ,
P d r 92
o o ,
R h o d esi 15 4 1 80 a, ,
2 48 THE BRITISH EMPIRE
R hd i S o es a, o u the rr
i —
c tituti
on s o n , 1 80 gl
S en e a , 9 2 , 9 7
R ch d I
i ar 10 g bi
S e n e a m a, 5 9 , 9 2
R ic h d II ar 19 ri g p t
S e n a a a m 101 ,
R i l L ui v r
Se en Y ea s War, 7 9
’
e , o s, 122 , 15 2
R o an o k e, 36 Se yc h ll
e es , 1 01
Ro eb rts Lo rd 1 3 2 142, , , , 2 18 hk p r
S a e s e a e , 3 3 , 3 8, 5 5 , 2 3 5
R o dn e y Adm ir l 101 , a , S an h gh i
a , 144
h
R oe , S ir T o m as, 6 2 , 6 8, 2 13 S han no n , 100
R o m an m e, 19 8 E pir S a ,h rp G r vi
an lle , 1 07
R o mn e , 12 y hpt h p hil
S e s on e , S ir T e o us, 1 3 1
Ro e s
’
rk , 13 1 Drif t S e h rbr
o, 1 2 5
R 05 8 , am es, 1 4 5J h lli g A dr
S i n , n e w, 5 2
ly f
R o ss a m i , 1 1 3 , 1 4 5 p y
S hi m o n e , 7 0
-
Ro a y l Nig r C
e o m an , 1 49 , 15 3 p y S hipp g
in
R up rt Pri c
e , n e, 7 1 E liz b th
a e
’
an seam e n s e o xpl it s, 29
R u pe rtslan d, 1 2 1 et seq .
u i C p y
R ss a o m an S ee s o v Co m . Mu c y M rc til
e an e s yste m . S ee M rc
e an
p an y til syste m e
R ye, 12 N vigati o Acts 19 2 0 7 1

a n , , ,
R ysw ick , Tre aty o f, 78 pr ote cti o 7 1 n,
S h ir e H ig hl n ds 15 5 a ,
St a
. D vid F rt
, o , 6 5 , 9 3 , 95 S hire riv e r 14 6 s,
St Gr
e m ain e u
. Ly a e, T e a -
o f, 5 3 -
r ty S i m 65 1 5 7
a , ,
St Hl
e e n a 66 17 9
.
, , S i rra Le o n e 106 12 3 1 5 3 180
e , , , , , 2 08
itt
S t K s, 5 6 , 8 1 , 8 4
. S ik h w ar s 1 40 ,
S t L ee , 69
. S i d ann e x ati o n of 1 40
n , ,
St o
. s, L ui F rt
o , 92 S in g p o r e 1 13 1 5 8 17 9 2 2 3
a , , , ,
St . Luci
a, 9 2 , 101 S lac hte r s Nek
’
12 6
St a
.
’
M ry I l d
s s an , 1 23 l v ry
S a e , 6 1, 1 15 , 2 08
St .e Pi rr
e , 90 a ob lition , 1 1 5
S t T o m as
. h B ck t
e e of an e r , C t rbu y l v tr d
Sa e a e , 3 4, 42 , 5 8 et s eq 85 208 .
, ,
o br th rh d
e oo of, 17 a b oliti on 1 06 ,
St . Vi c t
n en , 92 S luys b attl e o f 1 0
, ,
i t b ttl
S a n e F o y, a e o f, 90 S mit h Adam 108 2 14
, , ,
l
S a e , 140 S mit h C apta in Jo hn 4 9
, ,
S an w d ich , 12 S mi t h S ir H rry 128

, a ,
S an Ju b ttl
an d U llo a, a
’
e of 2 3 , S oc i e ty fo r P ro m o ti n g Ch ris ti n a
S an a t Cr z I l d
u s an s, 1 3 8 K n ow l e dg 2 06 e,
r k
S a aw a 14 3 , S o ci e ty fo r Pr o p g ati o n o f G osp el in a
S as a k tc h e w an , 12 2 F ore ign P rt 2 06 a s,
u d r Ad ir l
S a n e s, m a , 8 9 , 101 S oc o tra 1 3 9 ,
c rb r ug h
S a o o 13 , S o l o m o n I sl d s 15 2 1 80 an , ,
ci c
S en e , 2 3 0 S o m alila d 1 5 7 18 1 n , ,
c tl d E gl d u i
S o an n an ,
, n on w , 5 ith S o m rs S ir G o rg e 5 4
e ,
e ,
S ea m a n s hip Eliz b th a e an , 3 0
, S o me rse t L o rd Ch rl es 12 6
, a ,
p r
Sea o w e , 6 8 , 10, 100 , S o ut h Afri c an w ars 4 2 1 3 1 15 4 , , , ,
S ea ven ture, the , 5 4 2 17 , 2 19

