CIHM Microfiche Series (l\/ionographs) ICMH Collection de microfiches (monographles) Canadian Institute for Historical Microroproductions / Institut Canadian da microraproductions historiquas ©2000 Technical and Bibliographic Notes / Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available (or filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming are checked below. D Coloured covers / Couverture de couleur J I Covers damaged / n Couverture endomnrug^e Covers restored and/or laminated / Couverture restaur^e et/ou pellicul^e Cover title missing / Le titre de couverture manque Coloured maps / Cartes g^raphiques en couleur Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black) / Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) Cotoured plates and/or illustrattons / Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur Bound with other material / Belli avec d'autres documents Only editton available / Seule Mitton disponibte Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion atong interior margin / La reliure serrie peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distorsion le long de la marge int^rieure. D D D D D D Blank leaves added during restorations may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been ontitted from filming / Use peut que certaines pages blanches ajout^es lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais. torsque cela 4tait possible, ces pages n'ont pas M film^es. Addittonal comments / Commentaires suppMmentaires: This ittm Is filmtd st ths rtdueilon rstie chtektd bstew / Ct decumtnt tst filmi su isux ds rMuction indlqu< ci-dttsous. L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a £t6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exem- plaire qui sont peut-£tre unkjues du point de vue bibii* ographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduce, ou qui peuvent exiger une modification dans la m^iho- de normale de fiimage sont indiquds ci-dessous. I I Coloured pages / Pages de couleur \y\ Pages damaged / Pages endommag^es □ Pages restored and/or laminated / Pages restaur^es et/ou pellicul^es Pages discoloured, stained or foxed / Pages dicolor^es. lachetdes ou piqudes [77] Pages detached / Pages d^tachies I I Showthrough / Transparence D D D D Quality of print varies / Qualiti inigale de I'impression includes supplementary material / Comprend du matdriel suppl^mentaire Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image / Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure. etc., ont M filmies k nouveau de fa9on k obtenir la meilleure image possible. Opposing pages with varying colouration or discolourations are filmed twice to ensure the best possible image / Les pages s'opposant ayant des colorations variables ou des decolorations sont (ilm^es deux fois afin d'obtenir la meilleure image possible. lOx 14x 18X 22x 26x 30x i/ 12x 16x 20x 24 X 28x 32x Th« copy filmad har* has b««n r«produc«d thanks to tho gonorotity of: Univtreity of Toronto Li>rary L'oxomplairo filmA fut raproduit grAca i la g4n4rosit* do: Univareity of Toronto Library Tha imagas appaaring hara ara tha bast quality possibia considaring tlia condition and lagibllity of tha original copy and in kaaping with tha filming contract spaclficationt. Las imagas suivantas ont At* raprodultas avac la plus grand soin. compta tanu da .'a condition at da la nattatA da I'axamplaira filmA. at an conformitA avac las conditions du contrat da filmsga. Original copias in printsd papar covars sra filmad baglnning with tha front covar and andiiig on tha last paga with a printad or illustratad impras- sion. or tha back covar whan appropriata. All othar original copias ara filmad baglnning on tfia first paga with a printad or illustratad impras- sion. and anding on tha last paga with a printad or illustratad imprassion. Las axamplairas criginaux dont la couvartura an papiar ast ImprlmAa sont fllmAs ti commandant par la pramiar plat at an tarminant soit par la darniAra paga qui comporta una amprainta d'Imprasaion ou d'illustratlon. soit par la sacond plat, salon la cas. Tous ies at.>tras axamplairas orlginaux sont fllmAs an commandant par la pramlAra paga qui comporta una amprainta d'imprassion ou d'illustration at an tarminant par la darnlAra paga qui comporta una talla amprainta. Tha last racordad frama on aach microficha shall contain tha symbol -^ (moaning "CON- TINUED"), or tha symbol ▼ (moaning "END"), whichavar applias. Un das symbolas suivants apparaftra sur la darniAra imaga da chaqua microficha. salon la cas: la symbols — ^ signlfia "A SUIVRE". la symbols ▼ signlfia "FIN". Maps, platas. charts, ate. may ba filmad at diffarant reduction ratios. Thosa too larga to ba antlraly includad in ona axposura ara filmad baglnning in tha uppar laft hand cornar. laft to right and top to bottom, as many framas as raqulrad. Tha following diagrams illustrata tha mathod: Las cartas, planchas, tablaaux. ate. pauvant Atra fllmAs A das taux da rAductlon diffArants. Lorsqua la documant ast crop grand pour Atra raproduit an un saul cllchA. 11 ast filmA A partir da I'angia supAriaur gaucha. da gaucha A drolta. at da haut an bas. an pranant la nombra d'imagas nAcassalra. Las diagrammas suKrants illustrant la mAthoda. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 MtCROcopy moumoN tmt cnait (ANSI and ISO TEST CHAUT No. 2) 1.1 1,25 lu la 12.8 ■ Z5 M22 Su5 IZO ■il I 1.6 ^ ^*=yLIED tN/HGE Inc IMJtat IMn stra«« mclMttar, Nm rork ■,4<(M USA (716) 462 -0300- PhonT^ ^^ (7)«) 288-S«»-r» 9L ? 1 V BRITAIN OVER THE SEA . BRITAIN OVER THE SEA A READER FOR SCHOOLS COMPILED AND ELIZABET. LEE AUTHOR or "A SCHOOL H.STORV O. ..NOL.SH UTERATORE," „C. This England never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror. Come the three corners of tb:: world in arms And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue It h-ngland to itself do rest but true. ^ing John, .^' o •;, TORONTO GEORGE N. MORANG & CO.. LTD. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY 1901 PREFATORY NOTE In £ work such as this, going over so extended a ground, it would be impossible for the editor to mention all the sources of information to which she is indebted. But she wishes to record here how very much the book owes to the suggestions, judgment, and taste of Mr. Laurie Magnus, M.A., and her appreciation of his valu- able assistance during its preparation. She has also to thank Lady Betty Balfour and Messrs. Longmans & Co., for kindly permitting her to use a passage from "Thi History of Lord I tton's Indian Administration, 1876-1880;" Mr. R. Bosworth Smith and Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., for a similar favour in regard to " The Life of Lord Lawrence ; " and Mr. John Murray for the free use of several of his copyright books. II CONTENTS Introduction Of Plantations ... Reasons for planting Colonics Advantages of Colonisation Drawbacks to Colonisation The Advantages of a Passage The Gold Mines of Guiana ... Elizabeth and the Empire of the Seas The English Navy in the time of Elizabeth Reasons and Considerations touching the Rightfulness of removing out of England into the Parts of America Description of Virginia ... How Pocahontas saved C.ipt. John Smith's Life To the Virginian Voyage A Plain Description of the Bermudas ... Song of the Emigrants in Bermuda Ideal of Puritan England The Colonies under Cromwell The Council of Foreign Plantations Georgia On the Prospect of planting Arts and Learning in America ... fAGK xi PJR7- I Francis Bacon cs ... Caft. John Smith Sir George Peckham ... EMvard Winslvw North-west 1 5 lO 14 Sir ''umphr 'ilhert i6 Sir Walter Raleigh 20 Eilmuml Spenser 27 /William Harrison Rohert Cushman Capt. John Smith ('.apt. John Smith Michael Drayton Andreiv Mar-veil John Milton Earl of Clarendon John Evelyn Bishop Berkeley 28 30 33 34 36 38 40 41 42 45 46 SO viu CONTENTS Causes of the Prosperity of New Colonies Adam Smith PACB SI The Growth of the American Colonies Edmund Burke 59 The Imperial Capacity of Parliament Edmund Burke 6i The Spirit of Liberty in the English Colonies Edmund Burke 63 The Real Link between England and her Colonies Edmund Burke 6S Why the American Colonies should not be taxed Earl of Chatham 68 The Breach with America Edivard Gibbon 72 The Eve of the Battle of Quebec . . . George Bancroft 77 The Battle of Quebec Capt. John Knox 77 England's Heroes Sir IVtdter Scott 81 PART II The East India Company Edmund Burke 83 Clive at Arcot ... Earl Stanhope 85 The Battle of Plassey Lord Macaulay 90 The Indian Mutiny R. Bosiuorth Smith 93 The Empress of India Lady Betty Balfour 104 A Description of Australia If^illiam Dampier 109 The Discovery of Australia ... Carl Lumholtz III The Settlement of Australia Carl Lumholtz "5 The Sheep-farming Industry in Queens- land Carl Lumholtz 117 New Zealand Farms Mrs. Rotvan 120 New Zealand Scenery Mrs. Ronvan 122 The Importance to England of New Zealand Sir Robert Peel 125 A Bush Fire Mrs. Rowan 126 Queensland Scenery Mrs. Rowan 128 A Kangaroo Hunt ... Mrs. Rowan 129 The Gold-fields of Australia Carl Lumholtz 131 African Exploration Mungo Pari 136 Discovery of the Niger ... Mungo Park 139 Gold in Africa Mungo Park 142 \ CONTENTS ix Ivory in Africa ... Mungo Pari PACK 144 Discovery of Lake Ngami DavU Li'vingstone 149 The Zambesi Expedition of 1858-64 Dwvid Livingstone •51 The Victoria Falls of the Zambesi river David Livingstone 152 The Discovery of Lake Nyassa ... David Li-vingstonc 157 Encounter with Lions David Livif.jstone 161 V Letter to his Daughter David Livingstone 163 The Boers in 1852 ... Da'vid Li'vingstone :65 tlfhe Meeting of Livingstone and Stanley David Livingstone 172 Iffhe Work of David Livingstone ... IV. G. Blaikie 175 Ivur Possessions in South Africa John Martineau 177 ■he Colonizing Genius of the British H People Thomas Je Si^incey 182 fcngland and Liberty William Wordsvcortk 184 [A Plea for Consolidation of Empire William Words-worth 184 iThe Dangers of Material Progress William Wordsivorth 186 England and her Colonies Rnhert Southey 189 England at the Time of the Napoleonic War George [iirro-iv 191 The Ideal Colonial Governor Thomas Carlyle 192 delations between Great Britain and her Colonies in 1850 Thomas Carlyle 194 "he Necessity for the Expansion of England Thomas Carlyle 196 The Causes of England's Greatness ... Earl of Beaconsfield 198 The Consolidation of the Empire Earl of Beaconsfield 201 'rayer for England's Welfare Lord Tennyson 205 >Jotes ... 207 Chronological Table ... 226 'index ... 229 LIST OF MAPS The British Empire in 1698 " " i» 1763 '» » >» 1815 i> )) t» 1901 Frontispiece To face page 64 „ 92 ., 205 From Mr. A. W. Jose's "Growth of the Empire." INTRODUCTION Nere is always an intimate connection between a buntry's history and its literature. If by a strange tombination of circumstances we were compelled to bhoose between the historical records of our country |ind the writings of our poets, dramatists, novelists I'ssayists, and critics, we should perhaps prove our ^isdom by relinquishing t. first alternative. But such I contingency is most unlikely, and v/e may doubtless kckon on being able to the end of time to illustrate be work of the professional historians by the produc- Ions of those who may perhaps be called the unconscious pstorians of a nation's life and progress. Where can Ve learn better the likeness of medieval England than |J the poems of Langland and Chaucer, of mediseval taly than in the great epic of Dante ? Who reveals the secret of England's greatness under Elizabeth more plearly than Spenser and Shakespeare ? And is not our knowledge of the days of Anne and the first Georges largely based on the writings of Pope, Addison, and Rwift? It is generally admitted that the most strikin^r xn INTRODUCTION feature in the history of Great Britain is its vas colonial expansion. That expansion is still, and ha been for some three centuries, so unique and importai a factor in our national life that it has necessarily le its mark on our literature. An attempt is made in th volume, we believe for the first time, to bring togetht from the writings of our great authors some passagt which may serve as a first-hand and contempora^ commentary on the growth of Greater Britain. An historical treatise on the expansion of Englan even were it within the powers of the author, is beyor the scope of this introduction. But it will perhaps rend the main contents of the volume more useful if we trac rapidly, and very generally, the story of the Englis colonies, in so far as is necessary for the right undei standing and appreciation of the selected literar passages. The invention of the mariner's compass made possible for Columbus to discover America, and t\ success of his voyage roused that living spirit of advei ture in men's hearts which was so special a characterist of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Out of grew a desire to colonize, to form plantations, as th' settlements were called in the days of Elizabeth an( James I. A British colony is a totally different thinj from a Greek or Roman colony. Great Britain has never practised nor encouraged what has been callec the " natural colonization " of the Greeks and Romans A colony is in every case a settlement made in a foreign land. Greek colonies, however, were never governed by the mother country; they somewhat^ EMPIRE AND SEA POWER xiu Isembled what gardeners call a layer, that is, a portion ' the parent tree with stem, twigs, and leaves embedded fresh soil, where it is severed after it has taken root, tie ties between Greece and her colonies were purely ps of sentiment based on similarity of race and religion, le Roman colony took the form of a military settle- ent in territory subject to the mother country. A ritish colony has been defined as " a community politi- lly dependent, in some shape or form, the majority, the dominant portion of whose members belong by th or origin to the mother country, such persons Lving no intention to return to the mother country." I If the beginnings of our empire across the seas is Unected with the love of adventure, it is as closely Innected with the love of the sea characteristic of an pnd and maritime people. The sea is indeed the Dst important factor in the making and keeping of reater Britain, for without command of the sea, our |loriial supremacy would be impossible. England's a-power may be said to have begun with the defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588. But some ten years rlier the superior strength of the English navy seems have been recognized by foreign nations. In William [arrison's description of England prefaced to the first iition of Holinshed's Chronicle (1577), we read "that 3r strength, assurance, nimbleness, and swiftness of liling " no ships in the world were to be compared with le English in the common opinion of foreigners. From Ihe time of Alfred, English kings recognized the necessity >f protecting the coasts by means of " ships royal," that Is, ships provided at the cost of the nation. But it was XIV INTRODUCTION not until the time of Henry VIII. that the navy vva looked upon as a distinct service. Even so, ver. much was left to private enterprise. The ships tha] crushed the power of Philip II., and that explored th northern and western seas, did not all, by any mean.i belong to the Crown. Many of thelh were built, equippei or chartered at the expense of private owners like Drak< Gilbert, and Raleigh. Charles Kingsley, whose romanc of " Westward Ho ! " may be profitably read in th connection, went so far as to say that England ow( her commerce, her colonies, her very existence, to tl| public spirit of such men. Sir Humphry Gilbert seems to have been the firs] Englishman to form any practical scheme of coloniz. tion ; and it is to be noted that he was influenced b. exactly the same reasons as his successors. He dreame of gaining wealth, of extending the trade of Englancj of finding some place in which needy persons who wei a burden to the community might settle down. Tl only practical result of his efforts was, that in 1583 took possession of Newfoundland in the name of th] Queen. He perished on the voyage home. Sir Walter Raleigh had an interest in that voyagel He, too, cherished the idea of settling a colony irj America, and he equipped an expedition at his owi cost, which we may regard as the first serious attempt to found a ^^ater England beyond the seas. A portion! of the mainlai.a was taken possession of, and called Vir- ginia, in honour of the Queen. Although Raleigh was| not successful in founding a permanent colony, yet his name is of the very greatest importance in the history KNGLANO IN AMERICA XV I of English colonization. According to one of his biographers, " he was a pioneer in a multitude of paths which have converged at length in the greatness of Britain. In the history of Britain at large there are not many greater names than his. In the history of British America there are none. His Virginian enterprise had failed ; but his perseverance in it had sc vn broad- cast the seeds of eventual success. Raleigh is the virtual founder of Virginia and of what has grown thereout." Indeed, we may almost say that he trained the men who first ^olonized America. The first permanent English settlement in America was made at Jamestown, in 1608, by the Virginia Company, a body founded in 1606 for carrying out schemes of colonization in a practical fashion. The motives that led men to look favourably on such schemes are not far to seek. There was the desire for wealth. There were the stimulus to trade, and the improvement of the trader's position, derived from the working of mines and the sale of the various natural commodities found in the new countries. Next, com- munication with settled colonies would render im- perative an increase in the power, importance, and numerical strength of the navy, and thus the nation's prestige would be enlarged. Settled colonies, more- over, would provide a means of dealing with the sur- plus population of England ; they would allow for the expansion of the empire of England, and would offer opportunities for spreading the true evangel. But these early colonies were not a success. It is not necessary to discuss here the causes of failure ; they are perhaps b XVI INTRODUCTION to be sought in the eager desire of the government at home to make as much money as possible out of the products of the colonies, and in the fact that the greater number of the colonists were men who had hardly succeeded in their careers at home. By 1620 a new element, and one of permanent strength, that was to form the real basis of England's first colonial empire, had entered into the scheme of things. A band of men and women who departed from the practices of religion in the Established Church of Eng- land, removed in 1608 to Ley den, in Holland, in order to pursue there unmolested the severely Puritan form of religion that seemed to them the only right one. A town life did not suit them, and in 1620 they determined to seek their fortunes in a new land across the sea. They had at first thought of Virginia, but realizing that a colony of traders was unlikely to have much sympathy with their religious aspirations, these Separa- tists, as they came to be called, decided to plant a colony of their own. Accordingly, in September, 1620, a small company, known as the Pilgrim Fathers, and consisting of about a hundred and twenty men, women, a d children, set sail for the New World from Southampton in the Mayflmver. After a stormy and adventurous voyage, they landed at Cape Cod in November, and proceeded to found the important colony of Massachusetts in New England. Felicia Hemans wrote, in her stanzas on their landing — " Ay, call it holy ground, The soil where first they trod, They have left unstained what there they found. Freedom to worship God." CAROLINE COLONIES xvn The colonists who had started with such aspirations had many difficulties to contend with, many hardships to endure ; but perseverance, and the firm belief that they were furthering the glory of God and the honour of their country, brought them triumphantly through. Under Charles I. England's colonies consisted of Virginia, New England, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Bermuda Isles. They were considered chiefly as places where dissenters from the Established Church might find a refuge, and as a means of increasing the shipping and trade interests of England. But England had now to learn the meaning of rivalry and opposition. The Dutch and the French were also seeking to plant colonies in America, and the beginning of the struggle between France and England for the supremacy in America may be placed at this period. The most satis- factory incident in our colonial history under Charles L was the settlement of Barbadoes in the West Indies. The place had been occupied by the English in Eliza- beth's reign. Possessing a good harbour and a fertile soil, it soon became a prosperous colony. We may deduce the growing importance of the colonies in the eyes of the mother country from the fact that it was considered necessary to inform them officially of the change of government consequent on the execution of Charles I. It was further evident from the Navigation Ordinance of 165 1, and the Navigation Act of 1661, that England meant to keep a firm hold on her colonies, and to use them for the extension of her shipping and for the increase of her trade. Those statutes enacted that no English or colonial goods should be imported into XVIll INTRODUCTION England or any of her colonies except by English ships. Cromwell had great imperial ideas, and did much to lay the foundations of our Empire by raising the naval and military standing of England, and by employing the naval and military forces of the mother country to ex- tend the territory of the colonies. But the only notable events in our colonial history under Cromwell were the conquest of Jamaica from the Spaniards in 1655, and the reorganization of the East India Company in 1657. Under Charles II. the significance of the colonies rose still higher. Lord Clarendon has recorded how he endeavoured "to bring his Majesty to have a great esteem for his plantations, and to encourage the im- provement of them." The Navigation Act was renewed in 1 66 1, and its scope somewhat enlarged. Certain articles of commerce were forbidden to be shipped to any place except England and her colonies. Moreover, we owe to Charles II. the incorporation of the first body of men whose duty it was to look after colonial business. That body was formed of a Committee of the Privy Council and was named the Council appointed for Foreign Plantations. The instructions issued by the king to the members were full and clear: the Council was to inform itself of the government of each colony, its complaints, wants, abundance, growths, and commodities ; of every ship trading there and its lading, so that " a more steady judgment and balance may be made for the better ordering and disposing of trade and of the proceed and improvements of the plan- tations." Its members were also required to apply themselves to all prudential means to render those WILLIAM PENN AND JAMES II. XIX dominions useful to England, and England helpful to them, and to take measures for the propagation of the Gospel. Many men distinguished in letters were engaged in our colonial administration. John Evelyn, the diarist, Edmund Waller, the poet, were members of the Council, and John Locke, the philosopher, was its secretary from 1673 until its dissolution in 1675. Locke assisted Shaftesbury, on whom Clarendon's mantle fell so far as the colonies were concerned, to found in 1663 the colony of Carolina, so called after the king. Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 by William Penn the Quaker. Here again it was religious persecution that drove Englishmen across the seas. Penn proved a wise and far-sighted governor, and the colony flourished. Macaulay praises him highly as the founder of a colony who did not in his dealings with a savage people abuse the strength derived from civilization ; and as a law-giver who, in an age of persecution, made religious liberty the corner-stone of a polity. In the following year New York was conquered from the Dutch. James II. was perhaps the first Englishman to under- stand that a Greater Britain can only exist if the mother country holds command of the seas. In 1686 he appointed a special commission to inquire into the defects of the navy. The service was put on a much more efficient footing, and although it turned against the man who had done so much for it when he had most need of it, it is only just to note that we owe it to James II. that England, after the Revolution, began steadily to gain the sea-power of the world. At the accession of William and Mary the expansion of England XX INTRODUCTION had become conspicuous enough to attract the attention of foreign nations. If England desired to keep her colonies, which she then valued chiefly as a means of extending her commerce, she had to have at command ships to carry the merchandise, and ships for the defence of those fraught with a valuable cargo. Captain Mahan declares that in 17 13, the year of the signing of the Peace of Utrecht, " England was the sea-power, without any second," and that she held it " alone, unshared by friend, and unchecked by foe." Still, a little more than fifty years after that time England suffered the one grave check to her expansion that history has so far to record — the loss of her American colonies. The story has been fully and admirably told by Mr. Lecky in his "History of England in the Eighteenth Century." We cannot here enter in detail into the causes of that momentous event ; some of them are described in the extracts from contemporaries to be found in the body of the book. But two facts that were undoubtedly instrumental in preparing the way for the final separation may be briefly noticed. The original Charters granted to the American colonies secured to them almost absolute self-government. The founders of those colonies were in most cses m.en who had left their native country in order to escape persecu- tion, and who bequeathed to their descendants the legacy of an independent spirit. Thus the inhabitants of our American colonies were thoroughly well prepared to form, should the occasion arise, a self-governing nation. But England permitted her colonists no sort of com- mercial independence. All commercial legislation was GEORGIA XXI directed to force the colonics to trade only with England, and they were forbidden to manufacture for themselves any article manufactured in Great Britain, for fear of relaxing the bond which held them to the mother country. Hertin lay the chief cause of the ultimate breach. Greater Britain in the middle of the eighteenth century would have presented no great figure without her American possessions. They consisted of the thirteen states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Penn- sylvania, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. A word must be said about the last, which was established in 1732 by James Edward Oglethorpe, as a refuge for debtors. Oglethorpe regarded colonization as a remedy for the economic ills of a country. The colony of Georgia was founded on strictly philanthropic lines, and emigrants were assisted to go there by the government, in order to relieve the distress in England. Those immigrants were mainly persons who had failed to pay their way at home, a class unlikely to succeed in life anywhere, and it is not sur- prising that the colony did not flourish. As long as Oglethorpe, a man born with a gift for ruling, remained its governor, things went fairly well ; he built Savannah and established friendly relations with the natives. But once his personality was removed a change for the worse set in. "Georgia," says a writer in 1735, "which was intended to be the asylum of the distressed, unless things are greatly altered, is likely to be itself a mere scene of distress. Notwithstanding the place has been settled xxu INTRODUCTION nigh three years, I believe I may venture to say there is not one family which can subsist without further assist- ance." In 1753 it passed over to the Crown. Meantime, the English had to reckon with the French colonists in America, and unfortunately the variety of government and of opinion that prevailed in our colonies there made any joint action difficult, and caused the advantage to lean to the side of the French. For that reason a congress was summoned in 1754, at which a scheme for military defence to be common to all the states was drawn up, subject to the approval of the British Parliament. In 1756 war with France broke out. Its main result for England was the capture of Quebec by General Wolfe, an episode in history that ensured the conquest of Canada. By the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1763, France relinquished all claim to Canada, Nova Scotia, and the St. Lawrence islands. The British government now decided that a permanent army must be kept in America, and that the colonies must help to pay for it. These resented the obligation, and it must be remembered that the idea underlying their objection was thoroughly English, an idea that had prevailed from the time of the Great Charter, and that has had so vast an effect in moulding our national destinies— the idea that there can be no taxa- tion without representation. Al .le American colonies were not represented in the English Parliament, it followed as the night the day that they could not legally be taxed by the will of that body. A congress was summoned at Philadelphia to deliberate on the matter, FOUNDATION OF THE U.S.A. XXIIl at which the States determined to separate themselves for ever from the mother country. On July 4, 1776, was issued the famous Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. "These united colonies," it ran, *' are, and ought to be, free and inde- pendent States ; they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown ; and all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved." A war ensued, which was continued until 1783, when, by the Treaty of Ver- sailles, the independence of the United States of America became an acknowledged fact. That event has some- times been termed the most shameful in our history. The Earl of Rosebery said lately that if the elder Pitt, when he became First Minister, had not left the House of Commons, representatives from America might have been introduced into the Imperial Parliament, the thirteen American colonies might have been preserved to the British Crown, and not only would our Empire thus have been incalculably greater, but it is possible that the seat of Empire might have been transferred to the other side of the Atlantic. But this political " might-have-been " is a conjectural business at the best, and is not particularly profitable. For our purposes it is enough to note that America owes her origin and her foundations of national success to her English blood, which is stronger to-day to unite the two peoples than are the waters of the Atlantic to divide them. Canada, and certain other territories north of the United States, still remained in the possession of England. The government of Canada presented many XXIV INTRODUCTION difficulties, resulting chiefly from the fact that it was inhabited by two races, the French and the English. About 1850, under the governorship of Lord Elgin, the wisdom of allowing the colonists that measure of inde- pendence necessary for social and political development began to be recognized. Lord Elgin saw that it was possible to do this, and at the same time to maintain undiminished the supremacy of British institutions on the soil of North America, even in the face of the republican United States. In that way the minds both of Canadians and Englishmen were gradually prepared for the British North America Act of 1867, which made pre sion for the confederation of States, including Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia, Rupertsland, and a portion of the North- West Territory* known as the Dominion of Canada. The Dominion was to be ruled by a governor appointed by the Crown, and the Constitution was to follow that of England, so far as the different conditions allowed. Speaking of the future of Canada in 1872, the Marquis of Dufferin said : — " Few people in this country have any notion how blessed by nature is the Canadian soil. The beauty, majesty, and material importance of the gulf of the St. Lawrence is indeed the theme of every traveller, while the stupendous chain of lakes to which it is an outlet is well known to afford a system of inland naviga- tion such as is to be found in no other part of the The inexhaustible harvest of its seas habitable globe. • The remainder nf (he North-VVest Territory' is divided into eight provisional districts and one Territory. Newfoundland has so far preferred to remain outside the federation. LORD DUFFERIN ON CANADA xxv annually gathered by its hardy maritime population, the innumerable treasures of its foreF' s, are known to all ; but what is not so generally understood is that beyond the present inhabited regions of the country — beyond the towns, the lakes, the woods— there stretches out an enormous breadth of rich alluvial soil, comprising an area of thousands of square miles, so level, so fertile, so ripe for cultivation, so profusely watered and inter- sected by enormous navigable rivci-s, with so exception- ally mild a climate, as to be destined at no distant time to be occupied by millions of our prosperous fellow- subjects, and to become a central granary for the adjoining continents. Such a scene as this may well fire the most sluggish imagination, nor can there be conceived a greater privilege than to be permitted to watch over the development of an industry and civiliza- tion fraught with such universal advantage to the human race. In fact, it may be doubted whether the inhabitants of the dominion themselves are as yet fully awake to the magnificent destiny in store for them, or have altogether realized the promise of their young and hardy nationality. Like a virgin goddess in a primaeval world, Canada still walks in unconscious beauty among her golden woods and by the margin of her trackless streams, catching but broken glances of her radiant majesty as mirrored on their surface, and scarcely recks as yet of the glories awaiting her in the Olympus of nations." India is not a colony in the strict sense of the word, although it forms part of the British Empire. As we have seen, colonization meant a gradual displacement xxvi INTRODUCTION of the native races by English settlers, who became, to all intents and purposes, the inhabitants of the land. But in India not only did we in no way supplant or displace the native races, but without their co-operation we should never have been able to govern the country. There is, too, another very imporiant difference between India and the rest of Greater Britain. The larger number of Englishmen who go to India are military and civil officials, who are not permitted by law to acquire property in land, who regard India as only a temporary home, and who are always looking forward to :ie time when they shall return to their native land. The traders and merchants are as a general rule permanently estab- lished there, but they, too, seldom possess a large amount of landed property, and thus it happens that for the most part the natives are the landlords ana agricultural labourers. Englishmen who migrate to Australia, Africa, or North America, however, look to founding there a permanent home. They remain there for the term of their natural lives; there they arc buried, and their descendants, so to speak, become the natives. Edmund Burke * has told the story of our Empire in India from the granting of the first Charter to the East India Company in 1600, up to the time of Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of India, so well and clearly that it is unnecessary to repeat the narrative here. In 1657 Cromwell reconstructed the East India Company on the broader basis that eventually enabled the factories to grow into settlements, and finally into • Cf. pp. 83-85. ENGLAND IN INDIA xxvn the British Empire of India.* France held at one time important possessions in India. About the middle of the eighteenth century it seemed as if she would gain the supremacy and hold 't unchecked for evermore ; nor should we forget that it was France who discovered the weakness of the native Indian armies against disciplined European troops, and the facility with which that dis- cipline could be imparted to natives in the European service. At the darkest hot'r, when it seemed impos- sible to stand against the conquering power of France, " an obscure English youth suddenly turned the tide of fortune." That obscure youth was Robert Clive.f To Clive we owe the renown of English arms in India, the political ascendency of England in India, and the first introduction of a wise and uncorrupt administration. Warren Hastings ruled India from 1772 to 1785, and, through his wisdom and ability, greatly extended the British power and influence. He taught the native races with whom he came in contact the salutary lessons both of love and fear. Through him the dual control of native ruler and English ruler (something like the dual control by France and England that existed at one time in Egypt) was abolished, to the inca' 'able benefit of good government. He also organiz system of administration of justice, the basis of whic t still prevails. • It is interesting to note that the years 1657, 1757, and 1S57 were notable dates in the history of India. The battle of Plassey in 1757 secured British supremacy in India, and the mutiny of 1857 brought about the abolition of the East India Company, and the establishment of the system of government by which India has since been ruled. t Cf. pp. 85-92. XXVIU INTRODUCTION All this work had to be done on his own responsibility, without the advice of competent counsellors such as our Governor-Generals now command. Speaking of what he had accomplished in India, he said : " The valour of others acquired, I enlarged and gave shape and con- sistency to the dominion you hold there. Every division of official business which now exists in Bengal is of my formation." Pitt's India Bill of 1784 introduced several important changes into the government. It enacted that the East India Company should be assisted politically by a Board of Control in England, which took a great part in the appointment of persons to the chief governorships of India. But notwithstanding these changes, the power of the \Jompany was paramount until 1858. It had its own army, navy, and civil service. With its aid the various governors who ruled India annexed by conquest or treaty more and more of the Indian Peninsula. About 1836 statesmen had seen that the Russian advance in Asia endangered our Indian frontier, and made it imperative for us to gain the friendship of, and make an alliance with, the Ameer of Afghanistan, whose territory lay between India and the Russian provinces of Central Asia. But the Ameer of that period pre- ferred the Russian alliance. A disastrous war ensued, that had, however, little practical effect on the situation. The most important expansion on the eastern side was the annexation of Lower Burmah in 1852.* By the Indian Mutiny, which broke out in 1857, our tenure of India was for a time placed in the greatest • Upper Burmah was annexed in 1886. THE INDIAN MUTINY XXIX peril. The Sepoy army had become discontented by the promulgation of an order making it legal for native troops to be sent across the dreaded " black water " of the ocean. The introduction of the Enfield rifle, the cartridges of which were greased, or so the Sepoys obstinately declared, with the fat of the cow, an animal sacred to the Hindoos, or with that of the pig, an animal abhorred by the Mohammedans, tended to disturb them still further. Nothing is harder to fight than deeply rooted superstition, and the Mutiny, founded on that basis, spread with great force and rapidity, till in May, 1857, Delhi was in the hands of the rebels. We cannot here relate the brave deeds of our countrymen and country .vomen in that time of trial. Our readers may consult two books which appeared a few yet^rs ago, the one a personal record by Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, K.G., entitled " Forty-one Years in India," and the other, "On the Face of the Waters," by Mrs. Flora Annie Steel, a work of fiction hardly less realistic than the reminiscences of the man of action. It has been well said that to have been in India during the Mutiny was enough to stamp a man or woman with heroism. Despite the horrors of bloodshed and treachery, despite all difficulties and perils, and not, alas! without the sacrifice of the lives of some of our greatest Indian soldiers and civilians, the extreme danger was crushed between May and November. Our great poet wisely said that "there is some soul of goodness in things evil," and the outcome of the Mutiny has certainly been the more efficient government of India and the increase of her prosperity. It set a term to the powers of the XXX INTRODUCTION H Fast India Company, and the new India Bill of 1853 inaugurated the system of government under which India has since been ruled with a success that grows by experience. The government was transferred from the Company to the Crown, acting through a Secretary of State for India, advised by an Indian Council of experts. India itself was to be ruled by a Viceroy, under whose control were all the provinces of India.* In 1877 Queen Victoria assumed the title of Empress of India, and "Empress Day" is kept in India as one of the great holidays of the year. The sceptre of the King-Emperor, Edward VII., extends over two hundred and a half millions of persons in India, and in some ways the good administration and material prosperity of our Indian Empire are the most hopeful signs that the British genius for government is still young and vigorous. The Englishman in India, as in Egypt, has evolved order out of the most incongruous elements. To make use of the words of a great living statesman, " He accepts the system with all its faults, sets to work quietly, in his sensible, plodding way, to do the best he can under untoward circumstances," and does so with eminent success. The rise of our colonies in Australia f and Africaf is so fully told in the extracts dealing respectively with those countries in the body of the book that it is not necessary to add much to those narratives here. • These consist now of Madras, Bengal, Bombay, North-West Provinces and Oudh, the Punjab, Burmah, Ceylon, Straits Settle- ments, Hong Kong, Borneo, Labuan, and Sarawak. t Cf. pp. 109-136. t Cf. pp. 136-182. EXGLAND IN AUSTRALIA xxxi The first Englishman who visited Australia was William Dampier. He sailed along the west and north- west coasts in 1688 and 1699 respectively. Captain Cook explored the east coast (now Victoria) in 1770 and took possession of it in the name of Great Britain. But it was not until after the loss of the American colonies that Englishmen began to turn their attention to the possibilities of Australia, and even then it was only to make there a penal settlement for convicts. In 1788 the English Government decreed that convicts should be transported to Botany Bay, and a colony consisting of about 750 of them was established at Port Jackson (now Sydney). With them came also as settlers a certain number of soldiers and government officials. The objects of the convict settlement were • (i) to rid the mother-country of the intolerable nuisance arising from the daily increasing accumulation of criminals in her gaols; (2) to afford a suitable place for the safe custody and punishment of these criminals, as well as for their ultimate and progressive reformation • (3) to form a British colony out of such material as the reformed criminals might gradually supply to the govern- ment, in addition to the families of free emigrants who might be induced to settle in the country. This method would scarcely seem likely to have any large measure of success ; and there were, it is true, many serious draw- backs and grave evils. In the history of the Australian colonies, the period has been called the "convict epoch," and the horrors of the transportation system are perhaps most forcibly depicted in a powerful novel, " For the Term of his Natural Life," by Marcus Clarkei c xxxn INTRODUCTION who was himself an Australian. The details he gives are terrible, not to say gruesome in the extreme, but there is unfortunately little doubt that he is describing what actually happened. Transportation as a system of punishment is now recognized as useless, but it must be remembered that in 1788 the penal code was much more severe than it is at present, and very many of the persons transported were by no means vicious ; after a longer or shorter period they would be assigned as servants to the free settlers and might ultimately gain their full freedom. Thus, despite every likelihood to the contrary, there grew up in Australia " a new and splendid country, a grand centre of civilization." As the colony prospered, and grew larger by the efforts of the various explorers, the free settlers became more and more opposed to the Transportation system, and in 1S67 it came to an end for ever. After 1 81 3, the colony entered on its second phase, the period that has been aptly named the "pastoral epoch." The fertile \ .sture-land beyond '-he Blue Mountains was opened up, sheep were brought in from the Cape, sheep-farmirg became the great Industry of the colony, and the squatter was soon a familiar figure. This period in the history of the Australian colonies, the period particularly of the foundation of New South Wales, is well painted in the novels of Henry Kingsley (brother of the more celebrated Charles Kingsley), entitled " Geoffrey Hamlyn," and " The Hillyars and the Burtons." At the suggestion of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a more systematic plan of colonization was tried after 1830. THE AUSTRALIAN FEDERATION xxxiii He advocated the sale of the land, and the application of the money thus acquired to assisting the right kind of immigrants. But the accidental discovery of gold in Victoria did more than any number of plans and theories to further the progress of the Australian colonies. It brought a new class of labour into the country, and raised the standard of living. It attracted persons of enterprise and intelligence, who engaged either in mining operations or in the keeping of stores for the sale of every description of goods likely to be required by the mining population. The colonization of Australia has, on the whole, had few difficulties to contend with, few, at least, of the political difficulties that have arisen in our other colonies. The colonists have been nearly all of one race ; except in New Zealand, there has been little opposition from natives; trade has never been taxed for the benefit of England ; the climate is good and the soil fertile. Step by step progress in the direction of self- government has been made by the seven colonies. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, ar. New Zealand. In February, 1890, a conference of representatives from each colony was held at Melbourne, when the wisdom of federal government and of the union of t .a Australian colonies under the Crown was clearly demonstrated. It was agreed that a Governor-General should be appointed by the Crown, that there should be free trade between all federated colonies, and that the federal forces should be under one commander. As soon as the plan was agreed to by three colonies, the Imperial parliament was XXXIV INTRODUCTION to be asked to establish it. This was accomplished in 1900, and the dawn of the twentieth century sees the beginning of a great Australian Federation, free and self-governing in every essential, yet full of a wider and sounder Imperial patriotism than ever before, recogniz- ing the Empire as one great whole, every part of which may and must help the rest, proud of its origin, of the part it plays in the development of the great Anglo- Saxon race, and proudest of all o*" being a part of that race. It has been said of the future of the Australian colonies : — " With a people to whom war is scarcely more than a name, with a land in which no one with health and honesty need want, with boundless opportunities for enterprise, with a health-giving and ispiring climate, with traditions of a great mother-land as proud of her children across the sea as they of her, Australasia can look with sure and steadfast hope into the unknown future." The history of British expansion in Africa is a subject full of difficulties. It would seem that the Anglo-Saxon race is gradually dominating that continent from north to south, from east to west, and that the railway from Cairo to the Cape, so long regarded as the chimera of an ambitious man's fancy, is in a fair way to be realized at no very distant date. The larger part of the explora- tion of the interior of the continent has been due to Englishmen like Mungo Park and David Livingstone and their success 'Central Africa, and especially the great equatorial lai. ystem, has been gradually opened out to commerce, and traders have made their way ENGLAND IN AFRICA: EGVl'T XXXV along the courses of the great rivers, the Niger, the Congo, and the Zambesi. We govern Egypt in the north, Cape Colony, Natal, the Vaal and Orange River Colonies, Basutoland and Rhodesia in the south, besides holding the protectorate of Bechuanaland. In the west our colonics include Gambia, the Gold Coast Colony, Sierra Leone, Lagos, Northern and Southern Nigeria. In the east and centre we hold protectorates over Somililand, Ug^nnda, VVitu, Zanzibar, and the terri- t jries known as the East African and the British Central African protectorates. There is a touch of romance, amid much that is grim and sad, in Great Britain's relations with Egypt. It is a joining of hands by one of the oldest civilizations with one of the newest, to the benefit of both in different kinds. The Egypt of modern nistory was a Turkish province, and the Khedive (viceroy) of Egypt was the vassal of the Sultan of Turkey. But the Turk is notorious for bad government, and the harsh fate of the ancient territories of the Nile induced France and England, the two European states most interested in Egypt, to intervene. The Suez Canal was the work of a French engineer, M. Ferdinand de Lesscps. The Khedive fully approved of the enterprise, and attempted im- provements on his own account, the cost of which he defrayed by laying very heavy taxes on the peasants. Even so, he became involved in pecuniary difficulties, and was very glad to sell his shares in the Suez Canal to England. England thus gained a certain control over the water-way, a matter of vast importance to her, since it had naturally become the high road to India. XX XVI INTRODUCTION Despite the fact that the Khedive's difficulties were not removed, he grew impatient of foreign control, and tried to shake it off. His efforts failed ; he was deposed in 1879, and although his son virtually ruled in his stead, the country came under the dual control of France and England. In 1882 a national Egyptian party was formed for the purpose of ousting European intervention and authority. France left England to face the situa- tion alone, and since then Great Britain has been the real ruler of Egypt. But there were many difficulties to be overcome before Egypt could profit by the change of masters. A religious rising in the Soudan, led by a fanatical prophet called the Mahdi, gave the English much trouble, aggravated here, as elsewhere and at other times, by the lack of a consistent policy in the home government. It caused the defeat and death of General Hicks in 1883, the fall of Khartoum, and the tragic end of General Gordon, one of England's greatest soldiers and heroes, in 1885. Gordon had been ap- pointed governor of the equatorial provinces of Central Africa in 1873. and in 1877 Governor-General of the Soudan. He succeeded in greatly improving the means of communication and in suppressing the slave trade, and his administration had a good effect on the local chiefs. In 1884 he was sent to crush the rebellion of the Mahdi, with instructions to evacuate the Soudan, and leave an organized government behind. He kept the foe at bay for ten months. Relief came too late, however, and he fell in the attack on Khartoum, January 26, 1885. "This earth," as Tennyson declared, "has never borne a nobler man" than Gordon, who AFTER OMDURMAN xxxvu wrote to his sister barely six weeks before his death, « I have done the best for the honour of my country. Good-bye." The disaster was retrieved by Lord Kitchener at the battle of Omdurman in September, 1898, and Gordon's statue and Memorial College mark the scene of his lonely fate. Neither Turkish nor French rule had brought pros- perity to Egypt, but the British policy of reconstruction is repairing the confidence of the natives and the credit of the Khedive, and may be trusted to effect lasting good. The irrigation system that has done so much to promote agriculture, the transformation of the fellaheen into useful members of society in the capacity of labourers, artisans, soldiers, and police, and the general material improvement of their condition are due to England alone. There is no more fascinating problem than that of the irrigation of a land like Egypt, where no rain falls to fertilize the ground. The engineer, Sir Colin Scott Moncrieff, to whose skill and energy, combined with the efficient and ungrudging support of all his co-workers, the present successful system is due, humorously styled himself the head of the " rain " department. The work of that department— the artificial supply of water to a whole country— has revolutionized the agricultural con- dition of Egypt and saved its inhabitants from ruin. Another boon was the abolition of their forced labour under the Corvee system, by which the fellah could be dragged from his home and compelled to assist in the execution of public works. Sir Alfred Milner summed up the task of England in Egypt when he said, in 1892 : " Alike by the nature of our interests, by the nature of XXXVUl INTRODUCTION our power, and by certain special qualities in our national character, we seem marked out for the dis- charge of this particular duty. Our interests in Egypt are absolutely identical with those of the Egyptian people. We are their principal customers, and they also are very important customers of Great Britain. . . . And if Egyptian prosperity is a British interest, so is Egyptian independence. We have no desire to possess ourselves of Egypt, but we have every reason to prevent any rival power from so possessing itself. And there is no sure, no creditable manner of providing permanently against such a contingency except to build up a system of government so stable as to leave no excuse for future foreign intervention." Cape Colony, to travel south, was originally settled by the Dutch, vvho merely regarded it, however, as a place of call in case of need for the trading ships of the various nations. In 1652 the Dutch East India Company established a station there, so that sailors and traders might be sure of finding supplies ready to hand on their voyages. By the Peace of Paris (18 14) Cape Colony became the property of Great Britain. Since then her possessions in South Africa have largely increased, and she has found the ruling of ti.at part of her Empire an exceedingly difficult task. Expensive wars have been compulsory, and a large number of problems, many of which are not yet solved, have had to be considered. The British policy, it must be con- fessed, has been vacillating and hesitating — conditions that do not make for good government. Despite many pretences of friendship, the Dutch settlers, known as the BRITONS AND BOERS XXXI X Boers, have always been hostile towards the English the major portion of the immigrant population ; and their treatment of the native races has left much to be desired. Our difficulties, too, have been materially increased by the attitude of the native races, who have but slowly begun to recognize our good intentions towards them. In 1835 the Boers "trekked," as they call it, nort' and east, but they were followed by the British, who annexed Natal in 1843. and British Kaffraria in 1865. Similar struggles have been going on ever since, and the whole question has been vastly complicated by the discovery of the diamond and gold mines. The Boers could count occasional successes in arms, but showed a singular incapacity for wise and just government in their South African Republic, which the British annexed in 1 87 1, and restored in 1881. The long and troublesome negotiations and discussions, inter- rupted and embittered by desultory fighting, led at last to the Third Boer War of 1899-1901, in which the Boers of the Transvaal and of the Orange Free State have finally lost their independence. There is little doubt that only a firm, settled government is needed to make South Africa one of the most prosperous parts of the British Empire, and it is hoped that the ultimate settlement of the various South African provinces under a confedera- tion owing suzerainty to England may speedily be accomplished. Before quitting the historical side of our subject, and turning to its literary and philosoplucal aspects, let us reiterate most emphatically that without command of the sea we could not preserve intact our Colonial xl INTRODUCTION Empire. As we stated in the beginning, our colonial possessions have been won by our sea-power, and can only be retained by it. That the extension and strengthening of this sea-power has been and still must be the basis of England's colonial policy is well brought out by Captain Mahan in the following passage : — " The road to India— in the days of Clive a distant and perilous voyage, on which she had not a stopping- place of her own— was reinforced, as opportunity offered, by the acquisition of St Helena, of the Cape of Good Hope, of the Mauritius. When steam made the Red Sea and Mediterranean route practicable, England acquired Aden, and yet later has established herself at Socotra. Malta had already fallen into her hands during the wars of the French Revolution ; and her commanding pr 5ition, as the corner stone upon which the coalitions against Napoleon rested, enabled her to claim it at the Peace of 1815. Being but a short thousand miles from Gibraltar, the circles of military command exercised by these two places intersect. The present day has seen the stretch from Malta to the Isthmus of Suez, formerly without a station, guarded by the cession to her of Cyprus. Egypt, despite the jealousy of France, has passed under English control. . . . [Her sea-power] made her rich, and in turn protected the trade by which she had her wealth. . . . Her power was everywhere that her ships could reach, and there was none to dispute the sea to her. . . . [She was the one nation that] used the sea in peace to earn its wealth, and ruled it in war by the extent of its navy, by the number of its subjects FROM BACON TO BEACONSFIELD xH who lived on the sea or by the sea, and by its numerous bases of operations scattered over the globe." The most casual reading of the extracts that follow will readily show the unity of view that prevails in them, from Francis Bacon to the Earl of Beaconsfield. The key-note of that view is struck by Bacon in the wise essay that stands at their head. His remarks on the advantages of colonization, and on the right and wrong ways of dealing with plantations, are re-echoed through a period of more than two hundred years, and many of the problems put forward by Bacon are not yet solved. He pointed out the wrong and foolishness of expecting to derive profit in the first years of planting a new colony,* the short-sightedness of using " the scum of the people and wicked, condemned men " as colonists ; the evil con- sequences of digging for mineral wealth ; the necessity of giving undivided control to one fit governor, who should be a nobleman or gentleman rather than a merchant who looks ever to immediate gain. Savages, he contends, must be used justly and graciously, and their favour is not to be won by helping them to invade our enemies. He concludes with the sage remark that, a plantation once made, " it is the sinfullest thing in the world" to forsake it. Most of the troubles that our Colonial Empire has brought upon us have been caused by the violation of one or other of those ptinciples. Early explorers, planters, and colonial governors, like * If it took fifty years to make anything of New Zealand, a country with every natural advantage, how much longer, then, must it be before a country like Rhodesia, which lacks every natural a Ivantage, can be made profitable to the promoters of the colony ? xlii INTRODUCTION Captain John Smith, Edward Winslow, Robert Cushman and Sir Geoige Peckham, write much in the vein of Bacon regarding the reasons for planting colonies, the qualities necessary for a colonist, and the things harm- ful to colonization. Sir Humphry Gilbert discourses of the advantages of a north-west passage ; and many explorers since his time have sacrificed their lives in the quest. Sir Walter Raleigh dilates on the wonders of the gold mines of Guiana, little dreaming of the untold wealth that was to accrue to future generations of his countrymen from the mines of Australia and South Africa, Michael Drayton, the most distinguished of the Elizabethan group of patriotic poets, devotes a spirited poem to the Virginian voyage. Andrew Marvell, the friend of Milton, makes the Bermuda emigrants the subject of his verse. Very soon the colonies begin to hold a more prominent place in the political world of England. Lord Clarendon was per- haps the first to demonstrate their political importance. Evelyn records in his diary the doings of what was practically our first Colonial Office, while Bishop Be.ke- ley about 1725 prophecies with remarkable insight : — Westward the course of Empire takes her way ; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day : Time's noblest offspring is the last. Adam Smith, whom we may almost call the founder of the science of political economy, treats at length in his " Wealth of Nations " of the question of the economic value of colonies. Burke and Pitt are eloquent in their despair at the prospect of losing America, and we learn POLITICS AND LITERATURE xliii from Gibbon's familiar letters what went on in the House of Commons during the anxious time of the breach with America. Travellers and settlers in Aus- tralia relate their adventures and their impressions of the new country that was to take the place of the lost colonies of America, and Mungo Park and David Livingstone tell the story of their explorations in Africa. Wordsworth, Southey, and De Quincey reflect in their prose and poetry the growing influence of the expansion of the Empire on the minds of thoughtful men, who were inspired by a true and high patriotism, combining the spirit of the philosopher with that of the man hope- ful of the future of his country. Thomas Carlyle, in his downright, straightforward fashion, goes to the root of things, pointing out with relentless vigour errors in our colonial policy, and giving emphatic utterance to his panacea for most human evils — the discovery of "reat men fitted for great tasks. And the series is closed by the Imperialism of Lord Beaconsfield, than whom perhaps no single man has done more to aid the growth and acceptance of the Imperial idea among the English people. From a purely literary point of view these extracts would serve as a lesson in the development of English prose from John Smith's Elizabethan manner, which, though plainer, is curiously akin to that of Lyly and Sidney, through the unadorned phrases of Adam Smith and the stately periods of Burke, whose prose possessed a variety and a richness unknown to any of his literary ancestors, and whose speeches on America are perhaps the finest examples of it, to the xliv INTRODUCTION rugged individuality of Carlyle, and the clear yet im- passioned utterances of the Earl of Beaconsfield. The extracts here given in no way exhaust the subject ; in any selection of the sort it must always be a case of other men, other minds. Neither have the passages here set down been chosen from the standpoint of literary excellence or charm, although m^ny of them are not deficient in those qualities. The idea in the editor's mind has been that the extracts should, as far as pos- sible, tell the story of the Growth of Greater Britain, and in doing so should preserve some soul of internal unity. Sir John Seeley defined the Empire as " an enlarge- ment of the English State, not simply of English nationality." We have travelled far towards that enlargement since the last y irs of Elizabeth, when England had no possessions outside Europe, when Scotland was still a separate kingdom, and when the English only formed a colony in Ireland. During the establishment of our Colonial Empire our hand at one time or another has been against every nation, Spain, Holland, France. Our wars with France in the eighteenth century were nothing more nor less than a long duel for colonial supremacy in the world at large, in which we came oflF victorious. The common idea that a colony is regarded and prized by a commercial country only as a source of wealth from the increased markets for trade, and as a means for the employment of surplus labour, must not be too literally interpreted. The desire for national expansion that exists in the heart of nearly every Englishman is of more worthy descent. CONCLUSION xlv It has been said that cultivated minds have a natural wish to spread the special type of civilization which they enjoy, and it is this larger and more thoughtful view of the growth of Greater Britain that the example of England should impress upon her neighbours. She should teach them to recognize an all-impelling power for good that drives the common aspiration of the Anglo- Saxon race to found and support a great Empire beyond the seas, so that the world might come to see in the British Empire the demonstration of a great scientific truth, in the survival of the race whose natural aptitude best fits it to carry on and maintain the best form of human government. The political connection of England with her colonies will doubtless take more and more the form of a federal union like that of the Dominion of Canada and of Australia. Recent troubles in South Africa have amply proved that instead of separating the different parts of the Empire, such federative policy only serves to draw it more closely together, to weld it into one great whole. We cannot do better than close these imperfect remarks on a great subject with the following words of Lord Dufferin, in which he draws the picture of the future of Great and Greater Britain. " Increased facilities of intercourse, the multiplicity of enduring domestic ties which have been created by, and are maintained between, thousands and thousands of families at home and their emigrant relations abroad ; the proximity between England and her most distant settlement, effected by constantly improving means of transit, have unified and compacted the colonial system, and, as a WilUIUWI'.".! *f til XlVl INTRODUCTION consequence, instead of concentrating his attention upon his home-farm alone, John Bull is learning every day to appreciate more keenly the splendour and importance of his Imperial estates. I have always believed in our colonial future ; and my official experience has con- firmed my conviction that if England would only be true to herself, and to those she has sent for to establish the language, the law, the liberties, the manfulness, the domestic peace of Britain over the world's surface ; if she will but countenance and encourage them in main- taining their birthright as her sons ; if she will only treat them in an affectionate and sympathetic spirit : this famous Empire of ours, which is constantly asserting itself with accumulating vigour in either hemisphere, and in every clime, will find the associated realms which compose it daily growing more disposed to recognize their unity, to take a pride in their common origin and antecedents, to draw more closely together the bonds which bind them to each other and to the mother- country, to oppose in calamity and danger a still more solid front to every foe, and to preserve sacred and intact in every quarter of the globe, with an ever- deepening conviction of their superiority, the principles of that well-balanced monarchical constitution which the past experience and the current experiments of mankind prove to be best fitted to secure well-ordered persona, liberty and true parliamentary government." BRITAIN OVER THE SEA PylRT I OF PLANTATIONS BY FRANCIS BACON Plantations are amongst ancient, primitive, and heroical works. When the world was young it begat more children, but now it is old it begets fewer, for I may justly account new plantations to be the children of former kingdoms. I like a plantation in a pure soil— that is, where people are not displanted to the end to plant in others ; for else it is rather an extirpation than a plantation. Planting of countries is like planting of woods, for you must make account to lose twenty years' profit, and expect your recompense in the end ; for the principal thing that hath been the destruction of most plantations hath been the base and hasty drawing of profit in the first years. It is true, speedy profit is not to be neglected, as far as may stand with the good of the plantation, but no farther. It is a shameful and -•• B OF PLANTATIONS [Part 1 unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men to be the people with whom you plant, and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation, for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country, to the discredit of the plantation. The people where- with you plant ought to be gardeners, ploughmen, labourers, smiths, carpenters, joiners, fishermen, fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons, cooks, and bakers. In a country of plantation, first look about what kind of victual the country yields of itself to hand, as chest- nuts, walnuts, pine-apples, olives, dates, plums, cherries, wild honey, and the like, and make use of them. Then consider what victual or esculent things there are which grow speeaily and within the year, as parsnips, carrots, turnips, onions, radishes, artichokes of Jerusalem, maize, and the like. For wheat, barley, and oats, they ask too much labour, but with peas and beans you may begin, both because they ask less labour, and because they serve for meat as well as for bread. And of rice like- wise Cometh a great increase, and it is a kind of meat. Above all, there ought to be brought store of biscuit, oatmeal, flour, meal, and the like in the beginning, till bread may be had. For beasts or birds take chiefly such as are less subject to diseases and multiply fastest, as swine, goats, cocks, hens, turkeys, geese, house- doves, and the like. The victual in plantations ougiit to be expended almost as in a besieged town, that is, with certain allowance. And let the main part of the ground employed to gardens or corn be to a common 1625) BY FRANCIS BACON 3 stock, and to be laid in and stored up, prd then delivered out in proportion, besides some spr i j of ground that any particular person will manure for his own private purpose. Consider likewise what commodities the soil where the plantation is doth naturally yield, that they may some way help to defray the charge of the planta- tion, so it be not as was said, to the untimely prejudice of the main business, as it hath fared with tobacco in Virginia. Wood commonly aboundcth but too much, and therefore limber is fit to be one. If there be iron ore and streams whereupon to set the mills, iron is a brave com- modity where wood aboundeth. Making of bay-salt, if the climate be proper for it, would be put in experience. Growing silk likewise, if any be, is a likely commodity. Pitch and tar, where store of firs and pines are, will not fail. So drugs and sweet woods, where they are, cannot but yield great profit ; soap-ashes, likewise, and other things that may be thought of. But moil not too much underground, for the hope of mines is very uncertain, and useth to make the planters lazy in other things. For government, let it be in the hands of one assisted with some counsel, and let them have commission to exercise martial laws with some limitation. And above all, let men make that profit of being in the wilderness as they have God always and His service before their eyes. Let not the government of the plantation depend upon too many counsellors and undertakers in the country that planteth, but upon a temperate number; and let those be rather noblemen and gentlemen than merchants, for they look ever to the present gain. Let there be freedoms from custom till the plantation bi of OF PLANTATIONS [I' ART I strength, and not only freedom from custom, but freedom to carry their commodities where they may make their best of them, except there be some special cause of caution. Cram not in people by sending too fast company after company, but rather hearken how they waste, and send supplies proportionably ; but so as the number may live well in the plantation, and not by surcharge be in penury. It hath been a great en- dangering to the health of some plantations that they have built along the sea and rivers in marsh and un- wholesome grounds. Therefore, though you begin there to avoid carriage and other like discommodities, yet build still rather upwards from the streams than along. It concerneth likewise the health of the plantation that they have good store of salt with them, that they may use it in their victuals when it shall be necessary. If you plant where savages are, do not only enter- tain them with trifles and gingles, but use them justly and graciously, with sufficient guard nevertheless, and do not win their favour by helping them to invade their enemies, but for their defence it is not amiss. And send oft of them over to the country that plants, that they may see better condition than their own, and com- mend it when they return. When the plantation grows to strength, then it is time to plant with women as well as men, that the plantation may spread into generations, and not be ever pieced from without. It is the sinfullest thing in the world to forsake or destitute a plantation once in forwardness, for, besides the dishonour, it is the guiltiness of blood of many commiserable persons. — Essays. 