S ee e , l y Pr f r
o e ss o , 2 1 4 2 3 3 , So utham pto n 1 3 ,
Se lkirk L rd
, o , 12 1 So uth Australi 1 3 3 a,
Se w n ,l y Bi h p s o , 13 8
‘
So ut h Australi n C om pan y a , 13 3
250 THE BRITISH EMPIRE
V r ill P c
e sa e s, e a e o f, 95 , 9 7 W e t I di s—
s c n tin u ed
n e o
V ict ri 1 3 4
o a, E st I n di n l ab o ur in den tur d
a . a , e ,
Vict ri Q u
o a, e en , 1 10, 1 12 , 1 15 , 1 5 8 1 22 , 18 4
V ict ri Ny z
o a an a, 14 6 l gi l tur 17 5
e s a e,
Virgi i 3 6 4 8
n a, , , 62 sl v e
a l b o ur 5 8 a , , 60 ; e ff ct
e of
c ol on is ti o 4 9 a n, b oliti o 1 22
a n,
V irgin i a C o m p i s an e ,
4 8, 5 4 S p i h di c o v ry
an s s e an d se ttl e men t ,
56
Wait gi Tr ty of 1 3 6
an ,
ea , ug r i dus try 5 8
s a n ,
Wak fi ld E d w rd Gibb o
e e , a n, 7 2 , 1 15 , transp rtati 6 2 o on ,
118 , 13 3 , 17 7 Westm in st r Pe c f 5 1 e , a e o ,
Walfi sc h B ay, 15 4 W y m o uth 69

e ,
W lp ol H o r ace 7 7 8 8 9 7 107
a e, , , , , Wh igs 1 1 8 1 2 9 , ,
W lto C ptain 100

a n, a , Wilb rf orc 107
e e,
W d w sh b ttl f 9 5
an e a , a e o , Willi am III 4 7 7 2 .
, ,
W e ff e ct o f di s ta c 80 e on , Willi am H n ry Fo rt 89
War E ur o pe a —E m pir supp o rt fo
ar, n e , ,
, n e r Willi s 105 ,
G re t Brit i 2 2 1a a n, Will o ug hby S ir H ug h 2 7 , ,
W rr Ad m ir l 9 4
a en , a , Will s 1 3 4 ,
W shi gt o G org 80 8 7 9 7
a n n, e e, , , Wi c h l s 12
n e ea,
W tt J mes 108
a , a , Win c h l e o L E p g ls s
e s a r
’
s a no -
ur -
m er,
W vin g trade 4 5
ea , b ttl of 10a e ,
We dd ll 14 5 e , Winn ipe g 12 2 ,
W e en 12 8
e n , Wolf G eral Ja m 8 9
e, en es ,
W i h i w i 15 8 16 7
e a e , , Wol s l y L rd 122 12 4 1 3 1
e e , o , , , , 14 9
W ll sl y L rd 101
e e e , o , W d S ir E vely 1 3 1
oo ,
n,
W ll l y S ir Ar th ur S ee W lli g
e es e , . e n
I
to Duk fn, e o rly Briti h xp o rt tr d e 15

ea s e a ,
W ll sl y Pr vi c e 104 2 13
e e e , o n , , s t pl y te m 16
a e s s ,
W llin gt o Duk e o f 9 9 101 13 3