1625. i6i6J ( 5 ) REASONS FOR PLANTING COLONIES BY CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH, OF VIRGINIA Who can desire more content, that hath small means or but only his merit to advance his fortune, than to tread and plant that ground he hath purchased by the hazard of his life ? If he have but the taste of virtue and magnanimity, what to such a mind can be more pleasant than planting and building a foundation for his posterity, got from the rude earth, by God's blessing and his own industry, without prejudice to any ? If he have any grain of faith or zeal in religion, what can he do less hurtful to any, or more agreeable to God, than to seek to convert those poor savages to know Christ and humanity, whose labours with discretion will triple requite thy charge and pains ? What so truly suits with honour and honesty as the discovering things un- known, erecting towns, peopling countries, informing the ignorant, reforming things unjust, teaching virtue, and gain to our native mother-country a kingdom to attend her ; find employment for those that are idle, because they know not what to do : so far from wronging any, as to cause posterity to remember thee, and remember- ing thee, ever honour that remembrance with praise ? And you, fathers, that are either so foolishly fond, or so miserably covetous, or so wilfully ignorant, or so negligently careless, as that you will rather maintain your children in idle wantonness, till they grow your masters, or become so basely unkind, as they wish no- thing but your deaths, so that both sorts grow dissolute, 6 REASONS FOR PLANTING COLONIES [Part I and although you would wish them anywhere to escape the gallows, and ease your cares ; though they spend you here one, two, or three hundred pounds a year, you would grudge to give half so much in adventure with them, to obtain an estate which, in a small time, but with a little assistance of your providence, might be better than your own. But if an angel should tell you that any place yet unknown can afford such fortunt.i, you would not believe him, no more than Columbus was believed there was any such land as is now the well- known, abounding America, much less such large regions as are yet unknown, as well in America as in Africa, and Asia, and Terra Incognita, where were courses for gentlemen (and them that would be so reputed), more suiting their qualities than begging from their prince's generous disposition the labours of his subjects, the very marrow of h' - maintenance. I fear not want of company sufficient, were it but known what I know of those countries, and by the proof of that wealth I hope yearly to return, if God please to bless me from such accidents as are beyond my power in reason to prevent. For I am not so simple to think that ever any other motive than wealth will ever erect there a common- wealth, or draw company from their ease and humour at home, to stay in New England to effect my purposes. And lest any should think the soil might be insupport- able, though these things may be had by labour and diligence, I assure myself there are who delight extremely in vain pleasure that take much more pains in England to enjoy it than I should do here in New England to i6i6] BY CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH gain wealth sufficient ; and yet I think they should not have half such sweet content ; for our pleasure here is still gains, in England charges and loss. Here nature and liberty afford us that freely which in England we want, or it costeth us dearly. What pleasure can be more than (being tired with any occasion ashore in planting vines, fruits, or herbs, in contriving their own grounds to the pleasure of their own minds, their fields, gardens, orchards, buildings, ships, and other works, etc.) to recreate themselves before their own doors, in their own boats upon the sea, where man, woman, and child, with a small hook and line, by angling, may take diverse sorts of excellent fish at their pleasures ? If a man work but three days in seven, he may get more than he c t spend, unless he will be excessive. Now that c : v, ^r, mason, gardener, tailor, smith, sailor, or what ■ may they not make this a pretty recreation, tho. ^ju they fish but an hour in a day, to take more than they eat in a week ? or if they will not eat it, because there is so much better choice ; yet sell it, or change it with the fishermen or merchants, for anything they want. And what sport doth yield a more pleasing content, and less hurt or charge, than angling with a hook, and crossing the sweet air from isle to isle, over the silent streams of a calm sea ? wherein the most curious may find pleasure, profit, and content. Thus, though all men be not fishers, yet all men whatsoever may in other matters do as well. For necessity doth in these cases so rule a commonwealth and each in their several functions, as their labours in 8 REASONS FOR PLANTING COLONIES [Part I their qualities may be as profitable, because there is a necessary mutual use of all. For gentlemen, what exercise should more delight them than ranging daily those unknown parts, using fowling and fishing for hunting and hawking ? and yet you shall see the wild hawks give you some pleasure, in seeing them stoop (six or seven after one another) an hour or two together, at the skulls of fish in the fair harbours, as those ashore at a fowl, and never trouble nor torment yourselves with watching, mewing, feeding, and attending them, nor kill horse and man with running and crying, " See you not a hawk ? " For hunting, also, the woods, lakes, and rivers afford not only chase sufficient for any that delights in that kind of toil or pleasure, but such beasts to hunt that, besides the delicacy of their bodies for food, their skins are so rich, as may well recompense thy daily labour, with a captain's pay. For labourers, if those that sow hemp, rape, turnips, parsnips, carrots, cabbage, and such like, give twenty, thirty, forty, fifty shillings yearly for an acre of ground, and meat, drink, and wages to use it, and yet grow rich ; when better or at least as good ground may be had, and cost nothing but labour, it seems strange to me any such should there grow poor. My purpose is not to persuade children from their parents, men from their wives, nor servants from their masters : only such as with free consent may be spared : but that each parish or village, in city or country, that will but apparel their fatherless children, of thirteen or fourteen years of age, or young married people that i6i6] BY CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH have small wealth to live on, here by their labour may live exceeding well : provided always that first there be a sufficient power to command them, houses to receive them, means to defend them, anJ meet provisions for them, for any place may be overlain ; and it is most necessary to have a fortress (ere this grow to practice) and sufficient masters (as carpenters, masons, fishers, fowlers, gardeners, husbandmen, sawyers, smiths, spinsters, tailors, weavers, and such like) to take ten, twelve, or twenty, or as there is occasion, for apprentices. The masters by this may quickly grow rich ; these may learn their trades themselves, to do the like, to a general and an incredible benefit for king and country, master and servant. But to conclude, Adam and Eve did first begin this innocent work, to plant the earth to remain to posterity, but not without labour, trouble, and industry. Noah and his family began again the second plantation ; and their seed, as it still increased, hath still planted new countries, and one country another ; and so the world to that estate it is. But not without much hazard, travel, discontents, and many disasters. Had those worthy fathers and their memorable offspring not been more diligent for us now in these ages than we are to plant that yet un planted, for the after livers ; had the seed of Abraham, our Saviour Christ, and His apostles, exposed themselves to no more dangers to teach the Gospel and the will of God than we, even we ourselves had at this present been as savage and as miserable as the most barbarous savage yet uncivilized. And what have ever been the works of the greatest princes of the lo ADVANTAGES OF COLONISATION [Part i earth, but planting of countries and civilizing barbarous and inhuman nations to civility and humanity ? whose eternal actions fill our histories. — TJie Description of New England. 1616. ADVANTAGES OF COLONISATION BY SIR GEORGE PECKHAM It is very evident that planting shall in time right amply enlarge her Majesty's territories and dominions, and prove very profitable and beneficial generally to the whole realm. It is very certain that the greatest jewel of this realm, and the chiefest strength and force of the same, for defence or offence in martial matter or manner, is the multitude of ships, masters, and mariners, ready to assist the most stately and royal navy of her Majesty, which, by reason of this voyage, shall have both increase and maintenance. And it is well known that in sundry places of this realm, ships have been built and set forth of late days, for the trade of fishing only. Yet, notwithstanding, the fish which is taken and brought into England by the English navy of fishermen, will not suffice for the expense of this realm four months if there were none else brought of strangers. And the chiefest cause why our Englishmen do not go so far westerly as the especial fishing places do lie, both for plenty and greatness of fish, is that they have no succour and known safe harbour in those parts. But if our nation were once planted there, or near thereabouts, whereas they now fish but for two 1 1 IS991 BY SIR GEORGE PECKHAM months in the year, they might then fish so long as pleased themselves, or rather at their coming find such plenty of fish ready taken, salted, and dried, as might be sufficient to fraught them home without long delay (God granting that salt may be found there) : which shall increase the number of our ship? and mariners, were it but in respect of fishing only ; but much more in regard of the sundry merchandises and commodities which arc there found and had in great abundance. To what en", need I endeavour myself by arguments to prove that by this voyage our navy and navigation shall be enlarged, when as there needeth none other reason than the manifest and late example of the near neighbours to this realm, the kings of Spain and Portugal, who since the first discovery of the Indies, have not only mightily enlarged their dominions, greatly enriched themselves and their subjects, but have also by just account trebled the number of their ships, masters, and mariners, a matter of no small moment and importance. Besides this, it will prove a general benefit unto our country, that through this occasion not only a great number of men which do now live idly at home, and are burdenous, chargeable, and unprofitable to this realm, shall hereby be set to work, but also children of twelve or fourteen years of age, or under, may be kept from idle- ness in making of a thousand kinds of trifling things which will be good merchandise for that country. And, more- over, our idle women (which the realm may well spare) shall also be employed in plucking, drying, and sorting 13 ADVANTAGES OF COLONISATION [i>art i of feathers ; in pulling, beating, and working of hemp ; in gathering of cotton, and divers things right necessary for dyeing. All which things are to be found in those countries most plentifully. And the men may employ themselves in dragging for pearl, working for mines, and in matters of husbandry, and likewise in hunting the whale for train oil and making casks to put the same in ; besides in fishing for cod, salmon, and herring ; drying, salting, and barrelling the same, and felling of trees, hewing and sawing of them, and such like work, meet for those persons that are no men of art or science. . . . Now to the end it may appear that this voyage is not undertaken altogether for the peculiar commodity of ourselves and our country (as generally other trades and journeys be), it shall fall out in proof that the savages shall hereby have just cause to bless the hour when this enterprise was undertaken. First and chiefly, in respect of the most happy and gladsome tidings of the most glorious Gospel of our Saviour Jesus Christ, whereby they may be brought from falsehood to truth, from darkness to light, from the highway of death to the path of life, from super- stitious idolatry to sincere Christianity, from the devil to Christ, from hell to heaven. And if in respect of all the commodities they can yield us (were they many more), that they should but receive this only benefit of Christianity they were more than fully recom- pensed. Now, therefore, for proof that the planting in these parts is a thing that may be done without the aid of the J 5991 BY SIR GEORGE PECKHAM T3 prince's power and purse, I say and affirm that God hath provided such means for the furtherance of this enterprise as do stand us in stead of great treasure ; for first by reason that it hath pleased God of His great coodness of long time to hold His merciful hand over this realm, in preserving the people of the same, both from slaughter and by the sword, and great death by plague, pestilence, or otherwise, there are at this day great numbers (God, He knoweth) which live in such penury and want as they could be contented to hazard their lives, and to serve one year for meat, drink, and apparel only, without wages, in hope thereby to amend their estates, which is a matter in such like journeys of no small charge to the prince. Moreover, things in the like journeys of greatest price and cost, as victuals (whereof there is great plenty to be had in that country without money) and powder, great artillery, or corslets, are not needful in so plentiful and chargeable manner as the show of such a journey may present ; for a small quantity of all these, to furnish the fort only, will suffice until such times as divers commodities may be found out in those parts which may be thought well worthy a greater charge. . . . Then shall her Majesty's dominions be enlarged, her Highness' ancient titles justly confirmed, all odious idleness from this our realm utterly banished, divers decayed towns repaired, end many poor and needy persons relieved, and estates of such as now live in want shall be embettered, the ignorant and barbarous idolaters taught to know Christ, the innocent defended from their bloody, tyrannical neighbours, the diabolical 14 DRAWBACKS TO COLONISATION [Part i custom of sacrificing human creatures abolished.-— Hakluyt, Voyages, Navigations, Traffics, and Discoveries. 1599. DRAWBACKS TO COLONISATION BY EDWARD WINSLOW Indeed, three things are the overthrow and bane, as I may term it, of plantations. 1. The vain expectations of instant profit which, far too commonly, take a principal seat in the heart and afiections. 2. Ambition in their governors and commanders, seeking only to make themselves great, and slaves of all them under them, to maintain a transitory, base honour in themselves. 3. The carelessness of those that send over reinforce- ments of men unto them ; not caring how they be qualified. But, rather, if there be any too desirous of gain, let them be entreated to moderate their affections, and to consider that no man expecteth fruit before the tree be grown ; advising all men that, as they tender their own welfare, so to make choice of such to manage and govern their affairs as are approved ; not to be seekers of themselves, but of the common good of all for whom they are employed ; and beseeching such as have the care of transporting men for the supply and furnishing of plantations, to be truly careful in sending such as may further, and not hinder, 30 good an action. i624) BY EDWARD WINSLOW »5 There is no godly, honest man but will be helpful in this kind, and adorn his profession with an upright life and conversation ; which doctrine of manners ought first to be preached, by giving a good example to the poor, savage heathens amongst whom they live. Not that we altogether, or principally, propound profit to be the main end of that we have undertaken ; but the glory of God, and the honour of our country, in the enlarging of his Majesty's dominiri^s. I will not again speak of the abundance of wild fowl, store of venison, and variety of fish, which might encourage many to go in their persons. Only I advise all such beforehand to consider that as they he?.r of cour'^ries that abound with the good creatures of God, so means must be used for the taking of every one in his kind ; and therefore not only to con- tent themselves that there is suflficient, but to foresee how they shall be able to obtain the same. Otherwise as he that walketh London streets, though he be in the midst of plenty, yet if he want means, is not the better, but hath rather his sorrow increased by the sight of that he wanteth but cannot enjoy, so also there, if thou want skill and other necessaries thereunto belongmg, thou mayest see that thou wantest and thy heart desirest, yet never be the better for the same. Therefore, if thou see thine own insuflSciency of thyself, then join to some others, where thou mayest in some measure enjoy the same, otherwise assure thyself thou art better where thou art ! Some there be that, thinking altogether of their present wants that they suffer here, and not dreaming of any there, through indiscretion, plunge themselves i6 A NORTH-WEST PASSAr.K [I'AKT I intoa dcepcrsea of misery. As, for exaini^!:, o unspeakable commodities to all th n ICurope. For, throii h the -hor^ncss o. the voya^a. we si uld be able to se all m- ser of merr mdis' )rodght from thence far n re cl y t. eit r the I'ortugucse or Spaniard dot a or mav do : a. d, further, sbare with the Portuguese .n ihe east an the Spar d in the west by trading to any part of A icrica thrui ^re del Sur, where they ca no manner of way offc! u us. Also we sai -d to d vers marvellous rich countries, both civil and others, jt of both their jurisdictions! trades, and traffic.^ e there is to be found great abundanc o !H si vcr, precious stones, cloth of gold, silks, all lai spices, grocery wares, and other of an inestimable price, which both Portuguese, through the length of )t well attain unto. habit some part of those countries there such needy people of our country V trouble the commonwealth, and through c kind^ of m the Soaniarc t^ar jurneys, \\s< we migh an< whk is i8 A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE [Part i want here at home are enforced to commit outrageous offences, whereby they are daily consumed with the gallows. Moreover, we might from all the aforesaid places have a yearly return, inhabiting for our staple some convenient place of America, about Sierra Nevada or some other part, whereas it shall seem best for the shortening of the voyage. Beside the exporting of our country commodities, which the Indians, etc., much esteem, as appeareth in Esther, where the pomp is expressed of the great King of India, Ahasuerus, who matched the coloured clothes wherewith his houses and tents were apparelled with gold and silver, as part of his greatest treasure, not mentioning velvets, silks, cloth of gold, cloth of silver, or such like, being in those countries most plentiful, whereby it plainly appeareth in what great estimation they ./ould have the cloths of this our country, so that there would be found a far better vent for them by this means than yet this realm ever had ; and that without depending either upon France, Spain, Flanders, Portu- gal, Hamborough, Emden, or any other part of Europe. Also here we shall increase both our ships and mariners without burdening of the State ; and also have occasion to set poor men's children to learn handicrafts, and thereby to make trifles and such like, which the Indians and those people do much esteem ; by reason whereof there should be none occasion to have our country cumbered with loiterers, vagabonds, and such like idle persons. All these commodities would grow by following this 159!<] BY SIR HUMPHRY GILBERT '9 our discovery without injury done to any Christian prince by crossing them in any of their used trades, whereby they might take any just occasion of offence. Thus have I briefly showed you some part of the "■rounds of my opinion, trusting that you will no longer judge me fantastic in this matter, seeing I have con- ceived no hope of this voyage, but an; persuaded thereunto by the best cosmographcrs of our age, the same being confirmed both by reason and certain experiences. Also this discovery hath been divers times heretofore by others both proposed, attempted, and performed, so that the right way may now be easily found out in short time, and that with little jeopardy and less expenses. For America is discovered so far towards the north as Cape Frido, which is at 62 degrees, and that part of Greenland next adjoining is known to stand but at 72 degrees, so that we have but 10 degrees to sail north and south to put the world out of doubt hereof; and it is likely that the King of Spain r .id the King of Portu- gal would not have sat out all this while, but that they are sure to possess to themselves all that trade they now use, and fear to deal in this discovery lest the Queen's Majesty, having so good opportunity, and finding the commodity which thereby might ensue to the common- wealth, would cut them off and enjoy the whole traffic to herself, and thereby the Spaniards and Portuguese, with their great charges, should beat the bush and other men catch the birds ; which thing they foreseeing, have commanded that no pilot of theirs, upon pain of death, 20 THE GOLD MINES OF GUIANA [i>art1 should seek to discover to the north-west, or plat out in any sea-card any through passage that way by the north-west. — Hakluyt, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffics, and Discoveries of the English Nation. 1 598- 1 600. THE GOLD MINES OF GUIANA BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH I SENT Captain Whiddon,W. Connocke, and some eight shot with them, to see if they could find any mineral stone along the riverside. When we ran to the tops of the first hills of the plains adjoining to the river, we beheld that wonderful breach of waters which ran down Caroli ; and might from that mountain see the river how it ran in these parts, about twenty miles off, and there appeared some ten or twelve overfalls in sight, every one as high over the other as a church tower, which fell vith that fury that the rebound of waters made it seem as if it had been all covered over with a great shower of rain ; and in some places we took it at first for a smoke that had risen over r.ome great town. For mine own part I was well persuaded from thence to have returned, being a very ill footman, but the rest were all so desirous to go near the said strange thunder of waters, as they drew me on by little and little, till we came into the next valley, where we might better discern the same. I never saw a more beautiful country, nor more lively prospects, hills so raised here and there over the valleys, the river winding into divers branches, 15'JtJj BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH 21 the plains adjoining without bush or stubble, all fair green grass, the ground of hard sand, easy to march on cither for horse or foot ; the deer crossing in every path ; the birds towards the evening singing on every tree, with a thousand several tunes ; cranes and herons of white, crimson, and carnation perching on the river side ; the air fresh with a gentle easterly wind, and every stone that we stooped to pick up promised either gold or silver by its complexion. We had no means but with our daggers and fingers to tear them out here and there, the rocks being most hard of that mineral spar aforesaid and is like a lint, and is altogether as hard, or harder, and besides, 'io veins lie a fathom or two deep in the rocks. ^[lt we wanted all things requisite save only our desires and good will to have performed more if it had pleased God. To be short, when both our companies returned, each of them brought also several sorts of stone that appeared very fair, but were such as they found loose on the ground, and were for the most part but coloured, and had not any gold fixed i' clu^m ; yet such ai. had no judgment or experience kc, t all that glistered, and would not be persuaded but it >. iS rich because of the lustre, and brought of those, and of marquesite withal from Trinidad, and have delivered of those stones to be tried in many places, and have thereby bred an opinion that all the rest is of the same ; yet some of these stones I showed afterwards to a Spaniard of the Caracas, who told me that it was £1 Madre del Oro, and that the mine was further in the ground. But it shall be found a weak policy in me either to betray myself or my country with imaginations, neither am I so far in love 22 THE GOLD MINES OF GUIANA [Par, I with that lodging, watching, care, peril, diseases, ill- savours, bad fare, and many other mischiefs that accompany these voyages, as to woo myself again into any of them, were I not assured that the sun covereth not so much riches in any part of the earth. Captain Whiddon and our chirurgeon, Nicholas Millechap, brought me a kind of stones like sapphires ; what they may prove I know not. I showed them to some of the Orinocoponi, and they promised to bring me to a mountain that had of them very large pieces growing diamond wise. Whether it be crystal of the mountain, Bristol diamond, or sapphire, I do not yet know, but '' hope the best ; sure I am that the place is as likely as those from whence all the rich stones are brought The Same, continued For mine own part (as we were not able to march it for the rivers, neither had any such strength as was requisite, and durst not abide the coming of the winter, or to tarry any longer from our ships), I thought it very evil counsel to have attempted it at that time, although the desire of gold will answer many objections. But it would have been in my opinion an utter overthrow to the enterprise, if the same should be hereafter by her Majesty attempted ; for then (whereas now they have heard we were enemies to the Spaniards and were sent by her Majesty to relieve them) they would as good cheap have joined with the Spaniards at our return, as to have yielded unto us, when they had proved that we came both for one errand, and that both sought but to sack IS9J] BY SIR WALTER RALEIGH 23 and spoil them. But as yet our desire of gold, or our purpose of invasion, is not known unto those of the empire ; and it is likely that if her Majesty undertake the enterprise, they will rather submit themselves to her obedience than to the Spaniards, of whose cruelty both themselves and the borderers have already tasted ; and, therefore, till I had known her Majesty's pleasure, I would rather have lost the sack of one or tvo towns, although they might have been very profitable, than to have defaced or endangered the future hope of so many millions, and the great good and rich trade which England may be possessed of thereby. I after asked the manner how the Epuremci wrought those plates of gold, and how they could melt it out of stone ; he told me that the most of the gold which they made in plates and images was not severed from the stone, but that on the lake of Manoa, and in a multitude of other rivers, they gathered it in grains of perfect gold, and in pieces as big as small stones, and that they put to it a part of copper, otherwise they could not work it, and that they used a great earthen pot with holes round about it, and when they had mingled the gold and copper together, they fastened canes to the holes, and so with the br. ath of men they increased the fire till the metal ran, and then they cast it into moulds of stone and clay, and so make those plates and images. I have sent two sorts such as I could by chance recover, more to show the manner of them than for the value: for I did not in any sort make my desire for gold known, because I had neither time nor power to have a greater quantity. I gave among them 24 THE GOLD MINES OF GUIANA ti..,,,, I many more pieces of gold than I received of the new money of twenty shillings, with her Majesty's picture, to wear, with promise that they would become her servants thenceforth. I have also sent the ore, whereof I know some is as rich as the eaith yieldeth any, of which I know there is sufficient, if nothing else were to be hoped for. But besides that we were not able to tarry and search the hills, so wc had neither pioneers, bars, sledges, nor wedges of iron, fo break the ground, without which there is no working in mines ; but we saw all the hills with stones of the colour of gold and silver, and we tried them to be no marquesite, and therefore such as the Spaniards call El Madre del Oro, which is an undoubted assurance of the general abundance ; and myself saw the outside of many mines of the white spar, which I know to be the same that all covet in this worldi and of those more than will I speak of. For the rest, which myself have seen, I will promise these things that follow and know to be true. Those that are desirous to discover and to see many nations, may be satisfied within this river, which bringeth forth so many arms and branches leading to several countries and provinces, above 2,000 miles east and west, and 800 miles south and north ; and of these, the most either rich in gold or in other merchandises. The common soldier shall here fight for gold, and pay himself instead of pence with plates of half a foot broad, whereas he breaketh his bones in other wars for penury. Those commanders and chieftains that shoot at honour and abundance, shall find there more rich and beautiful <5'X'J BY SIR WALTER RALEIOII cities, more temples adorned with golden images, more sepulchres filled with treasure, than either Cortez found in Mexico, or Pizzaro in Peru ; and the shining glory of this conquest will eclipse all those so far extended beams of the Spanish nation. The West Indies were first offered her Majesty's grandfather by Columbus, a stranger in whom there might be doubt of deceit, and, besides, it was then thought incredible that there were such and so many lands and regions never written of before. This empire is made known to her Majesty by her own vassal, and by him that owcth to her more duty than an ordinary subject, so that it shall ill sort with the many graces and benefits which I have received to abuse her Highness, cither with fables or imaginations. The country is already discovered, many nations won to her Majesty's love and obedience, and those Spaniards which have latest and longest laboured about the conquest, beaten out, discouraged, and disgraced, which among these nations were thought invincible. Her Majesty may in this enterprise employ all those soldiers and gentlemen that are younger brethren, and all captains and chieftains that want employment, and the charge will be only the first setting out in victualling and armin'- them ; for after the first or second year I doubt not but to see in London a Contratation house of more receipt for Guiana than there is now in Seville for the West Indies. And I am resolved that if there were but a small army afoot in Guiana, marching towards Manoa, the chief city of Inga, he would yield her Majesty by composition so many hundred thousand pounds yearly as should both a6 THE GOLD MINES OF GUIANA [Part I defend all enemies abroad and defray all expenses at home, and that he would besides pay a garrison of 3CXDO or 4000 soldiers very royally to defend him against other nations ; for he cannot but know how his predecessors, yea, how his own great-uncles Guascar and Atibalipa, sons to Guanacapa, Emperor of Peru, were (while they contended for the empire) beaten out by the Spaniards, and that both of late years, and ever since the said conquest, the Spaniards have sought the passages and entry of his country ; and of their cruelties used to the borderers he cannot be ignorant In which respects no doubt but he will be brought to tribute with };reat gladness ; if not, he hath neither shot nor iron weapon in all his empire, and therefore may easily be conquered. And I further remember that Berreo confessed to me and others (which I pretest before the Majesty of God to be true) that there was found among prophecies in Peru (at such time as the empire was reduced to the Spanish obedience), in their chiefest temples, amongst divers others which foreshowed the loss of the said empire, that from Inglatierra those Ingas should be again in time to come restored, and delivered from the servitude of the said conquerors. And I hope, as we with those few hands have displanted the first garrison, and driven them out of the said country, so her Majesty will give order for the rest, and either defend it, and hold it as tributary, or conquer and keep it as empress of the same. For whatsoever prince shall possess it shall be greatest, and if the king of Spain enjoy it, he will become irresistible. Her Majesty hereby shall IS9S] ELIZABETHAN SEA-POWER a? confirm and strengthen the opinions of all nations, as touching her great and princely actions. — The Discovery of Guiana. 1596. ELIZABETH AND THE EMPIRE OF THE SEAS BY EDMUND SPENSER Bold men, presuming life for gain, to sell, Dare tempt that gulf, and in those wand'ring streams Seek ways unknown, ways leading down to hell. For as we stood there, waiting on the strand. Behold ! a huge great vessel to us came, Dancing upon the waters back to land, As if it scorned the danger of the same ; Yet was it but a wooden frame and frail, Glued together with some subtle matter. Yet had it arms, and wings, and head, and tail, And 1; o move itself upon the water. Stran^ •> thing; how bold and swift the monster was That neither car'd for wind, nor hail, nor rain, Nor swelling waves, but thorough them did pass So proudly that she made them roar again. The same aboard us gently did receive, And without harm us far away did bear. So far that land, our mother, us did leave, And nought but sea and heaven to us appear. Then heartless quite, and full of inward fear, The shepherd I bcsoi5ght to nie to tell Under what sky, or in what world we were. In which I saw no living people dwell. 38 THE ELIZABETHAN NAVY [Pari I Who, me recomforting all that he might, Told me that that same was the regiment Of a great shepherdess, that Cynthia hight, His liege, his lady, and his life's regent. "If then," quotii I, "a shepherdess she be. Where be the flocks and herds which she doth keep ? And where may I the hills and pastures sec. On which she useth for to feed her sheep ? " " These be the hills," quoth he, " the surges high, On which fair Cynthia her herds doth feed : Her herds be thousand fishes with their fry, Which in the bosom of the billows breed. Of them the shepherd which hath charge in chief, Is Triton, blowing loud his wreathed horn. At sound whereof they all for their relief Wend to and fro at evening and at morn. Those be the shepherds which my Cynthia serve At sea, beside a thousand more at land : For land and sea my Cynthia doth deserve To have in her commandiiment at hand." Colin Clout i Covw Home Again. 1595. THE ENGLISH NAVY IN THE TIME OF ELIZABETH BY WILLIAM HARRISON The navy of England may be divided into three sjort?, of which the one scrveth for the wars, the other for IS771 BY WILLIAM HARRISON 29 burden, and the third for fishermen, which get their living for getting fishing on the sea. How many of the first order are maintained within the realm, it passeth my cunning to express; yet since it may be parted into the navy royal and common fleet, I think good to speak of those that belong unto the prince, and so much the rather, for that their number is certain and well known to very many. Certainly there is no prince in Europe that hath a more beautiful or gallant sort of ships than the Queen's Majesty of England at this present, and those generally are of such exceeding force that two of them, being well appointed and furnished as they ought, will not let to encounter with three or four of those of other countries, and either stave them in or put them to flight, if they may not bring them home. Neither are the moulds of any foreign barks so con- veniently made, to brook so well one sea as another lying upon the shore in any part of the continent as those of England. And therefore the common report that strangers make of our ships amongst themselves is daily confirmed to be true, which is, that for strength, assurance, nimuleness, and swiftness of sailing, there are no vessels in the world to be compared with ours. — Holinshcd's Chronicle (Preface, " A Description of England"). 1577. ( 30 ) [Part I REASONS AND CONSIDERATIONS TOUCHING THE RIGHTFULNESS OF REMOVING OUT OF ENGLAND INTO Till": PARTS OF AMERICA. BY KOBKRT CUSHMAN I. What persons may hcttce remove. Some men there are who, of necessity, must here live ; as being tied to duties, either to church, commonwealth, household, kindred, etc. But others, and that many, who do no good in none of those callings, nor can do none, as being not able, or not in favour, or as wanting opportunity, and living as outcasts, nobodies, eyesores ; eating but for themselves ; teaching but themselves ; and doing good to none, either in soul or body ; and so pass over days, years, and months ; yea, so live and so die. 2. Wl<.y i/'cy should so remove. Now, such should lift up their eyes and see whether there be not some other place and country to which they may go, to do good, and have use towards others of that knowledge, wisdom, humanity, reason, strength, skill, faculty, etc., which God hath given them for the service of others, and His own glory. But some will say, " What right have I to go and live in the heathen's country ? " Letting pass the ancient discoveries, contracts, and agreements which our Englishmen have long since made in those parts, together with the acknowledgment i6j2] BY ROBERT CUSHMAN V of the histories and chronicles of other nations ; who acknowledge the land of America, from Cape de Florida unto the Gulf of St. Lawrence — which is south and north 300 leagues and upwards, and east and west further than hath yet been discovered — belongs to the 'king of England. Yet, letting that pass, lest I be thought to meddle further than it concerns mc, or further than I have discerning, I will mention such things as arc within my reach, knowK ^ge, sight, and pract? , since I have laboured in these aifairs. And first, seeing we daily pray for the conversion cf the heathens, we must consider whether there be not some ordin..ry means for us to take to convert them ; and the means cannot be used unless we go to them, or they come to us. To us they cannot come : our land is full. To them we may go : their land is empty. This, then, is a sufficient reason to prove our going thither to live, morally right. Their land is spacious and void, and there are few ; and they do but run o/er the grass, as do also the foxes and wild beasts. They are not industrious, neither have art, science, skill, or faculty to use either the land or the comiuoditics of it, but all spoils, rots, and is marred for want of manuring, gathering, ordering. . . . It being then, first, a vast and empty chaos ; secondly, acknowledged the right of our Sovereign King; thirdly, by a peaceable composition in part possessed of divers of his loving subjects ; I see not who can doubt and call in question the righteousness of inhabiting or dwelling there ; but that it may be as lawful for such as are not tied upon seme special occasion here, to live 32 KMKIRATION TO AMKRICA [I-art I there as well as here. Yea, and as the enterprise is \vci-;hty and difficult, so the honour is more worthy, to plant a rude wilderness, to enlarge the honour and fame of our dread Sovereign, but chiefly to display the efficacy and power of the Gospel, both in zealous preaching, professing, and wise walking under it, before the faces of these poor, blind infidels. . . The straitness is such, as each man is fair to pluck his means, as it were, out of his neirjhbour's throat. There is such pressing and oppressing, in town and country, about farms, trades, traffic, etc., so as a man can hardly set up a trade but he shall pull down two of his neighbours. The towns abound with young artisans, and the hospitals are full of the ancient ones. The country is replenished with new farmers, and the almhouses are filled with old labourers. Many there are who get their living with bearing burdens; but more are fain to burden the land with their whole bodies. Multitudes get tneir means of life with prating, and so do numbers more by begging. Neither come these straits upon men always through intemperance, ill husbandry, in- discretion, etc., as some think; but even the nr. st wise, sober, and discreet men go often to the wall when they have done their best. ... Let us not thus oppress, stiaiten, and afflict one another; but seeing there is a spacious land, the way to which is through the sea, we will end this difference in a day.— A Relation or Jounml of tne Begiuning and Procecd'ntgs of the RugUsh Plantation settled at Plyvwnth in New England. 1622. i6iJ ( 33 ) DESCRIPTION OF VIRGINIA, AND REASONS FOR ITS COLONIZATION BY CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH The mildness of the air, the fertility of the soil, the situation of the rivers, are so propitious to the nature and use of man, as no place is more convenient for pleasure, profit, and man's sustenance. Under that latitude or climate, here will live any beasts, as horses, ^oats, sheep, asses, hens, etc., as appeared by them that were carried thither. The waters, isles, and shoals are full of safe harbours for ships of war or merchandise, for boats of all sorts, for transportation or fishing. The bay and rivers have much merchandable fish, and places fit for salt, coals, building of ships, making of iron. Muscovia and I'olonia do yearly receive many thousands, for pitch, tar, soap-ashes, lesin, flax, cordage, sturgeon, masts, yards, wainscot, furs, glass, and such like ; also Swethland for iron and copper. France in like manner for wine, canvas, and salt ; Spain as much for iron, steel, figs, raisins, and sacks. Italy, with silks and velvets, consumes our chief commodities. Holland maintains itself by fishing and trading at our own doors. All these temporize with other for necessities ; but all as uncertain as peace or wars ; besides the charge, travel, and danger in transporting them, by seas, land, storms, and pirates. Then how much hath Virginia the pre- rogative of all these flourishing kingdoms for the bciivfit of our land, whenas within one hundred miles all those D 34 POCAHONTAS, THE SAVAGE GIRL [Part I are to be had, either ready provided by nature, or else to be prepared, were there but industrious men to labour ? So, then, here is a place, a purse for soldiers, a practice for mariners, a trade for n.erchants, a reward for the good, and that which is most of all, a business (most acceptable to God) to bring such poor infidels to the true knowledge of God and His Holy Gospel— /i Map of Virginia with a Description of the Country, etc. 1612. HOW POCAHONTAS, THE SAVAGE GIRL, SAVED CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH'S LIFE The savages having drawn from George Cassen whither Captain Smith was gone, prosecuting that opportunity, th'iy followed him with three hundred bowmen, con- ducted by the King of Pamaunkee, who in divisions searching the turnings of the river, found Robinson and Emry by the fireside ; those they shot full of arrows and slew. Then linding the captain, as is said, that used the savage that was his guide as his shield (three of them being slain, and divers others so galled) all the rest would not come near him. Thinking thus to have returned to his boat, regarding them, as he marched, more than his way, he slipped up to the middle in an oozy creek and his savage with him ; yet durst they not come to him till being near dead with cold he threw away his arms. Then according to their composition they drew him forth and led him to the fire, where his men were slain. Diligently ihey chafed his benumbed limbs. |6I2] BY CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH 35 At last they brought him to Meronocomoco, where was Powhatan their emperor. Here more than two hundred of those grim courtiers stood wondering at him as he had been a monster ; till Powhatan and his train had put themselves in their greatest braveries. Before a fire, upon a seat like a bedstead, he sat covered with a Treat robe made of rarowcun skins, and all the tails hanging by. On either hand did sit a young wench of sixteen or eighteen years, and along on each side the house two rows of men, and behind them as many women, with all their heads and shoulders painted red ; many of their heads bedecked with the white down of birds, but every one with something ; and a great chain of white beads about their necks. At his entrance before the king all the people gave a great shout The Queen of Appa.natuck was appointed to bring him water to wash his hands, and another brought him a bunch of feathers instead of a towel to dry them. Having feasted them after their best bar- barous manner they could, a long consultation was held, but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before Powliatan ; then as many as could laid hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laia his head, and being ready with their clubs to beat out his brains, Pocahontas, the king's dearest daughter, when no entreaty could prevail, got his head in her arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death ; whereat the Emperor was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her, bells, beads, and copper ; for they thought him as well of all occupations as themselves. — Ibid. ( 36 ) (Part I TO THP: ViRGINIAN VOYAGE BY MICHAEL DRAYTON You brave heroic minds Worthy your country's name, That honour still pursue ; Go and subdue, Whilst loitering hinds Lurk here at home with shame. Britons, you stay too long : Quickly aboard bestow you, And with a merry gale, Swell your stretched sail, With vows as strong As the winds that blow you. Your course securely steer West and by south forth keep, Rocks, leeshores nor shoals When Eolus scowls You need not fear, So absolute the deep. And cheerfully at sea. Success you still entice To get the pearl and gold And outs to hold Virginia, Earth's only paradise. i6osl BY MICHAEL DRAYTON Where nature hath in store Fowl, venison, and fish, And the fruitfull'st soil Without your toil Three harvests more. All greater than your wish. And the ambitious vine Crowns with his purple mass, The cedar reaching high To kiss the sky, The cypress, pine, And useful sassafras. To whom the golden age Still nature's laws doth give, Nor other cares attend But them to defend From winter's rage. That long there doth not live. When as the luscious smell Of that delicious land Above the sea that flows The clear wind throws Your hearts to swell Approaching the dear strand. In kenning of the shore (Thanks to God first given), O you the happiest men, Be frolic then ; Let cannons roar, Frighting the wide heaven. 37 38 DESCRIPTION OF BERMUDA [Part I And in regions far, Such heroes bring ye forth, As those from whom wc came ; And plant our name Under that star Not known unto our north. And as there plenty grows Of laurel everywhere, — Apollo's sacred tree, — You it may see A poet's brows To crown that may sing there. Thy voyages attend. Industrious Hackluit, Whose reading shall inflame Men to seek fame, And much commend To after times thy wit. 1605. A PLAIN DESCRIPTION OF THE liERMUDAS For the islands of the Bermudas, as every man know«* that hath heard or read of them, were never i^haWtcd by any Christian or heathen people, but ever esteew^d and reputed a most prodigious and enchanted place, affording nothing but gusts, storms, and foul weather, which made every navigator and mariner to avoid them, as Scylla and Charybdis, or as they vvould shun the ,„3l FROM PETER FORCES TRACTS 39 devil himself; and no man was ever heard to make for the place, but as against their wills, they have by storms anddangcrousness of the rocks, lying seven leagues into the sea, suffered shipwreck, yet did we find there the air so temperate, and the country so abundantly fruitful of all fit necessaries for the sustentation and preserva- tion of man's life. Wherefore my opinion sincerely of this island is, that whereas it hath been, and is still accounted the most dangerous, unfortunate, and most forlorn place of the world, it is in truth the richest, healthfullest, and pleasing land. And whereas it is reported that the land of Bermudas, with the islands about it (which are many, at the least a hundred), are enchanted and kept with evil and wicked spirits ; it is a most idle and false report. God grant that we have brought no wicked spirits with us, or that there come none after us, for we found none there so ill as ourselves, and never saw any evil or hurt- ful thing in the land all the time ; no, nor any noisome thing or hurtful, more than a pour fly, which tarries not above two or three months. The climate I hold to be very good and agreeabl<* with our constitutions of England, and for the victual very wholesome and good ; your airs in England arc far more subject to diseases than these islands arc. Our enchanted island, which is kept, as some say, with spirits, will wrong no friend nor foe, but yield all men their expectations. VVe are here together far remote from our native soil of England, and yet are indeed the natural subjects of our most royal and gracious King James of England. 40 SONG OF THE KMH RANTS [Part I Wc do solemnly promise evermore to continue the loyal subjects of our said sovereign king, his heirs and successors, and nev : to revolt from him, or them, unto any other whatsoever, but evermore to acknowledge his i. premc government.— Peter Force, Tracts. 1844. SONG 01" THE EMIGRANTS IN BERMUDA BY ANDREW ^fARVELL Where the remot ! e mudas ride In the ocean's bosom unespied. From a small boat that row'd along The listening winds received this song : " What should we do but sing His praise That led us through the watery maze Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks, That lift the deep upon their backs, Unto an isle so long unknown, And yet far kinder than our own ? He lands us on a grassy stage, Safe from the storms, and prelate's rage : He gave us this eternal spring. Which here enamels everything, And sends the fowls to us in care On daily visits through the air. He hangs in shades the orange bright Like golden lamps in a green night, And does in the pomegranates close Jewels more rich than Ormus shows : He makes the figs our mouths to meet iiiSil BY ANDREW MARVKl.L And throws the melons at our feet ; But apples plants of such a price, No tree could ever bear them twice. With cedars chosen by His hand From Lebanon He stores the land ; And IT akes the hollow seas that roar Proclaim the ambergris on shore. He cast (of which we rather boast) The Gospel's pearl upon our coast ; And in these rocks for us did frame A temple where to sound His name. Oh ! let our voice His praise exalt Till it arrive at Heaven's vau i, Wlu'ch thenco (perhaps) rebounding Echo beyond the Mexique bay ! " Thus sung they in the English boat An holy and a cheerful note : And all the way, to guide their chime, With falling oars they kept the time. 41 may 16S1. i IDEAL OF PURITAN ENGLAND BV JOHN MILTON Lords and Commons of England, consider what nation it is whereof ye arc, and whereof yc are the governors ; a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, inyc:< CMS, and piercing spirit; acute to invent, subtle ard s'newy tc d.bcourse, not beneath the reach of any p- int he high-^st that human capacity can soar to. Leho. i -ow this vast city, a city of refuge, the mansion 43 VHK COLONIES UNDER CROMVVELI, tPARri house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with His protection ; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth than there be pens and heads there, sitting by the studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty, the approaching Reformation : others as fast treading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement What could a man require more from a nation so pliant aiul so prone to seek after knowledge? What wants there losuch a towardly and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful labourers, to make a knowing people, a nation of prophets, of sages, and of worthies ? Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Methinks I see her as an eagle renewing her mi^jhty youth, and kindling her un- dazzled :yes at the full midday b'^am , purging and unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance. — Areopagitica. 1644. THIl COLONII S UNDER CROMWELL BY THK EARL OF CLARENDON All the foreign plantations had submitted to the yoke ; and, indeed, without any other damage or inconvenience than the havii t citizens and inferior persons put to govern them, instead of gentlemen who had been 1704 'I BY THE EARL OF CLARENDON 4.? entrusted by the king in those places. New Knuland had been too much allied to all the conspiracies and com- binations against the Crown -jt to be very well pleased that men of their own principles prevailed, and settled a Government themselves were delighted with. The Uarbadoes, which was much the richest plantation, was principally inlsabited by men who haci 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 ; many of them having served him with fidelity and courage during the war, and, that being ended, made that island their refuge from further prosecutions. But having now gotten good estates there (as it is incredible to what fortunes men raised them- selves in few years m that plantation) they were nu)re willing to live in subjection to that Government at that distance, than to return into England, and be liable to the penalties of their former transgressions, which, upon the articles of surrender, they were indemnified for. Nor was any other alteration there, than the removing of the Lord VVilloughby of Parham (who was, upon many accounts, odious to the Parliament, as wcl! as by being governor there by the king's commission) and putting an inferior, mean man in his place. More was expected from Virginia, which was the most ancient plantation, and so was thought to be better provided to defend itself, and to be better affected. Upon both which suppositions, and out of confidence in Sir William Berkeley, the governor thereof, who had industriously invited mauy gentlemen and others thither as to a place of security, which he could defend MKXocorv RBoumoN ran chait (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 3) 1.0 u 1.1 1.25 IM 12.5 \32 116 m 12.0 ■ U 1 1.6 ^ ^^y^'PUED »VMGE Inc I (53 EmI Moin SfrMt KochMlv, Nm York t4a09 USA (718) «M - OJOO - ftm. (ri«) -r« mms 44 THE COLONIES UNDER CROMWELL li'art i against any attempt, and where they might live plenti- fully, many persons of condition, and good officers in the war, had transported thtn selves, with all the estates they had been able to preserve ; with which the honest governor — for no man meant better — was so confirmed in his confidence, that he writ to the king almost invit- ing him thither, as to a place that wanted nothing. And the truth is that, whilst the Parliament had nothing else to do, that plantation in a short time was more improved in people and stock than it had been from the beginning to that time, and had reduced the Indians to very good neighbourhood. But, alas ! they were so far from being in a condition to defend themselves — all their industry having been employed in the making the best advantage of their particular plantations, without assign- ing time or men to provide for the public security in building ports, or any places of retreat — that there no sooner appeared two or three ships from the Parliament than all thoughts of resistance were laid aside. Sir William Berkeley, the governor, was suffered to remain there as a private man, upon his own plantation, which was a better subsistence than he could have found any- where else. And in that quiet posture he continued, by the reputation he had with the people, till, upon the noise and fame of the king's restoration, he did as quietly resume the exercise of his former commission, and found as ready an obedience. — History of the Rebellion in England. 1704-7. i67i] ( 45 ) THE COUNCIL OF FOREIGN PLANTATIONS BY JOnX ".VKLYN February, 28, 167 1. — The treasurer acquainted me that his Majesty was graciously pleased to nominate me one of the Council of Foreign Plantations, and give mc a salary of £soo per annum to encourage me. May 26, 167 1.— [The Council] was to advise and counsel his Majesty, to the best of our abilities, for the well-governing of his foreign plantations. The first thing we did was to settle the form of a circular letter to the Governors of all his Majesty's plantations and terri- tories in the West Indies and islands thereof, to give them notice to whom they should apply themselves on all occasions, and to render us an account of their pre- sent state and government ; but what we most insisted on was to know the condition of New England, which, appearing to be very independent as to their regard to Old England, or his Majesty, rich and strong as they now were, there were great debates in what style to write to them ; for the condition of that colony was such that they were able to contest with all other plantations about them, and there was fear of their breaking from all dependence on this nation. His Majesty, therefore, com- mended this afiair more expressly. We therefore thought fit, in the first place, to acquaint ourselves as well as we could of the state of that place, by some whom we heard of that were newly come from thence, and to be informed of their present posture a.d condi- tion. Some of our council were for sending them 46 GEORGIA [Part I a menacing letter, which those who better understood the peevish and touchy humour of that colony, were utterly against June 6, 167 1. — I went to council, where was produced a most exact and ample information of the state of Jamaica, and of the best expedients as to New Eng- land, on which there was a long debate ; but at length it was concluded that if any, it should be only a con- ciliating paper at first, or civil letter, till we had better information of the present face of things, since we understood they were a people almost upon the brink of renouncing any dependence on the Crown. — Diary. 1671. GEORGIA: A COLONY FOUNDED ON PHILANTHROPIC LINES In America there are fertile lands sufficient to subsist all the useless poor in England and distressed Protes- tants in Europe ; yet thousand ^ starve for want of mere sustenance. The distance makes it difficult to get thither. The same want that renders men useless here prevents their paying their passage ; and if others pay it for 'em, they become servants, or rather slaves, for years to those who have defrayed the expense. There- fore, money for passage is necessary, but is not the only want ; for if people were set down in America, and the land before them, they must cut down trees, build houses, fortify towns, dig and sow the land before they 1733) FROM PETER FORCE'S TRACTS 47 can get in a harvest ; and till then they must be pro- vided with food, and kept together, that they may be assistant to each other for their natural support and protection. Some Regulations from the Charter granted to Ogletltorpe by George II. His Majesty having taken into his consideration the miserable circumstances of many of his own poor sub- jects, ready to perish for want, and having a princely regard to the great danger the Southern frontiers of South Carolina are exposed to by reason of the small number of white inhabitants there, hath, out of his fatherly compassion towards his subjects, been gra- ciously pleased to grant a charter for incorporating a number of gentlemen by the name of the Trustees for establishing tJie Colony of Georgia in America. They are impowered to collect benefactions, and lay them out in clothing, arming, sending over, and supporting colonies of the poor, whether subjects or foreigners, in Georgia. And his Majesty further grants all his lands between the rivers Savannah and Alatamaha, which he erects into a province by the name of Georgia, unto the Trustees, in trust for the poor, and for the better sup- port of the colony. At the desire of the gentlemen, there are clauses in the charter restiaining them and their successors from receiving any salarv, fee, perquisite, or profit whatsoever, by or from this undertaking, and also from receiving any grant of lands within the said district, to themselves, or in trust for them. There are further clauses granting to the Trustees proper powers 48 GEORGIA [Part I for estab'.ishing and governing the colony, and liberty of consc.jnce to all who shall settle there. Ti;e Trustees intend to relieve such unfortunate persons as cannot subr ist here, and establish them in an orderly manner, so as to form a well-regulated town. As far as their fund goes, they will defray the charge of their p.ssage to Georgia, give them necessaries, cattle, land, and subsistence, till such time as they can build their houses, and clear some of their land. By such a colony, many families, who would other- wise starve, will be provided for, and made masters of houses and lands ; the people in Great Britain to whom these necessitous families were a burthen will be re- lieved ; numbers of manufacturers will be here emploved for supplying them with clothes, working-tools, . ad other necessaries. The colony of Georgia lying about the same latitude with part of China, Persia, Palestine, and the Madeiras, it is highly probable that when hereafter it shall bs v,-cll- peopled and rightly cultivated, England may be sup- plied from thence with raw silk, wine, oil, dyes, drugs, and many other materials for manufacturers, which she is obliged to purchase from southern countries. As towns are establish xl and grow populous along the rivers Savannah and Alatamaha, they will make such a barrier as will render the southern frontier of the British colonies on t'.e continent of America safe from Indian and ether enemies. All human affairs are so subject to chance that therein is no answering for events ; yet, from reason and the natUiC of things, it may be concluded that the riches 17331 FROM PETER FORCE'S TRACTS 49 and also t le number of the inhabitants in Great Britain •vill be increased by importing at a cheap rate from this new colony the materials requisite for carrying on in Britain several manufactures. For our manufacturers will be encouraged to marry and multiply, when they find themselves in circumstances to provide for their families, which must necessarily be the happy effect of the increase and cheapness of our materials of those manufactures which at present we purchase with our money from foreign countries, at dear rates ; and also many people will find employment here, on account of such further demands by the people of this colony, for those manufactures which are made for the produce of our own country ; and, as has been justly observed, the people will always abound where there is full employ- ment for them. The Trustees, in their general meetings, will consider of the most prudent methods for effectually establishing a regular colony ; and that it may be done is demon- strable. Under what difficulties was Virginia planted ? — the coast and climate then unknown ; the Indians numerous, and at enmity with the first planters, who were forced to fetch all provisions from England ; yet it is grown a mighty province, and the revenue receives i^iooooo for duties upon the goods that they send yearly home. Within this fifty years, Pennsylvania was as much a forest as Georgia is now ; and in these few years, by the wise economy of William Penn, and those who assisted him, it now gives food to 80,000 inhabitants, and can boast of as fine a city as most in Europe. W: 50 ROSPECTS OF AMERICA [Part i This n' ' . colony is more likely to succeed than either of the former were, since Carolina abounds with provi- sions, the climate is known, and there are men to in- struct in the seasons and nature of cultivating the soil. There are but few Indian families within 400 miles ; and those, in perfect amity with the English. Port Royal (the station of his Majesty's ships) is within 30, and Charlestown (a great mart) is within 120 miles. If the colony is attacked, it may be relieved by sea, from Port Royal, or the Bahamas ; and the militia of South Carolina is ready to support it by land.— Peter Force, Tracts. 1835. ON THE PROSPECT OF PLANTING ARTS AND LEARNING IN AMERICA BY BISHOP BERKELEY The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime Barren of every glorious theme, In distant lands now waits a better time, Producing subjects worthy fame : In happy climes, where from the genial sun And virgin earth such scenes ensue, The force of art by nature seems outdone, And fancied beauties by the true r In happy climes, the seat of innocence. Where nature guides and virtue rules. Where men shall not impose for truth and sense The pedantry of courts and schools : I72S( I BY BISHOP BERKELEY 5» There shall be sung another golden age, The rise of empire and of arts, The good and great inspiring epic rage The wisest heads and noblest hearts. Not such as Europe breeds in her decay ; Such as she bred when fresh and young, When heavenly flame did animate her clay, By future poets shall be sung. Westward the course of empire takes her way ; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day : Time's noblest offspring is the last 1725 (0. CAUSES OF THE PROSPERITY OF NEW COLONIES BY ADAM SMITH The colony of a civilized nation which takes possession cither of a waste country or ot one so thinly inhabited that the natives easily give p!ace to the new settlers, advances more rapidly to wealth and greatness than any other human society. The colonists carry out with them a knowledge of agriculture and of other useful arts, superior to what can grow up of its own accord in the course of many centuries among savage and barbarous nations. They carry out with them, too, vhe habit of subordination, some notion of the regular government which takes place in their own country, of the system of laws which 5» NEW COLONIES [Pari I supports it, and ot a regular administration of justice ; and they naturally establish something of the same kind in the new settlement. But among savage and barbarous nations, the natural progress of law and govern- ment is still slower than the natural progress of arts, after law and government have been so far established as is necessary for their protection. Every colonist gets more land than he can possibly cultivate. He has no rent, and scarce any taxeii to pay. No landlord shares with him in .is produce, and the share of the sovereign is commonly but a trifle. He has every motive to render as great as possible a produce, which is thus to be almost entirely his own. But his land is commonly so extensive, that with all his own industry, and with all the industry of other people whom he can get to employ, he can seldom make it produce the tenth part of what it is capable of producing. He is eager, therefore, to collect labourers from all quarters, and to reward them with the most liberal wages. But those liberal wages, joined to the plenty and cheapness of land, soon make those labourers h.ave him, in order to become landlords themselves, and to reward, with equal liberality, other labourers, who soon leave them for the same reason that they left their first master. The high wages of labour encourage population. The cheapness and plenty of good land encourage improvement, and enable the proprietor to pay those high wages. What encourages the progress of population and improvement, encourages that of real wealth and greatness. There are no colonies of which the progress has been more rapid than that of the English in North America. irrf'l HY ADAM SMITH S3 Plenty of good land, and liberty to manage their own affairs their own way, seem to be the two great causes of the prosperity of all new colonics. The political institutions of the English colonies have been more favourable to the improvement and cultivation of this land than those of the other three nations. First, the engrossing of uncultivated land, though it has by no means been prevented altogether, has been more restrained in the English colonies than in any other. The colony law which imposes upon every proprietor the obligation of improving and cultivating, within a limited time, a certain proportion of his lands, and which, in case of failure, declares those neglected lands grantableto any other person, though it has not, perhaps, been very strictly executed, has, however, had some effect. Secondly, in all the English colonies the tenure of the lands facilitates alienation, and the grantee of any ex- tensive tract of land generally finds it for his interest to alienate, as fast as he can, the greater part of it, reserving only a small quit-rent. The engrossing of uncultivated land is the greatest obstruction to its improvement. The labour of the English colonists, therefore, being more employed in the improvement and cultivation of land, is likely to afford a greater and more valuable produce, than that of any of the other three nations, which, by the engrossing of land, is more or less diverted towards other employments. Thirdly, the labour of the English colonists is not only likely to afford a greater and more valuable produce, but, in consequence of the moderation of their 54 NEW COLONIES I Tart I taxes, a greater proportion of this produce belongs to themselves, which they may store up and employ in patting into motion a still greater quantity of labour. The English colonists have never yet contributed any- thing towards the support of its civil government. They themselves, on the contrary, have hitherto been defended almost entirely at the expense of the mother- country. But the expense of fleets and armies is out of all proportion greater than the necessary expense of civil government. The expense of their own civil government has always been very moderate. Fourthly, in the disposal of their surplus produce, or of what is over and above their own consumption, the English colonies have been more favoured, and have been allowed a more extensive market, than those of any other European nations. Under so liberal a policy, the colonies are enabled both to sell their own produce and to buy the goods of Europe at a reasonable price. In the exportation of their own surplus produce, too, it is only with regard to certain commodities that the colonies of Great Britain are confined to the market of the mother-country. To increase the shipping and naval power of Great Britain by the extension of the fisheries of our colonies, is an object which the legislature seems to have had almost constantly in view. Those fioheries, upon this account, have had all the encouragement which freedom can give them, and they have flourished accordingly. The most perfect freedom of trade is permitted between the British colonies of America and the West Indies. These colonies are now become so populous 17761 y ADAM SMITH 55 and thriving, that each of them finds r.\ >ae of the othc •; a great and extensive market foi -very part of its roduce. The liberality of England, however, towards the trade of her colonies has been confined chiefly to what con- cerns the market for their produce, either in its rude state, or in what may be called the very first stage of manufacture. The more advanced or more refined manufactures, even of the colony produce, the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain choose to reserve to themselves, and have f -vailed upon the legislature to prevent their >tablish» nt in the colonies, sometimes by high dutic, and ;\jmetimes by absolute prohibitions. To prohibit a "♦•eat people, however, from makmg all that tlv v- tan of tv.ry part of their own produce or from employing their stock and industry in the way that they judge most advantageous to themselves, is a mani- fest violation of the most sacred rights of mankind. Unjust, however, as such prohibitions may be, they have not hitherto been very hurtful to the colonies. In their present state of improvement, those prohibitions, perhaps without cramping their industry, or restrain- ing it from an-"* employment to which it would have gone of its own accord, are only impertinent badges of slavery imposed upon them, without any sufficient reason, by the groundless jealousy of the merchants and manufacturers of the mother-country. In a more advanced state they might be really oppressive and insupportable. Of the greater part of the regulations concerning the colony trade, ti. merchants who carry it on, it must be 56 NEW COLONIES 11 'ART I observed, have been the ^ rincipal advisers. We must not wonder, therefore, if, in the greater part of them, their interest has been more considered than either that of the colonies or that of the mother-country. But though the policy of Great Britain with regard to the trade of her colonies has been dictated by the same mercantile spirit as that of other nations, it has, however, upon the whole, been less illiberal and oppressive than that of any of them. The Same — continued In everything except their foreign trade, the liberty of the English colonists to manage their own affairs their own way is complete. It is in every respect equal to that of their fellow-citizens at home, and is secured ia the same manner, by an assembly of the representatives of the people, who claim the sole right of imposing taxes for the support of the colony government It is in the progress of the North American colonies that the superiority of the English policy chiefly appears. Yet the government of England contributed scarce any- thing towards effectuating their establishment. The adventures were all at the private risk and expense of the adventurers. The English Puritans, restrained at home, fled for freedom to America, and established there the four governments of New England The English Catholics, treated with much greater injustice, established that of Maryland, the Quakers that of Pennsylvania. Ihus, upon these different occasions it was not the *m^ 17761 BY ADAM SMITH 57 wisdom and policy, but the disorder and injustice of the government which peopled an cultivated America. In one way, and in one way only, did the policy of England contribute to the first establishment, or the present grandeur of the colonies of America. It bred and formed the men who were capable of achiev- ing^ such great action, and of laying the foundation of so great an empire. The colonies owe to this policy the education and great views of their active and enterprising founders ; and some of the greatest and most important of them, so far as concerns the govern- ment, owe to it scarce anything else. To propose that Great Britain should voluntarily give up all authority over her colonies, and leave them to elect their own magistrates, to enact their own laws, and to make peace and war as they might think proper, would be to propose such a measure as never was, and never will be, adopted by any nation in the world. No nation ever voluntarily gave up the dominion of any province, how troublesome soever it might be to govern it, and how small soever the revenue which it afforded might be in proportion to the expense which it occasioned. Such sacrifices, though they might frequently be agreeable to the interest, are always mortifying to the pride, of every nation, and, what is perhaps of still greater consequence, they are always contrary to the private interest of the governing part of it, who would thereby be deprived of the disposal of many places of trust and profit, of many opportunities of acquiring wealth and distinction, which the possession of the most turbulent, and, to the great 58 NEW COLONIES [Part I body of the people, the most unproBtable province seldom fails to afford. The most visionary enthusiasts would scarce be capable of proposing such a measure, with any serious hopes at least of its ever being adopted. If it was adopted, however, Great Britain would not only be immediately freed from the whole annual expense of the peace establishment of the colonies, but might settle with them such a treaty of commerce as would effectually ensure to her a free trade, more advantageous to the great body of the people, though less so to the merchants, than the monopoly which she at present enjoys. By thus parting good friends, the natural affection of the colonies to the mother-country, which perhaps our late dissensions have well nigh extinguished, would quickly revive. It might dispose them not only to respect for whole centuries together that treaty of commerce which they had concluded with us at parting, but to favour us in war uo well as in trade, and, instead of turbulent and factious subjects, to become our most faithful, affectionate, and generous allies ; and the same sort of parental affection on the one side, and filial respect on the other, might revive between Great Britain and her colonies which used to subsist between those of Ancient Greece and the mother- city from which they descended.