e n, , , , W l wic h d o cky rd 2 4
oo a ,
W tw o rth 13 4
en , Worki g m e v lu of the E m pir
n n, a e e to ,
W l y John 2 06
es e , , 2 01, 2 2 5
W st Afric a C o m pan i s 3 3 5 8 12 3
e e , , , W rtdo s e , 15
W ste rn Au strali 1 3 3 1 5 2
e a, ,
West I di 5 1 5 5 t seq 62 85 9 7
n es, , e .
, , , , Y arm o uth , I 3, 70
12 2 , 16 4 , 1 7 5 , 18 4 , 1 8 7
A gl o Fr c h w ars
n -
en , 92 Z mb i 14 6
a es ,
Briti sh se ttl e m t en , 5 1, 5 5 et s eq .
, Z zib ar 15 5
an ,
62 Zulul d 12 7 1 30
an , , ,
de cli n e, 12 2 Z ulu W r 13 1 a ,
TH E E ND
P r in te d by R . R . C LA R K L I M I TE D
, ,
E az n
’
’
é u rg h .
TH REE NEW B O O KS
A BB A S ( E x K II
h e di v e o f . E gyp ) t B y
-
.
th e E A RL
O F CR O M E R 8 vo 2 s 6 d n et . . . . .
TH E TI M E S L r d C r o m e r h s w r i tt e a ad m i r bl p e d t
o a n n a e n an
I t c o i s ts o f a p r f c e d fi v
.
t h is g r t b o k M d
o ea E gyp t o o er n . ns e a an e
ch p t e r
a ch o f w hi ch will be r c o m p r i
s, e a i po i n t f v i g o r u s a a so n , n o o
n rr t i v e
a a n d d e lin e at i n o f ch r ct r
a w i th th o se o f th e p r e n t
o a a e ,
a
wo rk .
P A L L M A L L G A Z E TTE A m n g r p h w h i ch i f s u pr em e . o o a s o
v l u e at th p r sen t m o m t
a e I t m ak n i di sp e sabl pe d t
e en . es a n n e n an
to th th o r M de E gyp t The b k i m s t r pi c e f
’
e au s o rn . oo s a a e e o
k n o w l edg e n d wi sd m fr m ed n li o f p r o fo u n d n d p e r m an e n t
a o ,
a o n es a
p o rtrai tur e .
”
THE WA R
A ND DE MOCRA CY By .
R W S ETO N W A TS O N D Litt J D O VE R W IL S O N
. .
-
,
. .
,
.
,
A LF RE D E Z I M M E RN a nd A RTHU R G REEN W O OD ,
.
Cro w n 8 vo 2 8 n et . . .
Th i s vo l u m e h as b ee n w r i t te n as a g uid e to the s tu d y o f
th e u n de r l y i n g c a u se s an d i s su e s o f th e w ar .
TH E TI M E S The e y s ar o f h i g h q u ali t
. Th e y g o m o r e
ssa e
fu ll y n d d e e pl y i n t the u n d e rlyi
a p r o bl em s o f t e w ar tha m s t
o n n o
of t he p m p h l e t a d b o k w h i ch
a ve pp e r d i
s n s uch p r o fu i o n
o s a a a e n s ,
th ey a v id th m r e u p er fi c i l c o n tr o v e r si s w h i ch h v b c o m e
o e o s a e a e e
w e r i so m
a d th e y
e, r w r i t t e n in th e
an pi r i t o f di s passi o a t e
a e s n
”
_
1n
q u 1ry .
D A I L Y TE L E G R A P H A v o u m e o f fi rs t r a t e v a u e at the l -
l
p r e se n t m o m e n t A m os t st m u a t n g an d s u g g e s t v e
. oo , i l i i b k
i
w h ch in a ddi i
t o n to a ll its o th e r m e r t s h a s th a t o f e n g s u r i bi
p risin g ly ch e a p .
THE NEW A RMY I N TRAI NI NG . By

R U D Y ARD K I PLI N G . 1 6mo . Sewed . 6d . n et .
P A L L M A L L G A Z E TTE . A c l assi c in d scr ip t i v

e e j r li sm
ou n a
i
w h ch n o c o e ct o r an d n o a tr ll
i t w ill m i p o ss .
D A I L Y TE L E G R A P H — N b ut M Kipli g c u ld h v .
“
o o ne r . n o a e
t ld w i th q u l p w r f d cr ip t i
o e d y m p th y f i i ght th
a o e o es on an s a o ns e
t y f h w th c u tr y s p r g t r m in th g r t e t cr i i s f its
i t ry
or o o e o n an o a s e ea s s o
1s o .
L O N D ON : M ACM I LL A N A N D CO .
,
L TD .
W O RKS O N THE B RITIS H E M P IR E
M OD E RN E G YP T Eyt he E A R L OF CR O M E R . . With
P o r trai t an d a M ap 2 vo l s 8 v0 2 4 s n e t . . . . . 1 vo l .
8VO . 7s 6d. . net .
THE B R OA D S TON E OF E M P I RE Problems of .
C r o w n Co l o n y A d m i n i str at i o n Wi th Re cord s o f P e r son al .
E x pe ri e n ce By S ir C H A R LE S B R U CE. Wi th ,
Map s an d ‘
P o rtrait . 2 vo ls . 8 vc . 3 os . n et .
TH E TR U E TE M P E R OF E M P I RE , W I TH 00
R OLL A RY E S S A Y S By S ir C H A R LE S BRU C E .
,
8 vo . 5s . n et .
THE E "P A N S I ON OF E N G LAN D . Tw o Courses

of L e c tu re s . By S ir J R . . SEELEY , L itt D . . G l o b e 8 vo .
4s . n et .
OUR COL ON I A L E "P A N S I ON E x t racts from the .
a bov e . By S ir J R S EELEY, Litt D .C ro w n 8 r o 1s