— ff^^a//// of Nations. 1776. ^ 17741 ( 59 ) THE GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES BY EDMUND BURKE Permit me, then, to lead your attention very far back ; back to the Act of Navigation — the corner-stone of the policy of this country with regard to its colonies. That policy was from the beginning purely commercial ; and the commercial system was wholly restrictive. It was the system of a monopoly. No trade was let loose from that constraint, but merely to enable the colonists to dispose of what, in the course of your trade, you could not take ; or to enable them to dispose of such articles as we forced upon them, and for whLn, without some degree of liberty, they could not pay. Hence all your specific and detailed enumerations ; hence the innumerable checks and counter-checks ; hence that infinite variety of paper chains by which you bind together this complicated system of the colonies. This principle of commercial monopoly runs through no less than twenty-nine Acts of Parliament, from the year 1600 to the unfortunate period of 1 764. In all those Acts the system of commerce is established, as that from whence alone you proposed to make the colonies contribute (I mean directly, and by the operation of your superintending legislative power) to the Empire. • • 4 • • • They who are friends to the schemes of American revenue say that the commercial restraint is full as hard a law for America to live under. I think so too. I think it, if uncompensated, to be a condition of as 6o THE AMERICAN COLONIES [Part I rigorous servitude as men can je subject to. But America bore it from the fundamental Act of Naviga- tion until 1764. Why ? Because men do bear the inevitable constitution of their original nature with all its infirmities. The Act of Navigation attended the colonies from their infancy, grew with their growth, and strengthened with their strength. They were confirmed in obedience to it, even more by usage than by law. They scarcely had remembered a time when they were not subject to such restraint. Besides, they were indemnified for it by a pecuniary compensa- tion. Their monopolist happened to be one of the richest men in the world. By his immense capital, primarily employed not for their benefit but his own, they were enabled to proceed with their fisheries, their agriculture, their ship-building (and their trade too, within the limits) in such a manner as got far the start of the slow, languid operations of unassisted nature. This capital was a hot-bed to them. Nothing in the history of mankind is like their progress. For my part, I never cast an eye on their flourishing commerce, and their cultivated and commodious life, but they seem to me rather ancient nations grown to perfection through a long series of fortunate events and a train of successful industry, accumulating wealth in many centuries, than the colonies of yesterday ; than a set of miserable out- casts, a few years ago not so much sent as thrown out, on the bleak and barren shore of a desolate wilderness three thousand miles from all civilized intercourse. All this was done by England, whilst England pur- sued trade, and forgot revenue. You not only acquired 17741 BY EDMUND BURKK 6i commerce, but you actually created the very objects of trade in America ; and by that creation you raised the trade of this kingdom at least fourfold. America had the compensation of your capital, which made her bear her servitude. She had another compensation which you are now going to take away from her. She had, except the commercial restraint, every characteristic mark of a free people in all her internal concerns. She had the image of the British Constitution. She had the substance. She was taxed by her own representatives. She chose most of her own magistrates. She paid them all. She had, in eiifect, the sole disposal of her own internal government. This whole state of commercial servitude and civil liberty, taken together, is certainly not perfect freedom ; but, comparing it with the ordinary circumstances of hu-nan nature, it was a happy and a liberal condition. — Speech on American Taxation. 1774. THE IMPERIAL CAPACITY OF PARLIAMENT BY EDMUND BURKE I LOOK, I say, on the Imperial rights of Great Britain, and the privileges which the colonists ought to enjoy under these rights, to be just the most reconcilable things in the world. The Parliament of Great Britain sits at the head of her extensive empire in two capaci- ties ; one as the local legislature of this island, providing for all things at home, immediately, and by no other in- strument than the executive power. The other, and I think her nobler capacity, is what I call her Iihperinl 63 BRITAIN'S IMPERIAL RIGHTS [Part i character, in which, as from the throne of heaven, she superintends all the several inferior legislatures, and guides and controls them all, without annihilating any. As all these provincial legislatures are only co-ordinate with each other, they ought all to be subordinate to her ; else they can neither preserve mutual peace, nor hope for mutual justice, nor efiectually afford mutual assis- tance. It is necessary to coerce the negligent, to restrain the violent, and to aid the weak and deficient, by the over-ruling plenitude of her power. She is never to intrude into the place of the others whilst they are equal to the common ends of their institution. But in order to enable Parliament to answer all these ends of provident and beneficent superintendence, her powers must be boundless. The gentlemen who think the powers of Parliament limited, may please themselves to talk of requisitions. But suppose the requisitions are not obeyed ? What I Shall there be no reserved power in the empire to supply a deficiency which may weaken, divide, and dissipate the whole? We are engaged in war ; the Secretary of State calls upon the colonies to contribute ; some would do it — I think most would cheerfully furnish whatever is demanded. One or two, suppose, hang back, and, easing themselves, let the stress of the draft He on the others ; surely it is proper that some authority might legally say, " '^ax yourselves for the common supply, or Parliament will c.o it for you." This backwardness was, as I am told, actually the case of Pennsylvania for some short time towards the begin- ning of the last war, owing to some internal dissensions in the colony. But whether the fact were so or otherwise, I774I BY EDMUND BURKE «3 the case is equally to be provided for by a compe- tent sovereign power. But then this ought to be no ordinary power, nor ever used in the first instance. This is what I meant when I have said at various times that I consider the power of taxing in Parliament as an instrument of Empire, and not as a means of supply. Such, sir, is my idea of the constitution of the British Empire, as distinguished from the constitution of Britain ; and on these grounds I think subordination and liberty may be sufficiently reconciled through the whole ; whether to serve a refining speculatist, or a factious demagogue, I know not ; but enough surely for the ease and happiness of man. Sir, whilst we held this happy course, we drew more from the colonies than all the impotent violence of despotism ever could extort from them. — Ibid. THE SPIRIT OF LIBERTY IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES BY EDMUND BURKE In this character of the American a love of freedom is the predominating feature, which marks and distin- guishes the whole ; and, as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable, whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies, probably, than in any other people 64 COLONIAL LIBERTY I Part I on earth ; and this from a great variety of powerful causes which, to understand the true temper of their minds, and the direction which this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely. First, the people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant, and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty but to liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible object ; and every nation has formed to itself some favourite point which, by way of eminence, becomes the criterion of their happiness. It happened that the great contests for freedom in this country were, from the earliest times, chiefly upon the question of taxing . [Englishmen] took infinite pains to inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people must, in effect, themselves, mediately or immedi tely, possess the power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty can subsist. The colonies draw from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on this specific point of taxing. The colonies complain that they have not the char- acteristic mark and seal of British freedom. They complain that they are taxed in a Parliament in which they are not represented. If you mean to satisfy them 1775) BY EDMUND BURKE «$ at all, you must satisfy them with regard to this complaint. . . . My idea, therefore, is to admit the people of our colonics into an interest in the constitution ; and, by recording that admission in the journals of Parliament, to give them as strong an assurance as the nature of the thing will admit, that we mean ft ever to adhere to that solemn declaration of systematic indulgence. — Speech on Conciliation with America. 1/75. THH REAL LINK BETWEEN ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES BY EDMUND BURKE The hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let the colonists always keep the idea of their civil rights associated with your government; they cling and grapple to you, and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them from their allegiance. But let it be once understood that your gcvernment might be one thing, and their privileges another, that these two things may exist without any mutual relation —the cement is gone; the coh-r.ton is loosened, and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith, wherever the F f 66 ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES ii-art I chosen race and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more friends you will have ; the more ardently they love liberty, the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil. They may have it from Spain, they may have it from Prussia. But, until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest and your natural dignity, freedom they can have from none but you. This is the commodity of price, of which you have the monopoly. This is the true Act of Navigation, which binds to you the commerce of the colonies, and through them secures to you the wealth of the world. Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond which originally made, and must still preserve, the unity of the Empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, your cockets and your clearances, are what form the great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office, and your instructions, and your suspending clauses, are the things that hold together the great con- texture of the mysterious whole. These things do not make your government. Dead instruments, passive tools as they are, it is the spirit of the English Constitu- tion which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the Empire, even down to the minutest member. Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England ? Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue ; that it is the I77SI BY EDMUND BURKE annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army ; or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! surely no! It * the love of the people ; it is their attachment to their Government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution which gives you your army and navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of those '• 'Igar and mechanical politicians, .ho have no place among us ; a sort of people who think nothing exists except what is gross and material ; and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of Empire, are i. fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles which, in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned, have no substantial existence, arc in truth everything and all in all. Magnanimity in politics is not selc*' m the truest wisdom, and yet great enn,)iie and little minds go ill together. If we are cons, ous ot our station, and glow with zeal to fill our pi i-cf as becomes our situation and ourselves, we ough; ■•> auspicate all our public proceedings on America with ii old warning of the Church, Sursum cor da! We oughi to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By advert- ing to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire, and have made the most extensive, and the only 68 TAXATION OF AMERICA [Part I honourable conquests, not by destroying, but by pro- moting the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have got an American empire. English privileges have made it all that it is ; English privileges alone will make it all it can be. — Ibid, WHY THE AMERICAN COLONIES SHOULD NOT BE TAXED BY WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM It is my opinion that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At the same time, I assert the authority of this kingdom over the colonies to be sovereign and supreme in every circumstance of govern- ment and legislation whatsoever. They are the subjects of this kingdom, equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen ; equally bound by its laws, and equally participating of the Constitution of this free country. The Americans are the sons of England. Taxation is no part of the governing or legislative power. The taxes are a voluntary gift and grant of the Commons alone. . . . When, therefore, in this House we give and grant, we give and grant what is our own. But in an American tax, what do we do? We, your Majesty's Commons for great Britain, give and grant to your Majesty, what ? Our own property ">. No. We give and grant to your Majesty, the property 1766] BY LORD CHATHAM 69 of your Majesty's Commons of America. It is an absurdity in terms. . . . The Commons of America, represented in their several Assemblies, have ever been in possession of the exercise of this their constitutional right of giving and granting their own money. They would have been slaves if they had not enjoyed it. At the same time, this kingdom, as the supreme governing and legislative power, has always bound the colonies by her laws, by her regula- tions and restrictions in trade, in navigation, in manu- factures—in everything, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent. I am no courtier of America — I stand up for ths kingdom. I maintain that the Parliament has a right to bind, to restrain America. Our legislative power over the colonies is sovereign and supreme. When it ceases to be sovereign and supreme, I would advise every gentleman to sell his lands, if he can, and embark for that country. When two countries are connected together, like England and her colonies, without being in- corporated, the one must necessarily govern ; the greater must rule the less ; but so rule it, as not to contradict the fundamental principles that are common to both. If the difference between external and internal taxes is not understood, I cannot help it ; but there is a plain distinction between taxes levied for the purpose of raising a revenue, and duties imposed for the regula- tion of trade, for the accommodation of the subject ; although, in the consequences, some revenue might incidentally arise from the latter. 70 TAXATION OF AMERICA fPART I It is asked, When were the colonies emanci- pated ? But I desire to know when were they made slaves? But I dwell not upon words. When I h d the honour of serving his Majesty, I availed myself of the means of information which I derived from my office : I speak therefore from knowledge. My materials were good ; I was at pains to collect, to digest, to consider them ; and I will be bold to affirm that the profits to Great Britain from the trade of the colonies, through all its branches, is two millions a year. This is the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last war. The estates that were rated at two thousand pounds a year, three score years ago, are at three thousand pounds at present. Those estates sold then from fifteen to eighteen years' purchase ; the same may now be sold for thirty. You owe this to America. This is the price America pays for her protection. And shall a miserable financier come with a boast that he can bring a pepper-corn into the Exchequer, to the loss of millions to the nation ! I dare not say how much higher these profits may be augmented. Omitting the immense increase of people by natural population in the northern colonies, and the emigration from every part of Europe, I am convinced the commercial system of America may be altered to advantage. You have prohibited where you ought to have encouraged, and encouraged where you ought to have prohibited. . . . In such a cause your success would be hazardous. America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man. She would embrace the pillars of the State, and pull down the Constitution along with her. Is this your boasted BY LORD CHATHAM 71 1-661 peace? Not to sheath the sword in its scabbard, but to sheath it in the bowels of your countrymen ? Will you quarrel with yourselves, now the whole House of Bourbon is united against you? . . . The Americans have not acted in all things with prudence and temper. The Americans have been wronged. They have been driven to madness by injustice. Will you punish them for the madness you have occasioned? Rather let prudence and temper come first from this side. I will undertake for America that she will follow the example. There are two lines in a ballad of Prior's, of a man's behaviour to his wife, so applicable to you and your colonies, that I cannot help repeating them : Be to her faults a little blind; Be to her virtues very kind. Upon the whole, I will beg l-^ave to tell the House what is really my opinion. It is, that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately; that the reason for the repeal be assigned, because it was founded on an erroneous principle. At the same time, let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever, that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their cox\.%&n\..— Speech against tJie Taxation ] made several BY EARL STANHOPE 87 sallies against them ; in the last he surprised them at night, and scattered or put them to the sword. But his principal business was to prepare against the siege which he expected, by collecting provisions and strengthening the works of the fort. As he had foretold, his appearance at Arcot effected a diversion at Trichinopoly. Chunda Sahib immediately detached 4000 men from his army, who were joined by 2000 natives from Vellore, by 150 Europeans from Pondicherry, and by the remains of the fugitive garrison. Altogether, the force thus directed against Arcot ex- ceeded 10,000 men, and was commanded by Rajah Sahib, a son of Chunda Sahib. The fort in which the English were now besieged was, notwithstanding some hasty repairs, in great measure ruinous, with the parapet low and slightly built, with several of the towers decayed, with the ditch in some parts fordable, in others dry, and in rome choked up with fallen rubbish. But Clive undauntedly maintained, day after day, such feeble bulwarks against such overwhelming numbers. Nor did he neglect, amidst other more substantial means of defence, to play upon the fears and fancies of his superstitious enemies. Thus he raised on the top of his highes. . wer an enormous piece of ordnance, which he had found in the fort, and which, according to popular tradition, had been sent from Delhi in the reign of Aurungzebe dragged along by a thousand yoke of oxen. Th-'- cannon was useless for any real practical effect, but, bv .ng discharged once a day with great form and ceremony, it struck, as we are told, no small alarm into Rajah Sahib and his principal officers. ■Sf?ffl33a!55S«tei 88 CLIVE AT ARCOT [Part II After several weeks' siege, however, the besiegers scanty and ill-served as was their artillery, had suc- ceeded in making more than one practicable breach in the walls. Some succour to the garrison was attempted from Madras, but in vain. Another resource, however remained to Clive. He found means to despatch a messenger through the enemy's lines to Morari Row a Mahratta chieftain, who had received a subsidy to assist Mahommed Ali. and who lay encamped with 6000 men on the hills of Mysore. Hitherto, notwithstanding his sub idy. he had kept aloof from the contest But the news how bravely Arcot was defended fixed his waver- ing mmd. "I never thought till now." said he. "that the English could fight. Since they can. I will help them. And accordingly he sent down a detachment of his troops from the hills. Rajah Sahib, when he learnt that the Mahrattas were approaching, perceived that he had no time to lose He sent a flag of truce to the garrison, promising a large sum of money if Clive would surrender, and denouncing instant death if Clive awaited a storm ; but he found his offers and his threats received with equal disdain. Exasperated with the scornful answer, he made every preparation for a desperate attack on the morrow. It was the 14th of November, the fiftieth day of the siege and the anniversary of the festival in commemoration of that martyr of early Islam. Hosein, when, according to the creed of the Mahometans of India, any one who tails m battle against unbelievers is wafted at once into the highest region of Paradise. But not solely trusting to the enthusiasm of the day, Rajah Sahib had i75«] BY EARL STANHOPE 89 recourse, moreover, to the excitement of bang, an in- toxicating drug, with which he plentifully supplied his soldiers. Before daybreak they came on every side, rushing furiously up to the assault. Besides the breaches which they expected to storm, they had hopes to break open the gates by urging forward several elephants with plates of iron fixed to their foreheads ; but the huge animals, galled by the English musketry, as of yore by the Roman javelins, soon turned, and trampled down the multitudes around them. Opposite one of the breaches, where the ater of the ditch was deepest, another party of the ei emy had launched a raft with seventy men upon it, and began to cross. In this emergency Clive, observing that his gunners fired with bad aim, took himself the management of one of the field-pieces with so much effect that in three or four discharges he had upset the raft and drowned the men. Throughout the day his valour and his skill wer>- equally conspicuous, and every assault of his opponents was repulsed with heavy loss. In the first part of the night their fire was renewed, but at two in the morning it ceased, and at the return of daylight it appeared that they had raised the siege, and were already out of sight, leaving four hundred men dead upon the ground, with all their ammunition and artillery. — History of England. 1836-54. ( 90 ) [Part II THE BATTLE OF PLASSEY BY LORD MACAULAY Clive was in a painfully anxious situation. He could place no confidence in the sincerity or in the courage of his confederate ; and, whatever confidence he might place in his own military talents, and in the valour and discipline of his troops, it was no light thing to engage an army twenty times as numerous as his own. Before him lay a river, over which it was easy to advance, but over which, if things went ill, not one of his little band would ever return. On this occasion, for the first, and for the last time, his dauntless spirit, during a few hours, shrank from the fearful responsibility of making a decision. He called a council of war. The majority pronounced against fighting; and Clive declared his concurrence with the majority. Long afterwards, he 3aid that he had never called but one council of war and that, if he had taken the advice of that council, the British would never have been masters of Bengal. But scarcely had the meeting broken up when he was himself again. He retired alone under the shade of some trees, and passed near an hour there in thought. He came back determined to put everything to the hazard, and gave orders that all should be in readiness for the morrow. The i was passed ; and at the close of a toilsome day's march, the army, long after sunset, took up its quarters in a grove of mango-trees near Plassey, within a mile of the enemy. Clive was unable to sleep ; he 17571 BY LORD MACAULAY 91 heard, through the whole night, the sound of drums and cymbals from the vast camp of the Nabob. The day broke, the day which was to decide the fate of India. At sunrise the army of the Nabob, pouring through many openings of the camp, began to move towards the grove where the English lay. Forty thou- sand infantry, armed with firelocks, pikes, swords, bows and arrows, covered the plain. They were accompanied by fifty pieces of ordnance of the largest size, each tugged by a long team of white oxen, and each pushed on from behind by an elephant. Some smaller guns, under the direction of a few French auxiliaries, were perhaps more formidable. The cavalry were fifteen thousand, drawn, not from the effeminate population of Bengal, but from the bolder race which inhabits the northern provinces ; and the practised eye of Clive could perceive that both the men and the horses were more powerful than those of the Carnatic. The force which he had to oppose to this great multitude consisted of only three thousand men. But of these nearly a thou- sand were English ; and all were led by English officers, and trained in the English discipline. Conspicuous in the ranks of the little army were the men of the Thirty- ninth Regiment, which still bears on its colours, amidst many honourable additions won under Wellington in Spain and Gascony, the name of Plassey, and the proud motto, Primus in Indis. The battle commenced with a cannonade, in which the artillery of the Nabob did scarcely any execution, while the few field-pieces of the English produced great effect. Several of the mosc distinguished officers in 9* THE BATTLE OF PLASSEY [Part li Surajah Dowlah's service fell. Disorder be^^an to spread through his ranks. His own terror increased every moment. One of the conspirators urged on him the expediency of retreating. The insidious advice, agree- ing as it did with what his own terrors suggested, was readily received. He ordered his army to fall back, and this order decided his fate. Clive snatched the moment, and ordered his troops to advance. The confused and dispirited multitude gave way before the onset of disciplined valour. No mob attacked by regular soldiers was ever more completely routed. The little band of Frenchmen, who alone ventured to con- front the English, were swept down the stream of fugitives. In an hour the forces of Surajah Dowlah were dispersed, never to reassemble. Only five hundred of the vanquished were slain, but their camp, their guns, their baggage, innumerable waggons, innumerable cattle, remained in the power of the conquerors. With the loss of twenty-two soldiers killed, and fifty wounded, Clive had scattered an army of near sixty thousand men, and subdued an empire larger and more populous than Great Britain. Henceforth the political ascendency of the English in India was assured. Clive's name stands high on the roll of conquerors.— £jjiy on dive. 1840. mii. iS57! ( 93 ) THE INDIAN MUTINY BY K, BOSWORTIf SMITH I ^he Brewing of the Storm True enough \\ . -s that there had been symptoms of something brewing, of something, as the saying is, *' in the air," which had appeared with the beginning of the new year in the neighbourhood of Calcutta, and h;id, by this time, been observed at Umballa, a thousand miles away on the edge of the Himalayas and within the limits of John Lawrence's own province. There had been those mysterious " chupatties," pancakes of flour and water, which meant no one quite knew what, and had passed on, no one quite knew how, from village to village, and from district to district throughout the North-West Provinces. There were placards proclaim- ing the 3^ekad, or Holy War, in the name of God and of the Prophet, which had been nailed to the Jumna Musjid in Delhi, under the very noses of the British authorities. There had been weird prophecies which passing from mouth to mouth, and losing nothing in the process, told of coming disaster to the Feringhis. There had been incendiary fires, blazing forth with ominous frequency in the cantonments, which were only outward and visible signs of other and fiercer fires which were smouldering and struggling within the Sepoys' hearts. Finally, there was the substitution of the Enfield rifle for the Brown Bess, and of the lubri- cated for the ordinary cartridge, which, whether by our fate or by our fault, had brought to a head all those ■n* 94 THE INDIAN MUTINY [Part II vague and unreasoning fears which the extinction of native dynasties and the annexation of native states the ousting of talukdars and the resumption of jagheers' the introduction of "fire-carriages" and of "lightning." posts,"— in short, every step in the " moral and material progress" of India, had, each and all. some more, some less, some here, some there, contributed to awaken in the breasts of our pampered and ignorant and suspicious Sepoys. The cartridges served out to them, lubricated, as they thought, with the fat of the cow, the sacred animal of the Hindus, and of the pig. the unclean animal of the Mahommedans, were at once a cause and a symptom of the fast-spreading panic ; for they furnished one more, and, as it seemed, a crowning proof of the blow which Government was insidiously preparing to strike at the most sacred feelings and institutions of both sections of the community. Panic is always blind. It grows by what it feeds on. by the operations of the medicines which are administered to check its growth no less than by its natural food. Proclamations and apologies and concessions, if they tended momentarily to allay the symptoms of the rising terror, only served, ultimately, to increase its strength. To demonstrate,' as one kind-hearted general after another attempted to do to his bewildered troops, the absurdity of their fears, was only to give one proof the more of their reality;' and so from Dumdum and Barrackpore, in the neigh-' bourhood of the capital of India, the smouldering mischief spread to Agra, the capital of the North- western Provinces; to Meerut, the largest military i857] BY BOSWORTH SMITH 95 station in Hindustan, and the strongest in European troops of all arms ; to Delhi, the capital of the Mogul, where his effete representative was dozing away the last hours of his reign and of his life ; and so on, to Umballa, one of the chief dep6ts for " instruction in musketry"— in the fatal art, that is, which, if it helped the Sepoys to kill their enemies, must needs first, they thought, ruin those who practised it both in body and soul. What booted it that warnings, punishments, modi- fications, explanations, and denials followed one after another in rapid and bewildering succession? What booted it that the 19th Native Infantry regiment, which had mutinied at Berhampore in February, was dis- banded; that the fanatic " Pandy" of the 34th Native Infantry, who had made a murderous assault on an English officer at Barrackpore, was hanged ; and that the seven companies who had been silent and passive, if not sympathising spectators of his deed, were dis- banded also ? What booted it that the obnoxious grease had been analysed and found to be harmless ; that it was, henceforward, to be mixed by the Sepoys them- selves from ingredients which they themselves should be at liberty to choose ; that they were bidden to tear off, and no longer to bite off the end of the cartridge— to touch, that is, and no longer to taste, the unclean thing? •' Touch not, taste not, handle not ! " was still the cry of the poor panic-stricken Sepoy. The accursed thing which the Government had been driven to remove from them in one shape, it was determined, they thought, in their blind unreasoning terror, to force back on them in 96 THE INDIAN MUTINY [Part Ii another. If they were no longer obliged to touch the greased cartridge with their hands, the very flour which they were eating had been mixed, as they believed, by their insidious enemies with the bone-dust of the same forbidden animals I They would henceforth be looked upon— in fact, they were already looked upon by their more fortunate comrades, who had not been thought worthy of the honour of handling the Enfield rifle-as •'outcasts," with all that that most horrible of names implied in this and in the other world. John Lawrence left Sealkote and passed on to Rawul- pindi. He was on the point of starting thence for Murri, when, on May 12, came the fateful telegram from Delhi, which electrified the Punjab and altered his summer destination. " The Sepoys," it ran, "have come in from Meerut, and are burning eve .-hing. Mr. Todd is dead, and, we hear, several v a v ans. We must shut up." In other words, the .: an Mutiny had broken out, and Delhi, the seat ol .._ Mogul and the historic capital of India, was in the hands of the mutineers.— Z//AyiE--continued 2. The Capture of Delhi The part of the wall selected for our attack was that which faced the Ridge, and which, extending from the river Jumna to the Lahore Gate, formed a third part of the whole circumference. It included the Moree, the Kashmere and the Water Bastions, each of which con- tained from ten to fourteen heavy guns ; each was, in iSsrI BY BOSWORTH SMITH 97 great part, our own handiwork ; and each, during the last two months, had poured forth a storm of shot and shell upon their original constructors, without the intermission of a single day. Outside the wall ran a ditch twenty-five feet wide and sixteen feet deep, which might well form the common grave of any force attempting to cross it before the parapets and bastions above should have been swept clear of its defenders. The besiegers of a strongly fortified place ought, it has been laid down on high authority, to outnumber the besieged in the proportion of three to one. At Delhi this proportion was reversed, or more than re- versed. The besieged army numbered at least 40,000 men ; the besiegers, now that the last man had come from the Punjab, only 11,000. And of these, not more than 3300 were Europeans, while the Jummoo contin- gent, 2000 strong, had only just arrived in camp, ana was regarded with suspicion and dislike by some of the authorities. Our heavy guns were only 54 in number, while those in Delhi amounted to 300. Of artillerymen we had only 580, and many even of these belonged to the Horse Artillery, and had to be called off from their proper duties to work in the batteries ; while, to eke out their scanty numbers, it was found necessary to call for volunteers from the Lancers and the Carabineers, men who had never handled a gun before, and had to take their first lessons in artillery practice exposed to constant fire from the enemy. A hard apprenticeship, but eagerly embraced and nobly discharged I Such was the general outlook of the siege when the H 98 THE INDIAN MUTINY [Part II last man and the last gun from the Punjab arrived upon the ground. What wonder if the General on whom the responsibility really rested had misgivings, even to the last moment, as to the wisdom of the steps into which he had been persuaded by the eagerness of the Engineers ? and what wonder that he needed to be reminded by those who were not hampered by any such overmastering burden, that India had been won and held in defiance of all the laws of war, and that Delhi need not be the one exception to the rule ? It was on the evening of September 7 that the ground was broken. On that night, under the personal direction of Alexander Taylor, the first battery was run up seven hundred yards from the Moree Bastion. Animated and inspired by his presence, the men worked for their lives —for they knew what the day would bring forth. But in spite of all their efforts, the first streak of light found the battery armed with only one gun, upon which, and upon each of its fellows as, one after the other, they were brought into position, there rained down a pitiless fire from the opposing bastion. At last the battery was complete, and then the masonry of the fortifications of the city began to fly. It was a new and strange sensation. The time of patient waiting, of repelling attacks which were incessantly renewed, of Cadmean victories over a foe who seemed to possess unlimited powers of recovery and boundless recruiting-grounds, was a thing of the past, and the time for reprisals had arrived. During the five days and nights which followed, three other batteries were constructed under the same or even greater difficulties. One of them was only one hundred 1857} BY BOSWORTH SMITH 99 and sixty yards from the Water Bastion, and the heavy guns had to be dragged up to it through the open, under a crushing fire of musketry ; " a feat of arms," says Sir Henry Norman, " almost unparalleled in war." On the 1 2th all four batteries were able, for the first time, to play at once upon the walls of the city ; and the first discharge of their concentrated fire must have made the most sanguine among the Mutineers feel that the game of mutiny had been all but played out. Fifty-four guns and mortars belchea forth havoc on the doomed city ; and ringing cheers arose from our men as the smoke of each salvo cleared away and showed the formidable bastions crumbling into ruins, and whole yards of the parapets torn away by the bursting shells, while the defenders were driven to seek shelter, if indeed they cared to find it, far into the interior of the city. Not for one moment during the next forty-eight hours did the whistling of bullets and the roar of artillery cease. The worn-out gunners — their places, meanwhile, being filled by volunteers — would sometimes throw them- selves down to snatch a few moments of hurried, but profound, sleep beneath their very guns, and then, spring- ing to their feet again, would pound away with redoubled vigour. The coolness and the courage of the old Sikh artillerymen, who had been picked out by Sir John Lawrence in person, and of the despised Muzbi Sikhs, whom he had also sent down to Delhi, were as con- spicuous as that of the Europeans themselves. And the passive endurance of the water-carriers and native servants, who, amidst the hatreds of colour and of race, which the fierce conflict had engendered, had not always lOO THE INDIAN MUTINY [Fart II received the best of treatment at their masters' hands and who were now expected to wait on those same masters amidst storms of shot and shell, was, perhaps, more wonderful than either. The enemy, though they had been driven down from the parapets, and though many of their guns on the bastions had been dismounted, still fought on with ihe courage of despair. They ran out light guns which enfiladed our batteries. They filled the water-courses and gardens in front of the city with sharp-shooters, who picked off oar gunners at their work ; and riddled the mantelets with bullet-holes. They even, on one occasion, attempted to attack us iv the rear. And they began, when it was all too late, to raise a rampart behind the breaches, which would soon have made the place im- pregnable. On the night of the 13th it seemed that the bombard- ment had pretty well done its work ; and four young Engineer oflScers, creeping down through the gardens, amongst and behind the enemy's skirmishers, descended into the ditch, examined the breaches, and returned, with the report that they were difficult but practicable. The knowledge of what was going on behind the breaches led the General and his council of war to decide that the enterprise should be attempted while " practicable " it still remained. And forthwith the thrilling order, which had been so long and so eagerly expected, and which was to be the message of death to so many of the most eager of the expectants, flew from man to man throughout the camp : " The assault at three o'clock this morning." It was the " witching hour," but not of " ^////midnight." The i8S7l BY BOSVVORTH SMITH lot plans had all been laid beforehand, and the three hours of suspense and preparation which remained passed away slowly enough. Long before the hour struck our men were at Ludlow Castle, the appointed rendezvous, which, curiously enough, happened many years before to have been the residence of John Lawrence. The assaulting columns were four in number. The first, it had been arranged, was to storm the main breach of the Kashmere Bastion ; the second, the Water Bastion ; the third, when the Kashmere Gate should have been blown in by a small party, each man of whom carried his life and a powder- bag in his hand, was to enter by the opening ; while the fourth column, to the extreme right, was first to attempt to dislodge the Mutineers who were encamped in lar<;e numbers and in a strong position in the suburb of Kis- sengunge, and then to force an entrance by the Lahore Gate. To Nicholson fell, as of right, the post of honour. He had been sent down by Sir John Lawrence, with orders " to take Delhi ; " and Delhi the whole army was willing that he, and no one else, should take. He was therefore to head the first column in person, as well as to direct the general operations of the assault. " Our batteries," says an eye-witness, "redoubled their roar, while the columns were taking up their respective posi- tions, throwing shells to drive the enemy awa/ as far as possible from the breaches. The morning was just breaking ; the thunder of our artillery was at its loudest, when, all at once, it hushed. Every one could hear his heart beat." »oa THE INDIAN MUTINY [Part n The Rifles now ran forward as skirmishers, to cover the advance of the assaulting columns ; and the men, who had been lying on the ground to save their lives till they should be called for, sprang to their feet, and, with "a cry of exultation," began to move on rapidly for the walls. Beneath a storm of bullets from the besieged, who knew well that their hour had come, each of the first three columns did its work manfully and with success. They crossed the glacis with all speed, and left it behind them, dotted with writhing men; they leaped down into the ditch, and in it dead and dying soon lay thickly piled together. But the ladders were planted against the scarp, and in a few minutes the difficulties and dangers of the escalade were over. Nicholson, resolved to be the first in danger as in dignity, was amongst the foremost of his column to mount the breach. The second column, at the Water Bastion, forced its way in about the same time ; and the third marched, almost unopposed, through the Kashmere gateway, which had been blown down by the small exploding party, but at the cost of the lives of almost all concerned. Soon the whole line of the ramparts which faced the Ridge and had defied us for three weary months, was in our hands. The British flag was once more run up upon the Cabul Gate ; and the bugle-call of the various regiments gave a breathing space, in which men might congratulate each other on the victory, might count up the survivors, and might calculat-; and grieve over the number of the dead. A ghastly tribute had, of course, been paid to the formidable nature of the defences and the unquestioned gallantry of the defenders. i8S7l BY BOSWORTH SMITH 103 The fourth column, under Major Reid, supported by the newly arrived Kashmere contingent under Richard Lawrence, had been less successful. With his faithful Goorkhas, Reid had held Hindu Rao's house— the post of honour and of danger, and the key to our whole position— throughout the siege, and had withstood some twenty-six attacks. But a too difficult— I would rather say an impossible— task had now been assigned to him. He was wounded early in the day, and his column was unable to dislodge the enemy, and so to approach the Lahore Gate. That important point was still held in force by the foe ; and the fire of their artillery, directed at the Cabul Gate, threatened to make our hard-won position there untenable. Nicholson and Jones had just met each other, flushed with success, at the heads of their respective columns ; and Nicholson, seeing that there was still good work to be done, determined to be the doer of it He called for volunteers, and they appeared. But the one street by which they could approach the Lahore Gate was, like many streets in Eastern towns, so narrow that six men could hardly walk abreast along it. It had been barricaded by the watchful enemy. It was swept, from the other end, by a gun loaded with grape, and the windows and flat roofs of the houses on either side of it bristled with riflemen. What wonder if, from death in such manifold and such insidious form.s, even the stoutest hearts shrank ? Nicholson saw how things stood, and, knowing that if his force hesitated they were lost, sprang to the front, and, waving his sword over his head, as if he were a simple captain, called aloud upon his men to follow him. Had he been 104 THE EMPRESS OF INDIA fPART II wo'^JdV" '*" T^' '" '^' °P^" '^*^'^' ^'^ "°We stature sharpshooters, and no^v his commanding presence and of an unseen foe. made escape impossible. There was dea h m every window and on every housetop; and the "brute bullet" which did the deed was but ;neof many wh.ch must have found its way to that noble heart before he could have crossed swords with the foe. He and 1 ttle known to fame as he h.<; been, till the ex- tremity of the peril brought him to the front and revealed h.m m h,s Titanic mould of heart and limb, there fell the man who, perhaps, of all the heroes of the Mutiny-the Lawrence brothers alone excepted- -India could, at that junct re, 1,,,, afford to lose. He begged that he migh be left lymg on the ground till Delhi was ours. But this could not be. and he was borne off by his followers fo his old quarters on the Ridge. The long autumn day was over, and we were in Delhi By Sunday, the 20th September, the whole of the city -in large part already a city of the dead-was at our mercy.— /(JzV/. THE EMPRESS OF INDIA BY LADY BETTY BALFOUR When the administration of India was transferred from he East India Company to the sovereign, it seemed in the eyes of her Indian subjects and feudatories that the ■8771 BY LADY BETTY BALFOUR '05 impersonal power of an administrative abstraction had been replaced by the direct personal authority of a human being. This was a change thoroughly congenial to all their traditional sentiments ; but without some appropriate title the Queen of England was scarcely less of an abstraction than the Company itself. The only Indian word corresponding to the English Queen namely, Malika — was one commonly bestowed on the wife of an Indian prince, and therefore entirely inap- plicable to the true position of the British Sovereign in India. The title of Empress or Padshdh could only adequately represent her relations with the states and kingdoms of India, and was, moreover, a title familiar to the natives of the country, and an impressive and signifi- cant one in their eyes. Embarrassments inseparable from the want of some appropriate title had long been experienced with in- creasing force by successive Indian administrations, and were brought, as it were, to a crisis by various circum- stances incidental to the Prince of Wales's visit to India in 1875-76, and by a recommendation on the part of Lord Northbrook's Government, that it would be in accordance with fact, with the language of political documents, and with that in ordinary use, to speak of Her Majesty as the Sovereign of India — that is to say, the paramount power over all, including Native States. It was accordingly announced, in the Speech from the Throne in the session of 1876, that whereas when the direct government of the Indian E ..pire was assumed by the Queen no formal addition was made to the style and titles of the sovereign, her Majesty deemed that io6 THE E..IPRESS OF INDIA (Part II moment a fitting one for supplying the omission, and of g'ving thereby a forn.al and emphatic expressiun of the favourable sentiments which she had ah. lys entertain ^d towards the princes and people of India. It was, moreover, decided that the new title -^noul ' be announced at a great assemblage on the hrst- rfcl rUin near Delhi, on January i, 1877— in t • prest^t- of the heads of every government in india ; of 12^ of the noble band of civil serv nts ; r f 14,000 splena.dly equipped and disciplined British and native troc ps. of seventy-seven of the ruling chiefs and princes ' India, representing territories as large as Great Br; tain, ranre! and Germany combined, and of three hundred nati..' noblemen and gentlemen beside Altogether 68,0. were invited, and did actually re de in Delh and its surrounding camps during the fourttcn days of the assemblage. Three large pavilions had been syeciali erecicd for the occasion, at some dis .nee outsi.e, a d <)verlo( i-r an extensive plain to the north of th :ity of Dc ^l The lari,cst of these pavili. ns, which v as semicirci. in form, about 800 feet lo -. facin- the Vice-regal throne, was occupied by the governo of Madras and Bombay, the ruling chiefs present at )elhi, with their principal -tendants, ai d th. varic , high officers of Government, all of whon wt that the i itive chiefs wt - i official The two other p. right and . ;ft, of th^ iceroy a large ct cours >f s ectators, -r i in such a manner gled with the high rectcd to the rear, ne, were occupied by iding the Governor- general 01 he l^or en -ettlem. ..ts in India, the Khan BY I.ADV B TTY BALI OUR 107 liar, badge, and robes V the whole assembly up close by playing -if rhei it, the foreign envoys and consuls, and European rsd nat noblemen . nd f rtlemen from all parts of n ;a. he Brit sh troops, i ."^^pean and native, were a t circle in tti plain around. Ta .eroy ived at the piace of assemblafje a litth a noon, ana as received ,vith a roval salute from th troops assembled. On arriving at the gran< entrance the Viceroy, acco -panicc by Lady Lytton and the members of his per il staff, alighted from his carriage, and, preced y his staff, advanced in procession to the dais. His Excellency, wearint of the Star of India, was rcceiv standing, the massed bands the National Anthem, until he nad taken his seat < n the dalfs. The proclamation formally declaring Her Majesty the Queen to be Empress of India was then read in English by *he chief herald, and afterwards in Urdu by the Eoreign Secretary. At its conclusion 101 salvos of artillery, intermingled with feux de joie from the assembled troops, were fired ; the Royal standard was hoisted, and the bands again played the Nanonal Anthem. After a brief pause the Viceroy then rose and addressed the assemblage. At the close of his address he read aloud the telegraphic message which the Queen-Empress had that day sent in her Royal and Imperial name. At the conclusion of this address the whole assembly spontaneously rose and joined the troops in g'ving repeated cheers. Many of the chiefs present atten-ptrd to offer their congratulations, but were unable to muke io8 THE EMPRESS OF INDIA [Part II themselves heard. The Maharaja Sindiah was the first to rise. He said, " Shah-in-Shah Pddshdh (Monarch of Monarchs), may God bless you ! The princes of India bless you, and pray that your sovereignty and power may remain stedfast for ever ! " Commenting upon this spontaneous speech, Lord Lytton writes to her Majesty, " His words have a very special significance, which is recognised through- out India, though it is not apparent in the translation of them, and cannot be adequately rendered in English. The word used by Sindiah to express your Majesty's position in reference to himself and brother princes is a word which the princes of India have hitherto been careful to avoid using ; for it signifies, in the ori(>inal, the power of issuing absolute orders which must be obeyed. Coming, therefore, from the lips of Sindiah, on such an occasion, as the spokesman of all the native princes then and there assembled, it per- manently and publicly fixes your Majesty's suzerain, and more than suzerain power in India beyond all possibility of future question." In the opinion of the best judges in India, after some years' experience, the assumption by the Queen of the title of Empress has had political results of far-reaching importance. The supremacy of the British Government had, of course, been long admitted as a practical fact by all the native states of India, but in many cases their chiefs gave themselves, when opportunity oflfered and it seemed safe to do so, the airs of independent powers. Treaties, made, perhaps, nearly a hundred years before and still in force, might be quoted to show that the iS77l BY LADY BETTY BALFOUR 109 native prince, although not so strong, was equal in dignity and rightful position to the Viceroy. The Nizam, the Gaekwar, and the Viceroy had all the same salutes, than which, to native imaginations, there could be nothing more significant. The twenty-one guns ceased, after the Delhi Assembly, to be a sign of equality with the representative of the Sovereign. There can, indeed, be no doubt of the fact, now universally acknowledged in India, .hat the proclamation of the paramount su- periority of the British Crown was an act of political wisdom and foresight, which has not only strengthened our position throughout the vast territories of India proper, but has had no small effect also beyond the frontier of the Indian Empire.— 7/;^ History of Lord Lyttoris Indian Administration, 1876 to 1880: compiled from Letters and Official Papers. 1 899. A DESCRIPTION OF AUSTRALIA BY CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIEH 1687-88.— New Holland is a very large tract of land. It is not yet determined whether it is an island or a main con- tinent ; but I am certain that it joins neither to Asia, Africa, nor America. This part of it that we saw is all low, even land, with sandy banks against the sea ; only the points are rocky, and so are some of the islands in this bay. The land is of a dry, sandy soil, destitute of water, except you make wells : yet producing divers sorts of trees ; bu«- the woods are not thick, nor the trees very big . . . There was pretty long grass growing under the no A DESCRIPTION OF AUSTRALIA [Part n I ■ ^ trees, but it was very thin. We saw no trees that bore fruit or berries . . . The inhabitants of this country are the miserablest people in the worM, and setting aside their human shape, they differ but little from brutes. 1699. — The land is of an indifferent height so that it may be seen nine or ten leagues off. It appears at a dis< tance very even ; but as you come nigher you find there are many gentle risings, though none steep nor high. 'Tis all a steep shore against the open sea, but in this bay or sound we were now in, the land is low by the seaside, producing a sort of samphire, which bears a white flower. Farther in, the mould is reddish, a sort of sand, producing some gras?, plants, and shrubs. The grass grows in great tufts, as i/ig as a bushel, here and there a tuft being intermixed with much heath, much of the kind we have growing on our commons in England. Oi" trees or shrubs here are divers sorts, but none above ten feet high ; their bodies ab JUt three feet about, and five or six feet high before you come to the branches, which are bushy, and composed of small twi^rs. there spreading abroad, though t'lick-set and full :* leaves, which were mostly long and narrow. The col ;it of the leaves was on one side whitish, and on the other green ; and the bark of the trees was generally of the same colour with the leaves, of a pale green. mm i889l ( III ) THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA BY CARL LUMIIOLTZ AUSTRALIA was the last continent discovered by the European, a fact easily explained by its situation. In the age of the great discoveries, navigators were seeking a way to India, and whether they chose to go by the way of the Cape of Good Hope or by the Straits of Magellan, in either case the route was far to the north of Australia. The navigators also seem to have kept as far to the north as possible. Still, a very long time cannot have passed ere sailors came in sight of the Australian coast. Strange to say, it is not known with certainty who was the first discoverer of this great continent. The first Australian discoveries of which we have perfectly trustworthy accounts were not made before the beginning of the seventeenth ceniury. We first come across the Dutch, who during their war of independence attempted to conquer the rich colonies of their enemies —the Spanish and the Portuguese. In connection with this we obtain the following reliable dates : in 1601 the Portuguese De Eridia landed on the north-west coast from the west; in 1606 the Spaniard Torres passed from the east through the straits named after him ; and subsequently a Dutch ship called Duyfhm sailed along the coast toward Cape York. From this time the Dutch carry on nearly all the explorations. In 1627 Peter Nuyts entered the great Australian bay iia THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA [ParMI from the west. In 1642 Tasman gained the south point of that country, which he called Van Diemen's Land. It is not easy now to decide whether his reasons for regarding the latter as the southern point of a large continent were based on old theories or on more recent observations. The English, the nation which was destined to control the development of Australia, did not make their appearance before 1688, when the freebooter Dampier explored the west coast. This happened one hundred years before the first colonies were planted in 1788. It was a long time before anybody made any decided effort to take possession of the country, and for this delay there were many reasons. The power of the Spanish was exhausted, and so was that of Portugal, while the victorious Dutch were fully occupied with their new rich provinces. To this must be added that all descriptions of Australia represented the continent as barren and without water to drink, and its natives as poor and savage. Nor did the coasts that had been seen present any very inviting aspect There are but few harbours on the west and south coasts, and on the north-east side are dangerous coral reefs. The wrong side of Australia had been seen, and it was absurd to prefer this country to the Spice Islands or America. It is interesting to note that it was a scientific expe- dition which first led to the colonization of the country. In 1768 Captain Cook carried an astronomer and one or two other scientists to Tahiti to observe the transit iS89] BY CARL LUMHOLTZ "3 of Venus, and to make some other researches on their home voyage. This was the beginning of the present phase of scientific expeditions. In 1770 he touched Austrah'a at Botany Bay, and made a chart of the coast to the north as far as Torres Straits, the importance of which he was the first to point out. At this time England was greatly puzzled as to what it should do with all such criminals as it had heretofore sent to America. The declaration of independence on the part of the United States had put an end to the transportation of criminals to that country, and the favourable report made by Cook in regard to Botany Bay led Sydney to make up his mind to try Australia. The first transportation was made in 1788, but the colony was soon moved to the magnificent harbour of Port Jackson, where the city of Sydney was gradually built up. The opening up of the continent was continued with this solitary colony as the base of exploration. Flinders and Bass commenced their expeditions in the year 1795 in a small open boat to both sides of the coast. In 1797 Bass called attention to the strait between Tasmania and the continent, and the next year he circumnavigated the island with Flinders. At the expense of the Govern- ment Flinders made charts of a large part of the coast of Australia, and this coast survey was continued from time to time almost to the present day. How difficult it must have been to penetrate the Blue Mountains separating Sydney from the plains in the interior is evident from the fact that men like Bass attempted it in vain. It took twenty-five years to I wmm liiiMaVM IT4 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA [Part Ii advance the first fifty miles, and thus to find a way between the steep rocks to the open country beyond. The first passage was effected in 1813, and from that time the explorations have progressed rapidly. Oxley, Cunningham, Mitchell, Sturt, and others explored the whole country along the rivers toward Victoria. From Adelaide, settled about the same time, a series of attempts were begun in 1839 to penetrate the country from the south to the north. Heroic efforts were made in this direction by Eyre, who afterwards suffered untold hardships in travelling 1200 miles along the coast to King George's Sound. O'Hara Burke and Wills were the first to reach the north coast in 1861, but both perished from hunger on their way back. The following year McDouall Stuart, after having made two abortive attempts, succeeded in getting through, and from that time onwards the route was open. In 1872 a telegraph line was laid, amid great difficulties, across the whole continent. It followed Stuari's route, and this en- terprise became the basis of a series of explorations all the way to the west coast, and thus the main features of the geography of Australia have become established. Most of these expeditions into the interior have been undertaken amid the greatest privations, such as a constant lack of water and terrible heat, even up to 127° R, so that it has at times been necessary to bury one's self in the ground in order to endure it. Add to this the almost impassable spinifex-scrubs, the salt lakes, the sand-storms, etc., and we can form some idea of what the explorer had to suffer. The bright sunlight i8S9) BY CARL LUMHOLTZ "S destroyed Sturt's eyes, and many a life has been lost in the conflict with these similar impediments. But a large territory has been opened to civilization by these martyrs. — Among Cannibals, 1889. THE SETTLEMENT OI-' AUSTRALLV BY CARL LUMHOLTZ On January 26, 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip landed at Sydney with his first company of prisoners, and in a solemn manner took possession of a whole continent in the name of the inhabitants of a small island on the opposite side of the globe. The ruling power of the British nation got an opportunity of expanding, and a new world was added to the dominion of the Anglo- Saxon race. The beginning was made by about icxx) deported criminals, about one-fourth part of these being women. One hundred years later, the population of the Austra- lian colonics, leaving New Zealand out of consideration, was nearly 3,ooo,ocx). The first means of subsistence had to be produced by agriculture, but as few of the new settlers had any knowledge of this art, there was much suffering in the beginning, and in order to escape death from starvation, the domestic animals which had been brought had to be slaughtered. One hundred years later Australia contained 80,000,000 sheep and almost 8,000,000 head of cattle, and it sent annually to the mother-country beef, mutton, wool, tallow, wheat, ii6 THE SETTLEMENT OF AUSTRALIA [Part n and metals to the value of about ;C40,ooo,ooo sterling. A most remarkable progress ! The story of the early days of the colonies is chiefly a history of the deportation of criminals. The first colony received, from 1788 until the importation was stopped in 1839 by the energetic protest of the " free immigrants," in all 60,000 criminals. The next colony of criminals was Tasmania, or, as the island was then called, Van Diemen's Land (1803). The deportation of criminals to the latter place ceased in 1854, when 68,000 prisoners had been sent there. The last colony to which convicts were regularly deported was West Australia, founded in 1839. In 1849 this colony sent a petition to the Government asking for criminals to be sent thither, in order to promote the development of the colony. Under pressure from the other cjlonies, which finally on their own account resisted by force the landing of such immigrants. West Australia had to abandon thi raflSc in 1868,' having then received about 10,000. Thus it will be seen that this transportation intro- duced great numbers of people to Australia, and at the same time the voluntary immigration kept increasing. Two of the present colonies were not started as convict settlements. There was an attempt to send convicts to Melbourne in 1803, but the plan was soon abandoned, and the colony of Port Phillip, as Victoria was then called, was founded in 1834 by free citizens from Tas mania. South Australia was colonized directly by an Engh'sh company, who received the land for nothing, on condition that they should encourage immigration. In iS89] BY CARL LUMHOLTZ 117 1841 this settlement contained 23,000 inhabitants, chiefly freemen. The growth of the colonies depended on the develop- ment of trade and industries. In the beginning all labour was confined to agriculture, and but little progress was made, till during the first decades of this century MacArthur advocated the raising of sheep with great energy, and after a passage through the Blue Mountains had been found by Macquarie, a new impetus was given to the de\ elopment of Australia. — Ibid. THE SHEEP-FARMING INDUSTRY IN QUEENSLAND BY CARL LUMUOLTZ One can scarcely imagine a more characteristic picture of Australian bush-life than the sight of a wool-waggon approaching from the distance. Eighteen or twenty strong oxen in the scorching heat, their tongues far out of their mouths, laboriously drag a heavy waggon loaded with bales of wool. By the side of the caravan walks the driver, sunburnt and dusty, with his long whip in his hand. Under an awning on the top of the load, which is as high as a house, the driver's family have their quarters, and a few sheep and goats follow behind. Such a carrier makes his living by transporting wool from stations in the far west to the coast, and also by bringing back supplies. Thus he spends his life on the 118 SHEEP-FARMING IN QUEENSLANDipart ii road from one year's end to another. He is hims*;lf the owner of both oxen and waggon. If he has several of such teams and also a wife, she usually drives one, plying her whip as dexterously as any man. Finally we meet the great flocks of sheep from Minnie Downs, proof that we are now near this station, our goal. The month I spent here gave me an ex-' cellent knowledge of station-life. The raising of cattle and sheep, the most important industry of Australia, has more or less influence on all kinds of business in that country. In the older colonies the cattle and sheep farmers are also the owners of the land where their herds and flocks graze, but in the larger part of Queens- land the pastures are rented from the Government These great cattle and sheep farmers are called squatters, and they are the aristocracy of Australia. If the squatter is a sheep-farmer, he not unfrequently has 200,000 sheep upon his station, while the cattle-farmer often owns 15.000 head. He does not hesitate to pay as high as ;^20oo for a fine bull, or as high as £600 for a ram of choice pedigree. A station resembles a little village. Besides the main building, which is the residence of the squatter or his superintendent, there are a number of shanties for the workmen, a butcher's shop, a store-house for wool, and a shop where most of the necessaries of life may be bought. A garden of vegetables may usually be found down by the water, for there is always a creek or a water-hole near every station. The garden is generally managed by skilful Chinamen, who are, it is true, hated by all colonists (every Chinaman must pay £^0 for l8S9l BY CARL LUiMIlOLTZ 119 permission to settle in Queensland), but at the same time are recognized as the most able gardeners. The secret of their art is chiefly the untiring attention they give to the plants, watering them early and late in sunshine and even in rain. The stock-yard is an enclosure indispensable to every station. The cattle arc driven into it when they are to be captured, but it is usually occupied by the horses, which are lodged there every morning, so that the stock- man may select his own animal. Most of the work on a station is done on horseback., and one can hardly conceive of an Australian unable to ride. There is of course much work to be done on a station having such extensive pasturage. The sheep cause the nost trouble. The transportati . of the wool to the coast is very expensive, and often costs more than the freight from the coast to England. And yet shccp- raising may often give a profit of as much as thirty per cent. The cattle are sent alive to the cities to be slaughtered. Milk is scarcely used at all in the bush. On a station containing about 10,000 head not more than three or four cows may be milked, as the cattle are half wild and have to be tamed for milking purposes. The chief stress is laid on the beef. What, then, be- comes of this immense quantity of beef? The greater part is eaten in Australia, where the conbumption is enormous. More recently establishments have been built, in which the beef is either canned or frozen for export. Besides, considerable quantities are used fo. the production of tallow. In the neighbourhood of Rockhampton there is an establishment where the 120 NEW ZEALAND FARMS (paiit n carcasses of about loo.ooo cattle and sheep are annually boiled down and converted into tallow. In Australia, wherever there are good pastures to be found, the land is quickly taken up for the feeding of large droves of cattle and flocks of sheep. First the cattle consume the coarse grass, then the sheep arc turned into the pastures. Distance is a matter of no consequence. It may require months to bring the stock up to the new station, but no place is so far away that there is any hesitation about forming a station there, provided the pasturage is good.— //J« i. NEW ZEALAND FARMS BY MRS. ROWAN We drove on to the farm of Mr. H.'s son-in-law • 600 acres of splendid grass land. The farm owners had had recourse to a cruel way of clearing it. It was originally all covered with ferns, six and seven feet high ; cattle were turned into it in the spring, when they lived on the young shoots as they came up. In time the constant nibbhng destroyed the plants, and the poor animals were left to starve, eating at last even the roots. The grass soon grew after it was sown, but the cattle lay dead m every direction. It was less costly to improve the land in this way than by other means. The last of the harvesting was finished as we got back; and I went to watch the long rows of cows bemg milked. There are six young men here learning farmmg; they arc all Englishmen and do the whole of IS.;*) BY MRS. ROWAN tai the work, rising at five, when they have tea and some- thinfj to eat, then breakfast at eight, lunch very often in the fields, and dinner at seven. They seem a very happy household. The farm is looo acres in extent, carry- ing 1000 sheep, 200 head of cattle, and 30 horses. The work is mixed— dairying, pastoral, and agricultural — 100 acres being kept under the plough for turnips, oats, carrots, and other crops. Shearing was just over, and they had shorn lor lxto sheep; but •'. .^ n. life is always a busy one, and each day there is . oriij'ihiiif^: new. This day the lambs were getting their < f' e oi oil and turpentine. T'.; . moutbs were held ope * „i;* si /as squirted down their ^* oats with a small syringe — a most ingenious wa^ - i ;;• . .ng physic. They didn't seem to mind the operation, it was so quickly over ; and they went off without even a shake of the head; 7800 w -; dosed that day. Then we drove on to the big substantial wool-shed, where a few stragglers were being shorn — here, as on most of the large stations, the Wolseley shears are used ; one shearer's record with them, which was written up here, had been 250 sheep in a day. Passing along the road, we watched the reaping and binding machines at work. Clover had been sown with the oats, and instead of the bare stubble the paddock was thick and green with it . . . The station, with its many outhouses, looked like a small village. Next day we went to .see the sheep being dipped. They swam and ducked them in a deep trough of arsenic and water, 10,000 going through in one day. Drafting, too, was going on, and all hands were very busy. The 129 NEW ZEALAND SCENERY (Part II frozen meat trade, too, is taking such strides that the squatters' hearts ought to be jubilant with such a promising future.— ^4 Flower Hunter in Queensland avd New Zealand. 