. . . . .
A N A L Y S I S OF TH E S Y S TE M OF G OV E RN M E N T
TH R OU G H OU T TH E B R I TI S H E M P I R E 8 ve . .
5s . n et .
TH E G OV E RN M E N T OF E N G L A N D . By Prof .
A . L A W R E N CE L O WEL L 2 vo l s 8 vo 1 7s . . . . n et .
A H I S TOR Y OF E N G L A N D A ND G RE A TE R
B R I TA I N . By P ro f A L C R O SS P h D Wi th Map s
. . .
, ‘
. . .
8 vo . 1 0s . 6d . n et .
A P R OJE CT OF E M P I RE A Critical Stu dy of th e .
E c o n o m i c s o f I m p eri a li sm w ith S pe c i al R e fe re n ce to t h e ,
I de as o f A d am S m i th By P ro f J S H I EL D N I C H O L S ON . . .
,
M A . .
,
D so
. . 8 vo . 7s . 6d . n et .
THE COL ON I E S AN D TH E CE N TUR Y By the .
H o n S ir JO H N R O B I N S O N
. C r o w n 8 vc 3 8 n e t , . . .
COL ON I E S A ND COL ON I A L F E D ER A TI ON S . By
E J . . PA Y N E . C ro w n 8 vo . 3 S 6d . .
L OND ON : MA C MI LLAN AND CO .

,
L TD .
2
PLEASE DO NOT REMO VE
CA RDS O R S LIPS FRO M THIS PO CKET
UNIVERS ITY O F TO RO NTO lIBRA RY
Lu c a s , (S i r ) Cha r l e s P r e s t wo o d
Th e Br i t i s h Emp i r e

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B RITI S H E M PI R E

M ACM ILLAN AND CO .

H will h elp the r i gh t

E xtract f rom a S om ali A dd ress to

TH E British E m pire , as seen through German eyes at this

fraud an image with feet of clay a collection o f down

trodden races and communities eager to rebel in short an, ,

evil in the world which ought to be wiped o u t No sane .

Englishman and no sane man in any neutral nation shares

o f the realities of the Empire was steadily growing in the

United Kingdom it was still only half knowledge o r less ;

and moreover among a large section o f Englishm en there

was a suspicion o f Empire both the word and the thing

as implying jingoism vainglory and hyp ocrisy Hence

arose the term of Little Englander Coupled with t hi s .

suspicion there was a feeling among some at any rate o f , ,

the working men of England that the Empire was o f no

might be the luxury o f the richer classes but how they , ,

asked was the working man o f England beneﬁted by the

Empire It is proposed in the fo llowing pages to state as

this Empire came into being and what it means ; to explain

that it is n o t a mere creation of force and fraud ; and to try

comments may be made at the outset and will bear repeti ,

tion later The ﬁrst is that it is idle n o t to recognise that

n ations which are communities o f men and women are

like the individual men and women as a rule guided by ,

mixed motives Self interest enters in as well as moral

principle and tradition : nations have an instinct to rise

ment is that it is impossible to read history aright if the ,

deeds done in past centuries are j udged in the light of the

wrong but they are more right or more wrong in proportion

to the stage o f civilisation which has been reached All .

nations have done evil deeds ; but in condemning what ,

was done in the past it is right to remember that the men

is also true The world wide indignation against German

treatment of Belgium is due not only to the actual facts , ,

but also to reﬂection that what would have been bad at

E m pire . The word Empire is responsible for much misunderstand

single word which would cover the many and diverse

possibly to most Englishmen implies mi litary do mi nation

despotic rule ag gression on other liberties This does not

represent the facts Canada and Australia belong to the

British Empire and are proud to belong to it yet nowhere ,

in the world is liberty government of the people by the ,

people for the people more fully developed But inasmuch

as words count for somethin g ; it is worth noticing ﬁr st that ,

the Latin word from which Empire is derived was not a

comes into English history it is used to denote not domina

This realm of Engl and is an Empire The statute was

commentator Blackstone was that our King is equally

sovereign and independent within these his dominions as ,

S piritual and temporal independence o f England and it ,

may fairly be said that at the present day British Empire

connotes British liberty .

H I S T O RY tells us th a t nations which acquire overse a s

nations and entered upon national life Then the force .

been found beyond the seas This law o f evolution for

it is no less can be traced in the history of Spain Portugal

the Netherlands France Great Britain and in late years

in that of Uni ted Germany and Unite d Italy Nations .

must be made before they can grow into Empires

The British Empire as a n actual reality only be gins with

the beginning of the seventeenth century with the end o f ,