1898. NEW ZEALAND SCENERY BY MKS. KOWAN What a land of loveliness it was ! Such magnificent birch trees, and such ferns! Hundreds of feet below, the BuUer, with its bluish-green water, deep, wide, and swift, rushed, sometimes between sandy banks, then forced an entrance through giant rocks. The road wound round and round each headland, and we wont spinning along the narrow track with the high wooded cliffs above and the ever-changing scene in front From the Otira Hotel, where wc lunched, our ascent commenced. The zigzag road is cut out of the solid rock. The Otira river runs below, and our voices were drowned in the deep, hoarse roar of its waters as they fell over and dashed round great masses of broken rock. The perpendicular cliffs towered above us, some thickly clothed with vegetation, and beyond them again others hid their bare peaks in the clouds. The Rolleston glacier lay to our right, with the sun glistering on the ice. As we mounted higher, the scene became grander as other peaks came into view, and the valley lay behind us 7000 feet below them. I have seen much beautiful scenery, but familiarity deepens my awe of Nature at her grandest 18981 BY MRS. ROWAN »>3 After Arthur's Pass was gained, the others all took their seats in the coach again, and away we bowled down the other side. The character of the country now changed ; the forest disappeared, and only here and there were patches of manuc:\ scrub and the so called birch. After passing the " Devil's Punchbowl " waterfall, the endless perspective of the wide river-bed of the Waima- kariri opened for miics in front of us. It was a clear, cold sunset, and the mountains stood out black against the silver sky. We said good-bye here to the last of the trees, and the mountains ran down to the broad river-beds, with their steep slopes covered with rock and grass ; gaunt-look- ing and desolate. I held on extra tight at some of thr. narrow passes down the inclines, for there was always a spice of danger in it, and one felt a sort of wondering excitement in picturing what the next sharp corner might bring. Now we went along the gorges, then up again on to the hills. We passed a small lake with re- flections so clear and distinct that it was only the image turned upside down, and farther on again the road skirted round Lake Lyndon, with numbers of Paradise ducks and a pair of swans swimming about with the greatest unconcern ; on the hill-sides giant rocks lay tossed about all round us. Once over Porter's Pass we gradually descended again ; every rugged outline looked intensely clep.r against the vividly blue sky, and the wonderful shades of browns, yellows, sepias, and greys made up a picture more like Arabia or Egypt than this southern island. On the level bits of grass lands sheep were lazily browsing and we passed two station BB 1*4 NEW ZEALAND SCENERY [Part II homesteads close to the road. Then down we went on to the great Canterbury plains, looking just like a flat map with its marked-out fields. And how tame they looked after the wild scenery that we had passed through wjth nothing but long belts of thick plantations of blue gums to break the monotony— and. I suppose, the wind which must sweep with great force here, for every hay- stack was knocked out of shape. Every variety of scenery and natural beauty is found m this Southern Cross world, from bold rocky island- studded coast-lines to rolling hills and level plains ; from towering heights of active volcano to a wonder-land of sil'ca terraces and undying fires of a hot-lake region unreal and weird in their plutonic grandeur ; from in- accessible glacier peaks of eternal ice and snow, where avalanches wake the echoes of a hundred valleys, to the fathomless depths of land-locked fiords, where virgin forests guard the shores with such garlands as only nature could weave ; from wind-swept gorge and rocky precipice to the great cold lakes ; along the shores of golden reaches to fierce broad rivers, to ideal summer haunts where, among wildernesses of ferns and mosses, sunshine steals in and goes to sleep ; and, in the words of the Scripture, " A land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees, and pome- granates ; a land of olives and honey."— /die/. lS45l ( X»5 ) THE IMrORTANCE TO ENGLAND OF THE COLONY OF NEW ZEALAND BY SIR nOBERT PEEL I WILLINGLY admit that the interests of that colony arc recommended to us by many consiucratlons. I look at the extent of that colony, at its line of coast, at the quantity of land in it capable of cultivation and im- provement ; I look, above all, at its position, and ihc new importance which it has acquired by the events which have been passing in the Pacific, and by the open- ing of the trade with China . . . There appears every probability, as far as we can form a judgment, that that colony, if its interests are duly regarded, and its welfare fostered, is destined to occupy a most important station in the world, I agree that its relation to this country is most important. Surveying the unoccupied portion of the globe, I know of no part of that globe more calculated to afford a profitable field for employ- ment to the superabundant population of this country. • •••••• Is'ow, with respect to the future government of this colony, I must say that, looking at the distance at which it is removed from the seat of government at home, and considering the great difficulty of issuing orders for its government in this country, I am, for one, strongly inclined to think that a representative govern- ment will be suited for the condition of the people of that colony ... I cannot see what assignable interest ta6 A BUSH FIRE [I'art II you can have, except in the commercial and social prosperity of that colony. The only possible ground of connection that can exist will depend upon its beincj profitable. It is impossible that at the distance at which we are, this country cin seek any advantage in its con- ncction with New Zealand except reciprocal interest • and, above all, the local prosperity of the co\oxxy.~Spcech on the Neiv Zealand Government Bill. 1845. A HUSH FIRE BY MRS. ROWAX Towards night the heat became unbearable, and a dull lurid glare lit up the horizon. Away in the distance' came a low, continuous sound like the roar of rushing wind, and a dense pillar of smoke curled upwards with a dull yellow glare. B-low, some terrified cattle rushed aimlessly forward, and sure-footed kangaroos bounded away, ten feet each spring, the horses whinnied and stamped in the yards, and the air was filled with the shrill cries of cockatoos as they wheeled and swayed backwards and forwards in floating clouds in the blackening sky. Now with fearful rapidity came the menacing sound of crashing and crackling of timbers, and, leaping and blazing, the flames shot forward, send- ing blinding showers of drift and fragments of leaves across the road, the only bar now between us and a horrible death. The first scream of the blast rushed upwards, the flames leaping at their prey, and wave upon wave rolled onward. Below the fiery tongues i8.i81 BY MRS. ROWAN «a7 hissing, toppling, and hurling over each other as they spluttered, gripped, twisted, and grasped the tree-trunks, then defiantly hurled a fiery stream to the resinous leaves of the foliage above. And now a fresh horror seized us ; the panting flames had leapt the gap and crossed the road. A huge tree that was burnt through at its base now tottered and fell with a crashi'g sound, scattering a sea of burning fragments, whose quick tongues clutched with relentless grasp the dry tufts of grass and the light saplings round the fenced-in yard. The smoke grew denser each moment. With sinews and muscles strained to their utmost, and with hands grimy and scorched, we wrestled and stru:^gled in frantic efforts, beating and stamping it out. How the reds and the yellows struggled for mastery. The whole force of the fire was upon us, and we fought for dear lives' sake. Our throats were dry and swollen as we gasped for breath, a legion of devils was on us ; for a moment we seemed to wrestle with the powers of hell. In the thickened smoke a man's figure staggered for a moment and fell with the cry, •' O God, we are un- done ! " Indeed, his words seemed too terribly true, and would have been so had not the wind been suddenly met by a stronger one from the south, which forced the fire backward. It was a wonderful deliverance, and a wonderful sight when the flaring torches that lit the heavens turned and swept on for miles until spent on a distant lagoon. The atmosphere was choking with the dust of charred embers, our swollen eyes pricked and smarted, our skins were scorched and our clothes burnt laS QUEENSLAND SCENERY [Part II into countless holes, and when the morning light came what a scene of blackened desolation lay smoking and smouldering before us I— A Flozver Hunter in Queers/and and New Zealand. 1 898. QUEENSLAND SCENERY BY MRS. ROWAN The coast-line was fringed with cocoa-nut trees. In front of us was a species of india-rubber, a large tree with dense green foliage and a long plum-coloured fruit which the natives cut into strips and dry, and from which they make a splendid crimson dye. Beside it was a flame tree, one blaze of scarlet blossoms. Beyond that again stands a tree with the whole trunk and branches clothed with masses of white flowers. Out of the hot, moist ground I could almost fancy I saw the plants grow, all nature seemed to revel in the exquisite beauty that she unfolded in never-ending blooms of brightest hues and vivid contrasts. Dusky figures of women vvere busily going to and fro, under the bright green foliage, carrying water in yellow and brown gourds on their heads. With backs as straight as arrows, the men, waist-deep in water, were hauling their fishing-nets. There a#» /' |S,S.iI ( i3> ) THli: GOLD-FinLDS OI- AUSTRALIA BY CAUL H MUDLTZ In the midst of the development of sheep-raising and agriculture a third factor, g^ld, was added, which gave Australia an immense advantage, even though it at the same time interfered with the above-mentioned industries. The year 1851 marks an epoch In the history of Australia. It was literally the beginning of a golden age for the continent, for in that year the great gold mines ol Victoria were discovered. It had long been believed that gold must be found in Australia ; among the deported criminals there were all sorts of reports about finds said to have been made in the Ulue Mountains ; but the Government paid no attention to these strange rumours, and the result was that the matter was not properly investigated. IJut in 185 1 the greatest excitement was created when the Government purchased from a Californian gold digger, for a large sum of money, some rich gold fields wUich he had di';<;overed in the Blue Mountains. When the Government by this step had given its public sanction to the question, the colony became wild with excitement. The most extravagant reports concerning the immense wealth of the gold fields were circulated, and were accepted as gospel truth. From all quarters people assembled to the new fountains of wealth, where they expected to find the pure gold in such quantities 132 THK r.(H,I) riELDS OF AUSTRALIA |i'v«, i, that it was only necessary to stoop down and fill their IK>ckcts with the precious ore. The disappointment when they arrived in the promised land and learned from experience that there was need of months— nay, of years— of hard and persistent labour to attain the wealth they were seekiiij^. was as great as the expecta- tion which had previously been form'd. The lar^'cr part of the army of adventurers who had flocked together to the gold mines to secure all of a sudden a wealth which they haii n-^tther the strength nor the endurance to acquire under ordinary circumstances, returned discouraged to Sydney, after having spent a month in idleness in the geld fields. In their wrath on account of the deception, as tbcy called it, they nearly took the life of the Californian who had discovered the fields. A number of gold diggers, however, gradually con- gregated in the Blue Mountains from the various colonics. When the work proved to be very profitable the rush was so great that one of the earlier colonies, the little Victoria, which had recently been founded, was on the point of being nearly deserted. To prevent the colony from perishing altogether, the le cding men in Melbourne oflered a large reward to .my i crson who succeeded .n discovering gold in Victoria. Before long, specimens of gold were found on the Yarra river, a few miles from Melbourne ; in the course of a short time the famous gold mines of Ballarat and Bendigo were discovered. At first gold was found in Ballarat in the usual manner— that is, in the bed of a river ; but this was soon exhausted. A thick layer of clay was struck |S8.>| RY CARI, I.UMIIOMZ «3.J below the sand, and the work was abandoned in order to search for new fields. Fortunately one of the roM diRRcrs, who had made up his mind to stay some time longer, got the idea of working through the clay, antl by so doing he reached enormous quantities of gold in the old bed of the river. For centuries the .streams had carried gold down from the mountains and deposited it here in "pockets" in the bed of the river. A single " pocket" of this kind would sometimes contain thousands of pounds' worth of gold. Within a month Hallarat became the richest gold field in the whole world. The gold fever grew into a perfect rage. Melbourne was almost deserted. People of every class and from every part of the world left their work, their situations, and their homes to seek their fortunes. In Melbourne policemen left their posts of duty, officials threw up their offices, and sailors deserted their .ships. In spite of the fact that everybody rushed to the gold mines, thus preventing a normal development of the country, Australia got full compensation in the new impetus given to immigration. The year after the di.s- covery of gold more than 100,000 immigrants arrived in Victoria. Thus the population was doubled in a single year, and during the following five years it increa.sed fivefold. While in 1830 there were less than 4000 inhabitants, in i860 their number had increased to 1,300,000. The quantity of gold found was also suffi- ciently large to explain this increase of population. During the next ten years Z^lOO.OOO.ooo were produced in Victoria •'lone. Digging for gold was gradually reduced to systematic HMOtOCOPT MKOUmON VBt CMAIT (ANSI end ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 LI u 11.25 Ui 2£ U 3.6 4.0 123 1.6 ^ /APPLIED BVMGE Ir AFRICAN EXPLORATION [p^rt n the largest cities, is unique, and is explained by what has been stated above. The history of the colonization reveals a community which still possesses the vigour of youth, and whose culture is wholly European, and these results, wonderful as they are, have been achieved in two generations. In the whole history of man's development a more sudden revolution is not known than that which happened in Australia during this century. The motto of the Australians is. "Advance. Australia I ■'-^w^,^^ C^«„/. bals. 1889. AFRICAN EXPLORATION BY MUNGO PARK Soon after my return from the East Indies in 1793, having learned that the noblemen and gentlemen asso- ciated for the purpose of prosecuting discoveries in the interior of Africa were desirous of engaging a person to explore that continent, by the way of the Gambia river, I took occasion, through means of the President of the Royal Society, to whom I had the honour to be known, of offering myself for that service. I had been informed that a gentleman of the name of Houghton, a captain in the army, and formerly fort-major at Goree, had already sailed to the Gambia, under the direction of the Association, and that there was reason to apprehend he had fallen a sacrifice to the climate, or perished iu some contest with the natives. But this intelligence instead of deterring me from my purpose, animated me '■^KSM 1 7991 BY MUNGO PARK «37 to persist in the offer of my services with the greater solicitude. I had a passionate desire to examine into the productions of a country so little known, and to become experimentally acquainted with the mode of life and character of the natives. I knew that I was able to bear fatigue, and I relied on my youth and the strength of my constitution to preserve me from the effects of the climate. The salary which the committee allowed was sufficiently large, and I made no stipulation for future reward. If I should perish in my journey, I was willing that my hopes and expectations should perish with me; and if I should succeed in rendering the geography of Africa more familiar to my countrymen, and in opening to their ambition and industry new sources of wealth and new channels of commerce, I knew that I was in the hands of men of honour, who would not fail to bestow that remuneration which my services should appear to them to merit. The commit- tee of the Association having made such inquiries as they thought necessary, declared themselves satisfied with the qualifications that I possessed, and accepted me for the service ; and, with that liberality which on all occasions distinguishes their conduct, gave me every encouragement which it was in their power to grant, or which I could with propriety ask. My instructions were very plain and concise. I was directed, on my arrival in Africa, " to pass on to the river Niger, either by way of Bambouk, or by such other route as should be found most convenient ; that I should ascertain the course, and, if possible, the rise and termination of that river ; that I should use my »38 AFRICAN EXPLORATION [Part II Utmost exertions to visit the principal towns or cities in its neighbourhood, particularly Timbuctoo and Houssa ; and that I should be afterwards at liberty to return to Europe, either by the way of the Gambia, or by such other route as, under all the then existing circumstances of my situation and prospects, should appear to me to be most advisable." The earliest European establishment on this cele- brated river was a factory of the Portuguese, and to this must be ascribed the introduction of the numerous words of that language which are still in use among the negroes. The Dutch, French, and English afterwards successively possessed themselves of settlements on the coast ; but the trade of the Gambia became, and con- tinued for many years, a sort '"f monopoly in the hands of the English. In the travels of Francis Moore is preserved an account of the Royal African Company's establishments in this river in the year 1730 ; at which time James's factory alone consisted of a governor, deputy-governor, and two - sided, the mansa or chief of the town appoints a la) begin sanoo koo (gold washing), and the women are sui ^ to have themselves in readiness by the time appointed A hoe or spade for digging up the sand, two or thrc calabashes for washing it in, and a few quills for con- taining the gold dust, arc all the implements necessary for the purpose. The washing of the sands of the streams is by far the easiest way of obtaining the gold dust ; but in most as ^t 144 IVORY IN AFRICA IPmlt ?i places the sands have been so narrowly searched before, that unless the stream takes some new course the 'old is found but in small quantities. The most certain and profitable mode of w9'-\..ng is practised in the height of the dry season, by digging a deep pit, like a draw-well, near some hill which has pre- viously been discovered to contain gold. The pit is dug with small spades or corn-hoes, and the earth is drawn up in large calabashes. As the negroes dig through the different strata of clay or sand, a calabash or two of each is washed by way of experiment ; and in this manner the labourers proceed, until they come to a stratum containing gold, or until they are obstructed by rocks, or inundated by water. In general, when they come to a stratum of fine reddish sand, with small blac' specks therein, they find gold in scne proportion or other, and send up large calabashes full of the sand for the women to wash ; for though the pit is dug by the men, the gold is always washed by the women, who are accustomed from their infancy to a similar operation in separating the husks of corn from the meal. — /did. IVORY IN AFRICA BY MUNGO PARK Having now related the substance of what occurs to my recollection concerning the African mode of obtain- ing gold from the earth, I proceed to the next article of which I proposed to treat— namely, ivory. irwJ BY "n\r.O PARK MS Nothing creates ..iter surprise among the negroes on the sea-coast tUfi.i the eagerness displayed by the European traders to procure elephants' teeth, it being exceedingly difficult to make them comprehend to \vh t use it is applied. Although they are shown knives with ivory handles, combs and toys of the same material, and are convinced that the ivory thus manu- factured was originally parts of a tootl , they are not satisfied. They suspect that this commodity is more frequently converted in Europe to purposes of far g -^ter importance, the true nature of vhich is studiously Cy ealcd fron. them, lest the price of ivory should be enhanced. They cannot, they say, easily persuade themselves that ships would be built and voyagts. undertaken to procure an article which had no other value than that of furnishing handles to knives, etc., when pieces of wood would answer the purpose equally well. Elephants are very numerous in the i.iterior of Africa, and the greater part of the ivory which is sold on the Gambia and Senegal rivers is brought from the interior country. The lands towards the coast are too swampy and too much intersected with creeks and rivers for so bulky an animal as the elephant to travel through without being discovered ; and when once the natives discern the marks of his feet in the earth, the whole village is up in arms. The thoughts of feasting on his flesh, making sandals of his hide, and selling the teeth to the Europeans, inspire every one with courage, and the animal seldom escapes from his pursuers. Scattered teeth are frequently picked up in the L 146 IVORY IN AFRICA [Part II woods, and travellers are very diligent in looking for them. It is a common practice with the elephant to thrust his teeth under the roots of such shrubs and bushes as grow in the more dry and elevated parts of the country, where the soil is shallow. These bushes he easily overturns, and feeds on the roots, which are in general more tender and juicy than the hard, woody branches or the foliage ; but when the teeth are partly decayed by age, and the roots more firmly fixed, the great exertions of the animal in this practice frequently cause them to break short. At Kamalia I saw two teeth, one a very large one, which were found in the woods, and which were evidently broken off in this manner. Indeed, it is difficult otherwise to account for such a large proportion of broken ivory as is daily offered for sale at the different factories, for when the elephant is killed in hunting, unless he dashes himself over a precipice, the teeth are always extracted entire. There are certain seasons of the year when the elephants collect into large herds, and traverse the country in quest of food or water ; and as all that part of the country to the north of the Niger is destitute of rivers, whenever the pools in the woods are dried up the elephants approach towards the banks of that river. Here they continue until the commencement of the rainy season, in the months of June or July, and during this time they are much hunted by such of the Bam- barrans as have gunpowder to spare. The elephant- hunters seldom go out singly — a party of four or five join together, and having each furnished himself with powder and ball, and a quantity of corn-meal in a I799I P.Y MUNGO PARK M7 leather bag sufficient for five or six days' provision, they e* *er the most unfrequented parts of the wood, and examine with great care everything that can lead to the discovery of the elephants. In this pursuit, notwith- standing the bulk of the animal, very great nicety of observation is required. The broken branches, the scattered dung of the animal, and the marks of his feet are carefully inspected ; and many of the hunters have, by long experience and attentive observation, become so expert in their search that as soon as they observe the foot-marks of an elephant they will tell almost to a certainty at what time it passed and at what distance it will be found. When they discover a herd of elephants, they follow them at a distance, until they perceive some one stray from the rest and come into such a situation as to be fired at with advantage. The hunters then approach with great caution, creeping amongst the long grass, until they have got near enough to be sure of their aim. They then discharge all their pieces at once, and throw themselves on their faces among the grass ; the wounded elephant immediately applies his trunk to the different wounds, but being unable to extract the balls, and seeing nobody near him, he becomes quite furious and runs about the bushes, until by fatigue and loss of blood he has exhausted himself, and affords the hunters an opportunity of firing a second time at him, by which he is generalh' brought to the ground. The skin is now taken off, and extended on the ground with pegs to dry ; and such parts of the flesh as are most esteemed are cut up into thin slices, and 148 IVORY IN AFRICA [Part II dried in the sun, to serve for provisions on some future occasion. The teeth are struck out with a light hatchet which the hunters always carry along with them, not only for that purpose, but also to enable them to cut down such trees as contain honey ; for though they carry with them only five or six days' provisions, they will remain in the woods for months if they are suc- cessful, and support themselves upon the flesh of such elephants as they kill, and wild honey. The ivory thus collected is seldom brought down to the coast by the hunters themselves. They dispose of it to the itinerant merchants who come annually from the coast with arms and ammunition to purchase this valuable commodity. Some of these merchants will collect ivory in the course of one season sufficient to load four or five asses. It cannot admit of a doubt that all the rich and valu- able producti s both of the East and West Indies might easily be naturalized and brought to the utmost per- fection in the tropical parts of this immense continent. Nothing is wanting to this end but example to enlighten the minds of the natives, and instruction to enable them to direct their industry to proper objects. It was not possible for me to behold the wonderful fertility of the soil, the vast herds of cattle, proper both for labour and food, and a variety of other circumstances favourable to colonization and agriculture— and reflect, withal, on the means which presented themselves of a vast inland navigation— without lamenting that a country so abun- dantly gifted and favoured by nature should remain in its present savage and neglected state.— /^/V/. if: |B i849l ( 149 ) DISCOVERY OF LAKE NGAMI BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE We started for the unknown region on the 1st of June, 1849. Passing through a range of tree-covered hills to Shokuane, formerly the residence of the Bakwains, we soon after entered on the high road to the Bamangwato which lies mainly in the bed of an ancient river or wady that must formerly have flowed north to south. The adjacent country is perfectly flat. The soil is sandy, and there are here and there indications that at spots which now afford no water there were formerly wells and cattle-stations. The land is covered with open forest, bush, and abundance of grass. The trees are mostly a kind of acacia called " Mondto," which appears a little to the south of this region, and is common as far as Angola. All around Serotli the country is perfectly flat, and composed of soft white sand. There is a peculiar glare of bright sunlight from a cloudless sky over the entire scene ; and one clump of trees and bushes, with open spaces between, looks so exactly like another, that if you leave the wells, and walk a quarter of a mile in any direction, it is difficult to return. At last we came to the Zouga, and found it to be a river running to the north-east. A village of Bakurutse lay on the opposite bank, and the people informed us that the stream came out of Ngami. The news glad- dened all our hearts. We had the Zouga at our feet, and »S0 DISCOVERY OF LAKE NGAMI [part „ by following it we should at last reach the broad water. While ascending the beautifully-wooded river, wc arrived at a large stream flowing into it This was the Tamunak'le. I inquired whence it came. " Oh, from a country full of rivers— so many no one can tell their number— and full of large trees I " This was a confir- mation of what I had heard from the Bakwains, that the country beyond was not "the large sandy plateau" of the philosophers. The notion that there might be a highway, capable of being traversed by boats, to an un- explored and populous region, grew from that time stronger and stronger Jn my mind; and when we actually came to the lake this idea was so predominant that the actual discovery seemed of little importance. It was on the ist of August that we reached the north- east end of the Ngami ; and for the first time this fine sheet of water was beheld by Europeans. The direction of the lake seemed to be N.N.E. and S.S.W. by compass. The southern portion is said to bend round to the west, and to receive the Teoughe from the north at its north- west extremity. We could detect no horizon where we stood ; nor could we form any idea of its extent except from the reports of the people, who professed to go round it in three days, which, ct the rate of twenty-five miles a day. would make it seventy-five miles in circum- ference. It is shallow, and can never be of much value as a commercial highway. In the months preceding the annual supply of water from the north, it is with difficulty the cattle can approach to drink through the boggy, reedy banks. These are low on all sides. On 1849] BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE 151 the west there is a space devoid of trees, which shows that the waters have retired thence at no very ancient date— another proof of the desiccation that has been going on throughout the country. We were informed by the Bayeiye, who live on the lake, that, when the annual inundation begins, not only trees of great size, but antelopes are swept down by its rushing waters. The trees are gradually driven by the winds to the opposite side, and become embedded in mud. The water of the lake is fresh when full, but brackish when \ov/.— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. 1857. THE ZAMBESI EXPEDITION OF 1858-64 BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE The main object of this Zambesi Expedition, as our in- structions from H Majesty's Government explicitly stated, was to extei he knowledge already attained of the geography and mineral and agricultural resources of Eastern and Central Africa— to improve our acquain- tance with the inhabitants, and to endeavour to engage them to apply themselves to industrial pursuits and to the cultivation of their land, with a view to the produc- tion of raw material to be exported to England in return for British manufactures ; and it was hoped that, by encouraging the natives to occupy themselves in the development of the resources of the country, a consider- able advance might be made towards the extinction of the slave-trade, as they would not be long in discovering '5* THE VICTORIA FALLS [Part II that the formt; would eventually be a more certain source of profit than the latter. The Expedition was sent in accordance with the settled policy of the English Government ; and the Earl of Clarendon, being then at the head of the Foreign Office, the Mission was organ- ized under his immediate care. When a change of Government ensued, we experience, the same generous countenance and sympathy from the Earl of Malmes- bury, as we had previously received from Lord Claren- don ; and, on the accession of Earl Russell to the high office he has so long filled, we were always favoured with equally ready attention and the same prompt assistance Thus the conviction was produced that our work em- bodied the principles, not of any one party, but of the hearts of the statesmen and of the people of England generaUy. The Expedition owes great obligations to the Lords of the Admiralty for their unvarying leadiness to render us every assistance in their power.-^ Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries. 1865. THE VICTORIA FALLS OF THE ZAMBESI RIVER BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE We landed at the head of Garden Island, which is situated near tue middle of the river and on the lip of the Fails. On reaching that lip. and peering over the giddy height, the wondrous and unique character of the magnificent cascade at once burst upon us. ,8s8-64l BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE 153 It is rather a hopeless task to endeavour to convey an idea of it in words, since, as was remarked on the spot, an accomplished painter, even by a number of views, could impart a faint impression of the glorious scene. The probable mode of its formation may perhaps help to the conception of its peculiar shape. Niagara ha been formed by a wearing back of the rock over which the river falls ; and during a long course of ages, it has gradually receded, and left a broad, deep, and pretty str'ight trough in front. It goes on wearing back daily, and may yet discharge the lakes from which its river — the St. Lawrence — flows. But the Victoria Falls have been formed by a crack right across the river, in the hard, black, basaltic rock which there formed the bed of the Zambesi. The lips of the crack are still quite sharp, save about three feet of the edge over which the ri^'er rolls. The walls go sheer down from the lips without any projecting crag, or symptoms of stratification or dislocation. When the mighty rift occurred, no change of level took place in the two parts of the bed of the river thus rent asunder, consequently, in coming down the river to Garden Island, the water suddenly dis- appears, and we see the opposite side of the cleft, with grass and trees growing where once the river ran, on the same level as that part of its bed on which we sail. The first crack is, in length, a few yards more than the breadth of the Zambesi, which by measurement we found to be a little over i860 yards, but this number we resolved to retain as indicating the year in which the Fall was for the first time carefully examined. The main stream here runs nearly north and south, and the »54 THE VICTORIA FALLS [PAkT II cleft across it is nearly east and west. The depth of the rift was measured by lowering a line, to the end of which a few bullets and a foot of white cotton cloth were tied. One of us lay with his head over a project- ing crag, and watched the descending calico, till, after his companions had paid out 310 feet, the weight rested on a sloping projection, probably 50 feet from the water below, the actual bottom being still farther down. The white cloth now appeared the size of a crown-piece. On measuring the width of this deep cleft by sexti.nt, it was found at Garden Island, its narrowest part, to be eighty yards, and at its broadest somewhat more. Into this chasm, of twice the depth of Niagara-fall, the river, a full mile wide, rolls with a deafening roar ; and this is Mosi-oa-tunya or the Victoria Falls. Looking from Garden Island, down to the bottom of the abyss, nearly half a mile of water, which has fallen over that portion of the Falls to the right, or west of our point of view, is seen collected in a narrow channel twenty or thirty yards wide, and flowing at exactly right angles to its previous course, to our left ; while the other half, or that which fell over the eastern portion of the Falls, is seen in the left of the narrow channel below, coming towards our right Both waters unite midway, in a fearful boiling whirlpool, and find an outlet by a crack situated at right angles to the fissure of the Falls. This outlet is about 1170 yards from the western end of the chasm, and some 600 from its eastern end ; the whirlpool is at its commencement. The Zambesi, now apparently not more than twenty or thirty yards' wide, rushes and surges south, through the narrow fl ,858-641 BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE 155 cscape-channel for 130 yards ; then enters a second chasm somewhat deeper, and nearly parallel with the first. Abandoning the bottom of the eastern half of this second chasm to the growth of large trees, it turns sharply off to the west, and forms a promontory, with the escape-channel at its point, of 1 1 70 yards long, and 416 yards broad at the base. After reaching this base, the river runs abruptly round the head of another promontory, and flows away to the east, in a third chasm; then glides round a third promontory, much narrower than the rest, and away back to the west, in a fourth chasm ; and we could see in tne distance that it appeared to round still another promontory, and bend once more in another chasm towards the east. In this gigantic, zigzag, yet narrow trough, the rocks are all so sharply cut and angular, that the idea at once arises that the hard basaltic trap must have been riven into its present shape by a force acting from beneath, and that this probably took place when the ancient inland seas were let out by similar fissures nearer the ocean. Charles Livingstone had seen Niagara, and gave Mosi- oa-tunya the palm, though now at the end of a drought, and the river at its very lowest. Many feel a disap- pointment on first seeing the great American Falls, but Mosi-oa-tunya is so strange, it must ever cause wonder. In the amount of water, Ni igara probably excels, though not during the months when the Zambesi is in flood. The vast body of water, separating in the comet-like forms described, necessarily encloses in its descent a large volume of air, which, forced into the cleft, to an unknown depth, rebounds, and rushes up loaded with 156 THE VICTORIA FALLS [Iartii vapour to form the three or even six columns, as if of steam, visible at the Batoka village Moachemba, twenty, one miles distant. On attaining a height of 200, or at most 300 feet from the level of the river above the cascade, this vapour becomes condensed into a perpetual shower of fine rain. Much of the spray, rising to the west of Garden Island, falls on the grove of evergreen trees opposite ; and from their leaves, heavy drops are for ever falling, to form sundry little rills, which, in running down the steep face of rock, are blown off and turned back, or licked off their perpendicular bed, up into the column from which they have just descended. The ancient Botaka chieftains used Kazeruka, now Garden Island, and Boaruka, the island farther west, also on the lip of the Falls, as sacred spots for worship- ping the Deity. It is no wonder that under the cloudy columns, and near the brilliant rainbows, with the ceaseless roar of the cataract, with the perpetual flow, as if pouring forth from the hand of the Almighty, their souls should be filled with reverential awe. It inspired wonder in the native mind throughout the interior. Among the first questions asked by Sebituand of Mr. Oswelland Dr. Livingstone, in 1851, was, "Have you any smoke soundings in your country," and "what causes the smoke to rise for ever so high out of water ? " In that year its fame was heard 200 miles off, and it was approached within two days ; but it was seen by no European till 1855, when Dr. Livingstone visited it on his way to the East Coast— /did iSs"! ( T57 ) THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE NYASSA BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE OUR path lollowed the Shire above the cataracts, which is now a broad, deep river, with but little current. It cxpant' • in one place into a lakelet, called Pamalombe, iuU of fine fish, and ten or twelve miles long by five or six in breadth. Its banks are low, and a dense wall of papyrus encircles it. On its western shore rises a range of hills running north. On reaching the village of the chief Muana-Moesi, and about a day's march distant from Nyassa, we were told that no lake had ever been heard of there ; that the River Shire stretched on as we saw it now to a distance of "two months," and then came out from between perpendicular rocks, which towered almost to the skies. Our men looked blank at this piece of news, and said, " Lc:t us go back to the ship ; it is of no use trying to find the lake." " We shall fTo and see those wonderful rooks at any rate," said the Doctor. " And when you see them," replied Masakasa, "you will just want to see something else. But there is a lake," rejoined Masakasa, " for all their denying it, for it is down in a book." Masakasa, having unbounded faith in whatever was in a book, went and scolded the natives for telling him an untruth. " There is a lake," said he " for how could the white men know about it in a book ii it did not exist ? " They then admitted that there was a lake a few miles off. We discovered Lake Nyassa a little before noon of 158 THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE NYASSAip..t„ the i6th September, 1859. Its southern end is in 14° 25' S. lat, and 35° 30' E. long. At this point the valley is about twelve miles wide. There are hills on both sides of the lake, but the haze from burning grass prevented us at the time from seeing far. A long time after our return from Nyassa. we received a letter*' from Captain R. B. Oldfield, R.N., then commanding H.M.S. Lyra, with the information that Dr. Roscher, an enter- prising German who unfortunately lost his life in his zeal for exploration, had also reached the lake, but on the 19th November following our discovery ; and on his arrival had been informed by the natives that a party of white men were at the southern extremity. On com- paring dates (16th September and 19th November) we were about two months before Dr. Roscher. It is not known where Dr. Roscher first saw i^s waters, as the exact position of Nusseewa on ih- borders of the lake, where he lived some time, is un- known. He was chree days north-east of Nusseewa, and on the Arab road back to the usual crossing-place of the Rovuma, when he was murdered. The murderers were seized by one of the chiefs, sent to Zanzibar, and executed. He is said to have kept his discoveries to himself, with the intention of publishing in Europe the whole at once, in a splendid book of travels. Our stay at the lake was necessarily short. We had found that the best plan for allaying any suspicions that might arise in the minds of a people accustomed only to slave-traders, was to pay a hasty visit, and then leave for a while, ?.nd allow the conviction to form among the people that, though our course of action was i8s9l BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE >59 so ditTercnt from that of others, we were not dangerous, but rather disposed to be friendly. We had also a party at the vessel, and any indiscretion oi r part might have proved fatal to the character Expedition. The trade of Cazembii and Kat .ga's country', and of other parts of the interior, crosses Nyassa and the Shire, on its way to the Arab port, Kilwa, and the Portuguese ports of Iboe and Mozambique. At present, slaves, ivory, malachite, and copper ornaments, are the only articles of commerce. According to information collected by Colonel Rigby at Zanzibar, and from other sources, nearly all the ..'aves shipped from the above- i.icntioned ports come from the Nyassa district, by means of a sr..ill steamer, purchasing the ivory of the lake and river above the cataracts, which together have a shore-line of at least 600 miles, the slave-trade in this quarter would be rendered unprofitable— for it is only by the ivory being carried by the slaves, that the latter do not eat up all the profits of a trip. An influence would be exerted over an enormous area of country, for the Mazitu about t'^° north t.idof the lake will not allow slave-traders to ?ja rotmd that way through their country. The.- vvcnlcl '>c rr^ost efficient a lies to the English, and mi; r.t 1.' cm -^Ivc^i ')^ benefited by more intercourse. As tl vr air: m v, the native traders in ivory and malachite . ►' to - :; tiit to heavy exactions ; and if we could give !)• - - u same prices which they at present get after carrying their merchan- dise 300 miles beyond this to the coast, it might induce them to return without going farther. It is only by cutting off the supplies in the interior that we can i6o THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE NYASSAfPARxli crush the slave-trade on the coast. The plan proposed would stop the slave-trade from the Zambesi on one side and Kilwa on the other ; and would leave, beyond this tract, only the Portuguese port of Inhambane on the south, and a portion of the Sultan of Zanzibar's dominion on the north, for our cruisers to look after. The lake people grow abundance of cotton for their own consumption, and can sell it for a penny a pound or even less. Water-carriage exists by the Shire and Zambesi all the way to England, with the single excep- tion of a portage of about thirty-five miles past the Murchison Cataracts, along which a road of less than forty miles could be made at a trifling expense ; and it seems feasible that legitimate and thriving trade might, in a short time, take the place of the present unlawful traffic. Colonel Rigby, Captains Wilson, Oldfield, and Chapman, and all the most intelligent officers on the coast, were unanimous in the belief, that one vessel on the lake would have decidedly more influence, and do more good in suppressing the slave-trade, than half a dozen men-of-war on the ocean. By judicious operations, therefore, on a small scale inland, little expense would be incurred, and the English slave-trade policy on the East would have the same fair chance of success, as on the West Coast— /diW. i85- ( t6i ) ENCOUNTER WITH LIONS BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE The Bakdtla of the village Mabotsa were troubled by lions, which leaped into the cattle-pens by night and destroyed their cows. They even attacked the herds in open day. This was so unusual an occurrence that the people believed themselves bewitched — " given," as they said, •' into the power of the lions by a neighbouring tribe." They went once to attack the animals, but, being rather cowardly in comparison with the Bechuanas in general, they returned without slaying any. It is well known that if one in a troop of lions is killed the remainder leave that part of the country. The next time, therefore, the herds were attacked, I went with the people to encourage them to rid themselves of the annoyance by destroying one of the marauders. We found the animals on a small hill covered with trees. The men formed round it in a circle, and gradually closed up as they advanced. Being below on the plain with a native schoolmaster named Mebalwe, I saw one of the lions sitting on a piece of rock within the ring, Mebdlwe fired at him, and the ball hit the rock on which the animal was sitting. He bit at the spot struck, as a dog does at a stick or stone thrown at him ; and then leaping away, broke through the circle and escaped unhurt. If the Bakdtla had acted according to the custom of the country, they would have speared him in his attempt to get out, but they were afraid to attack M l62 ENCOUNTER WITH LIONS [Part ll him. When the circle was re-formed, we saw two other lions in it ; but dared not fire lest we should shoot some of the people. The beasts burst through the line, and. as it was evident the men could not be prevailed on to face their foes, we bent our footsteps towards the village. In going round the end of the hill I saw a lion sitting on a piece of rock, about thirty yards off, with a bush in front of him. I took a good aim at him through the bush, and fired both barrels into it. The men called out, " He is shot, he is shot ! " Others cried, " He has been shot by another man too ; let us go to him ! " I saw the lion's tail erected in anger, and, turning to the people, said, " Stop a little till I load again." When in the act of ramming down the bullets I heard a shout, and, looking half round, I saw the lion in the act of springing upon me. He caught me by the shoulder, and we both came to the ground together. Growling horribly, he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first grip of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though I was quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe; they see the operation, but do not feel the knife. This placidity is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivora ; and if so, is a merciful provision of the Creator for lessening the pain of death. As he had one paw on the back of my head, I turned round to relieve myself of the weight, and saw his eyes directed to Mebdlwe, who was aiming at him from a distance of i8S9] BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE 163 ten or fifteen yards. His gun, which was a flint one, missed fire in both barrels. The animal immediately left me to attack him, and bit his thigh. Another man, whose life I had saved after he had been tossed by a buffalo, attempted to spear the lion, upon which he turned from Mebdlwe and seized this fresh foe by the shoulder. At that moment the bullets the beast had received took effect, and he fell down dead. The whole was the work of a few moments, and must have been his paroxysm of dying rage. — Missionary Travels and Researches in Sotith Africa. 1857. A LETTER TO HIS DAUGHTER BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE River Shin', xstjune, 1859. — We have been down tc the mouth of the river Zambesi in expectation of meeting a man-of-war with salt provisions, but, none appearing on the day appointed, we conclude that the Admiral has not received my letters in time to send her. We have no post-office here, so we buried a bottle contain- ing a letter on an island in the entrance to Kongone harbour. This we told the Admiral we should do in case of not meeting a cruiser, and whoever comes will search for our bottle and see another appointment for 30th of July. This goes with despatches by way of Quilimane, and I hope some day to get from you a letter by the same route. We have got no news from home since we left Liverpool, and we long now to hear how all goes on in Europe and in India. I am now on i64 A LETTER TO HIS DAUGHTER [I'akt II my way to Tette, but we ran up the Shire some forty miles to buy rice for our company. Uncle Charle.-. is there He has had some fever, but is better. We eft him there about two i.ionths ago, and Dr. Kirk and I, with some fifteen Makololo, ascended this river one hundred miles in the Ma-Robert, then left the vessel and proceeded beyond that on foot till we had discovered a magnificent lake called Shirwa (pronounced Shurwah). It was very grand, for we could not see the end of it, though some way up a mountain ; and all around it are mountains much higher than any you see in Scotland. One mountain stands in the lake, and people live on it. Another, called Zomba, is more than six thousand feet high, and people live on it too, for we could see their gardens on its top, which is larger than from Glasgow to Hamilton, or about from fifteen to eighteen miles. The country is quite a highland region, and many people live in it. Most of them were afraid of us. The women ran into their huts and shut the doors. The children screamed in terror, and even the hens would fly away and leave their chickens. I suppose you would be frightened too if you saw strange creatures, say a lot of Trundlemen, like those on the Isle " Man pennies, come whirling up the street. No one impudent t^^ us except some slave-traders, but they jccame civil as soon as they learned we were English and not Portu- guese. We saw the sticks they employ for training any one whom they have just bought. When the slaves are considered tame they are allowed to go in chains. I am working in the hope that in the course of time this horrid system may cease. All the country we ■■Ife i8s9l BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE 165 travelled through is capable of growing cotton and sugar, and the people now cultivate a good deal. They would grow much more if they could only sell it. At present we in England are the mainstay of slavery in America, and elsewhere by buying slave-grown produce. Here there a'-e hundreds of miles o." land lying waste, and so rich that the grass towers far over one's head :n walking. You cannot sec where the narrow pati end, the grass is so tall, and overhangs them so. If our countrymen were here they would soon render slave- buying unprofitable. Perhaps God may honour us to open up the way for this. My heart is sore when I think of so many of our countrymen in poverty and misery, while they might be doing so much good to themselves and others where our Heavenly Father has so abundantly provided fruitful hills and fertile valleys. If our people were out here they would not need to cultivate little snatches by the side of railways as they do. — Blaikie. The Personal Life of Dr. Livingstone. 1880. THE BOERS IN 1852 BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE Our route to the north lay near the centre of the cone- shaped mass of land which constitutes the promontory of the Cape, if we suppose this cone to be divided into three zones of longitudinal bands, we find each present- ing distinct peculiarities of climate, physical appearance, and population. The eastern zone is often burnished with mountains, well wooded with ever-green succulent 1 66 THE BOERS IN 1852 [Part II trees, on which neither fire nor droughts can have the smallest effect. Its seaboard gorges are clad with gigantic timber, and is comparatively well watered with streams and rivers. The supply of rain is considerable, and the inhabitants (Caiifres or Zulus) are tall, muscular, and well made ; shrewd, energetic, and brave ; and altogether merit the character given chem by military authorities, of being "magnificent savages." Their splendid physical development and form of skull show that, but for the black skin and woolly hair, they would take rank among the foremost Europeans. The next division, which embraces the centre of the continent, consists for the most part of extensive, slightiy undulating plains. There are few springs, and still fewer streams. Rain is far from abundant, and droughts may be expected every few years. Without artificial irrigation no European grain can be raised, and the inhabitants (Bechuanas) are inferior to the Caffres in physical development. The western division is still more level than the middle, being rugged only near the coast. It includes the great plain of the Kalahari Desert. The probable reason why so little rain falls on this extensive tract is that the prevailing winds of most of the interior are easterly, and the water taken up by the atmosphere from the Indian Ocean is deposited on the eastern hilly slope. It is a familiar law of science that the greater the temperature of the air the more mois- ture it will hold in an invisible form. When the drift- ing atmosphere arrives at the Kalahari, and comes in contact with the hot currents from the Desert, its 1852] BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE 167 capacity for retaining what remains of humidity is increased. Thus the vapour can never be condensed into raindrops. That the Kalahari should nevertheless be clothed with v. tation may be explained by the geological formation of the country. A rim ol ancient rocks surrounds a great central valley. Though vast areas have been distorted that but little trace of this formation appears externally, it is highly probable that the basin-shape prevails over large districts ; and as the strata on the slopes, where most of the rain falls, dip in towards the centre, the water trickles along beneath the surface till it reaches the Kalahari plains. The route we followed at this time ran along the middle, or skirted the western zone, until we reached the latitude of Lake Ngami, where a totally different country begins. We passed through districts inhabited by the descendants of Dutch and French refugees who had fled from religious persecution. Those living near the capital differ but little from the middle classes in English counties, and are distinguished by public spirit and general intelligence ; while those situated far from the centres of civilization are less informed, but are a body of frugal, industrious, and hospitable peasantry. A most efficient system of public instruction was estab- lished by Governor Sir George Napier, on a plan drawn up in a great measure by Sir John Herschel. The system had to contend with less sectarian rancour than elsewhere. Until quite recently indeed, that spirit, except in mild form, was unknown. Population among the Boers increases rapidly ; they marry soon, and continue to have children late. Orphans i68 THE BOERS IN 185a [Part II are never allowed to remain long destitute ; and instances are frequent in which a tender-hearted farmer has adopted a fatherless child, and when it came of age has portioned it as his own. Two centuries of the South African climate have not had much effect upon the physical condition of the Boers. They are a shade darker, or rather ruddier, than ordinary whites, and are never cadaverous-looking, as descendants of Europeans are said to be elsewhere. The farms of the Boers usually consist of a small patch of cultivated land in the midst of some miles of pasturage. They are thus less an agricultural than a pastoral people. Each farm must have its fountain ; and where no supply of water exists the lands are unsale- able. An acre in England is generally worth more than a square mile in Africa ; but the value of colonial farms increases year by year, and they are capable of vast im- provement. If dams and tanks were formed, greater fruitfulness would certainly follow. As cattle and sheep farmers the colonists are very successful. Larger quantities of wool are produced every year. But this pastoral system requires a rapid extension of ground, and the farmers are gradually spreading to the north. The movement proves prejudicial to the country behind, by drawing off the labour which would otherwise be directed to the improvement of the territory already occupied. Encroachment upon the interior actually diminishes cultivation, for less land is put under the plough than was before subjected to the native hoe. The Basutos and Zulus, or Caffres of Natal, undersell our farmers wherever they have a fair field and no favour. MM i8s2l BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE 169 The Same — continued The parts of the colony through which we passed were of sterile aspect ; and as the present winter had been preceded by a severe drought, many farmers had lost two-thirds of their stock. The landscape was unin- viting ; the hills, destitute of trees, were of a dark-brown colour, and the scanty vegetation on the plains made me feel that they were more deserving of the name of Desert than the Kalahari. The soil is said to have been originally covered with a coating of grass, which has disappeared with the antelopes which fed upon it. Before we reached the Orange river we saw the last portion of a migration of springbucks. They come from the great Kalahari Desert, and, when first they cross the colonial boundary, are said to exceed forty thousand in number. I cannot venture on an estimate, for they spread over a vast expanse of country, and make a qu'vering motion as they graze, and toss their graceful horns. They live chiefly on grass ; and as they come from the north about the time when grass most abounds, it cannot be want of food that prompts the movement. Nor is it want of water, for this antelope is one of the most abstemious in that respect. The cause of the migration would seem to be their preference for places where they can watch the approach of a foe. When oxen are taken into a country of high grass, their sense of danger is increased by the power of concealment which the cover affords, and they will often start off in terror at the ill-defined outlines of each other. The springbuck possesses this feeling in a \ intense degree, and, being I70 THE BOERS IN 185a IPart II eminently gregarious, gets uneasy as the grass of the Kalahari grows tall. The vegetation being scantier in the more arid south, the herds turn in that direction. As they advance and increase in numbers, the pasturage gets so scarce, that in order to subsist they are at last obliged to cross the Orange river, and become the pest of the sheep-farmer in a country which contains little of their favourite food. If they light on a field of wheat in their way, an ^rmy of locusts could not make a cleaner sweep of the whole. They have never been seen returning. Many perish from want, and the rest become scattered over the colony. Notwithstanding their constant destruction by firearms, they will pro- bably continue long to hold their place. The Bakala- hari take advantage of the love of a springbuck for an uninterrupted view, and burn off large patches of grass, both to attract the game by the fresh herbage which springs up, and to form bare spots for them to range over. On crossing the Orange river we come into the inde- pendent tarritory inhabited by Griquas and Bechuanas. By Griquas is meant any mixed race sprung from natives and Europeans. These . "re of Dutch extrac- tion, through associates with Hottentots and Bushwomen. Half-castes of the first generation consider themselves superior to those of the second, and all p jsess in some degree the characteristics of both parents. They were governed for many years by an elected chief named Waterboer, who proved a most efficient guard of our north-west boundary. He drove back a formidable force of marauding Mantatees that threatened to invade the colony, and, except for his firm and brave rule, there i8S»I BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE 17' is every probability that the north-west would have given the colonists as much trouble as the eastern fron- tier. Large numbers among the original Griquas had as little scruple about robbing farmers of cattle as the Caffres, but, on his election to the chieftainship, he declared tliat no marauding should be allowed. Some of his principal men disregarded the injunction, and plun- dered certain villages of Corannas. He seized six of the ringleaders, summoned his council, and tried, con- demned, and publicly executed them all. This produced an insurrection, and the insurgents twice attacked his capital, Griqua Town. He defeated both attempts, and during his long reign of thirty years no plundering expe- dition ever issued from his territory. Ten years after he was firmly established in power, he entered into a treaty with the Colonial Government ; and, during the twenty years which followed, not a single charge was ever brought against either him or his people. Sir George Cathcart not only abrogated the treaty with the Griquas, but prohibited their purchasing gunpowder for their own defence. An exception was made in favour of the Transvaal Boers and Cufres, our avowed enemies, while the Bechuanas and Griquas, our constant allies, are debarred from obtaining a single ounce. Such an error could not have been committed by a man of local knowledge and experience, and such instances of confounding friend and foe, under the idea of promoting colonial interests, will probably lead the Cape community to assert the right of choosing their own governors. — Missiotuxry Travels and Researches in South Africa. 1857. ( I7» ) [Part II THE iMHnTING OF LIVINGSTONE AND STANLEY BY DAVID LIVINGSTONE October 23, 1 87 1.— At dawn, off c...J go to Ujiji. Wel- comed by all the Arabs, particularly by Moenyegherc. I was now reduced to a skeleton, but the market being held daily, and all kinds of native food brought to it, I hoped that food and rest would soon restore me, but in the evening my people came and told me that Sherccf had sold all my goods, and Moenyegherd confirmed it by saying, " Wc protested, but he did not leave a single yard of calico out of yyx>, nor a string of beads out of 700 lb." This was distressing. I had made up my mind, if I could not get people at Ujiji, to wait till men should come from the coast, but to wait in beggary was what I never contemplated, and I now felt miserable. Shereef was evidently a moral idiot, for he came without shame to shake hands with me, and when I refused, assumed an air of displeasure, as having been badly treated; and afterwards came with his "Balghere," good-luck salutation, twice a day, and on leaving said, " I am going to pray," till I told him that were I an Arab, his hand and both ears would be cut off for thieving, as he knew, and I wanted no salutations from him. In my distress it was annoying to see Shereef's slaves passing from the market with all the good things that my goods had bought. 24/// October.— My property had been sold to ShereePs i87i) BY DAVID MVINGSTONE '73 friends at merely nominal prices. Syed bin Majid. a good man, proposed that they should be returned, and the ivory be taken from Shercef ; but they would not restore stolen property, though they knew it to be stolen. Christians would have acted differently, even those of the lowest classes. I felt in my destitution as if I were the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves ; but I could not hope for Priest, Levite, or good Samaritan to come by on either side, but one morning Syed bin Najid said to me, " Now, this is the first time we have been alone together ; I have no goods, but I have ivory ; let me, I pray you, sell some ivory, and give the goods to you." This was en- couraging ; but I said, " Not yet, but by-and-bye." I had still a few barter goods left, which I had taken the pre- caution to deposit with Mohamad bin Saleh before going to Manyuema, in case of returning in extreme need. But when my spirits were at their lowest ebb, the good Samaritan was close at hand, for one morning Susi came running at the top of his speed and gasped out, " An Englishman ! I see him ! " and off he darted to meet him. The American flag at the head of a caravan told of the nationality of the stranger. Bales of goods, baths of tin, huge kettles, cooking pots, tents, etc., made me think " This must be a luxurious traveller, and not one at his wits' end like me." {zSth October.) It was Henry Morton Stanley, the travelling correspondent of the New York Herald, sent by James Gordon Bennett, junior, at an expense of more than ;6^400O, to obtain accurate information abc it Dr. Livingstone if living, and if dead to bring hom^ my bones. The news he had to 174 LIVINGSTONE AND STANLEY [Part Ii tell to one who had been two full years without any tidings from Europe made my whole frame thrill. The terrible fate that had befallen France, the telegraphic cables successfully laid in the Atlantic, the election of General Grant, the death of good Lord Clarendon — my constant friend, the proof that her Majesty's Govern- ment had not forgotten me in voting ^looo for supplies, and many other points of interest, revived emotions that had lain dormant in Manyuema. Appetite re- turned, and instead of the spare, tasteless, two meals a day, I ate four times daily, and in a week began to feel strong. I am not of a demonstrative turn ; as cold, indeed, as we islanders are usually reputed to be, but this disinterested kindness of Mr. Bennett, so nobly carried into effect by Mr. Stanley, was simply over- whelming. I really do feel extremely grateful, and at the same time I am a little ashamed at not being more worthy of the generosity. Mr. Stanley has done his part with untiring energy ; good judgment in the teeth of very serious obstacles. His helpmates turned out depraved blackguards, who, by their excesses at Zanzi- bar and elsewhere, had ruined their constitutions, and prepared their systems to be fit provender for the grave. They had used up their strength by wickedness, and were of next to no service, but rather downdrafts and unbearable drags to progress. — Last Journals of Livingstone. 1880. i88o] ( 175 ) THE WORK OF DAVID LIVINGSTONE BY W. a. BLAIKIE Livingstone traversed twenty-nine thousand miles in Africa, and added to the known part of the globe about a million square miles. He discovered Lakes Ngami, Shirwa, Nyassa, Moero, and Bangweolo ; the Upper Zambesi, and many other rivers ; made known the wonderful Victoria Falls, also the high ridges flanking the depressed basin of the central plateau ; he was the first European to pass along the whole length of Lake Tanganyika, and to give it its true orientation ; he traversed, in much pain and sorrow, the vast watershed near Lake Bangweolo ; through no fault of his own just missed the information that would have set at rest all his surmises about the sources of the Nile. His dis- coveries were never mere happy guesses or vague descriptions from the accounts of natives ; each spot was determined with the utmost precision. He strove after an accurate notion of the form and structure of the continent ; investigated its geology, hydrography, botany, and geology. In science he was neither amateur nor dilettante, but a careful, patient, laborious worker. A rapid glance at the progress of events during the few years that have elapsed since the death of Living- stone will show best what influence he wielded after his death. Whether we consider the steps that have been taken to suppress the slave-trade ; the progress of commercial undertakings ; the successful journeys of 176 THE WORK OF DR. LIVINGSTONE [Part Ii explorers, stimulated from his example, who have gone from shore to shore ; or the new enterprises of the various missionary bodies carried out by agents with somewhat of Livingstone's spirit, we shall see what a wonderful revolution he effected — how entirely he changed the prospects of Africa. Through Livingstone's work a new light has burst on the comm^ixjial world as to the capabilities of Africa in a trading point of view. There seems, indeed, no reason why Africa should not furnish most rf the pro- ducts which at present we derive from India. As a market for our manufacturers it is capable, even with a moderate amount of civilization, of becoming one of our most extensive customers. The voice that pro- claimed these things in 1857 was the voice of one crying in the wilderness ; but it is now repeated in a thousand echoes. In stimulating African exploration the influence of Livingstone was very decided. He was the first of the galaxy of modern African travellers. A foreigner has remarked that, "in the nineteenth century, the white has made a man out of the black ; in the twentieth century Europe will make a world out of Africa." When that world is made, and generation after generation of intelligent Africans look back on its beginnings, as England looks back to the days of King Alfred, Ireland of St. Patrick, Scotland of St. Columba, or the United States of George Washington, the name that will be encircled by them wim brightest honour is that of David Livingstone. — The Personal Life of David L ivingstone. 1880. ( 177 > OUR POSSESSIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA 1814-1876 BY JOHN MARTINEAU During the French War at the beginning of the century, when Holland for a time ceased to be an inde- pendent nation and became a province of France, the settlement of the Dutch East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope had, after a brief resistance, sur- rendered to a British force and come under British rule. It was intended to be a temporary arrangement, till Holland recovered her independence, but ,0 well pleased were the Cape Dutchmen with the change, and so valuable was the station as a half-way resting-place to India, that at the peace of 18 14 the colony was, with general consent, made over permanently to England. The settlers enjoyed much more liberty as a British, than they had had as a Dutch, colony. Holland, which in Europe posed as a champion of liberty, had treated them in a spirit of selfish and narrow despotism. They had been prohibited from trading on their own account, and compelled to sell their produce to the Company at a fixed price, and in the minutest details of adminislra- tion had been subject to the caprice of the Government of the Hague. Early in the history of the colony this treatment had driven the less submissive and more adventurous spirits to set the example of " trekking," or wandering out of reach of all authority into the interior, and living a life removed from contact with civilization. N 178 SOUTH AFRICA [Part II But the bulk of the settlers had submitted to the severe discipline, were modest in their requirements and ambition, and established a tradition of contentment with the simple necessaries of life, so easily obtained in that climate. The Puritan faith which they brought with them from Holland had been confirmed and in- tensified by the arrival, in 1687, of a body of French Huguenot refugees expelled from France by the revoca- tion of the Edict of Nantes. These immigrants, pro- hibited from using their native French language, had been absorbed into the population and were the pro- genitors of many of the leading families of the colony. After the colony came under the British Government, some small grievances arose on ecclesiastical questions, but no serious breach of harmony occurred between governors and governed till after the passing of the Negro Emancipation Act of 1834. The white people were then suddenly called upon by the British Govern- ment to free the native slaves whom they were employing in the cultivation of their land. The compensation given them was inadequate, its payment was so badly arranged and distributed that only a small proportion of it reached the right persons, and many well-to-do farmers were impoverished or ruined. The recent English settlers, then comparatively few in number, who had brought English ideas with them, could look upon slave-emancipation from the same point of view as their fellow-countrymen at home ; but it was otherwise with the old Dutch colonists. Isolated from external in- fluences, they had preserved almost unaltered the Puritanism of the seventeenth century. The native % I8I4-761 BY JOHN MARTINEAU 179 African race were, in their est'mation, Canaanites, whom they, as the chosen people, might go forth, the Bible in one hand and an ox-whip or rifle in the other, to extirpate, or to employ as hewers of wood and drawers of water, with as little compunction as Cromwell or Ireton felt when they caused Irishmen and " Malig- nants " to be slaughtered, or shipped by thousands as slaves to the Barbadoes, or as the Pilgrim Fathers when they slew the redskins of the West. And from that day to this the Act of Emancipation has been looked upon by a large section of the Dutch population as a wrong done to them for which there was no justification. Opinions may differ as to the degree of harshness with which the natives have been habitually treated by the Boers. But the theory of the two independent Dutch Republics, as expressed in their constitutional law, or " Grondvet," has been and is that no native can under any circumstances be admitted to the privileges of either Church or State. The inhabitants, of whatever origin, of the colonies where English law prevails have, on the contrary, sought to admit the Kaffir to both. The natives themselves have not failed to appreciate the difference between the two theories, and have become restless and uneasy whenever the establishment of Dutch rule seemed probable or possible. It used to be maintained that British subjects could not divest themselves of their allegiance, could not •mite to form an independent State. To enforce this principle, and to put a stop to an independent war which was being waged between the trekking Boers and the Zulus, officials and soldiers were sent by Sir i8o SOUTH AFRICA [Part II George Napier, the Cape Governor (1838), to Natal. And when the Boers trekked again from Natal to the Orange State, Sir Harry Smith followed them, fought the battle of Boomplatz (August, 1848), and shed British soldiers' blood to establish British sovereignty there. Three years later (185 1) a despatch from Lord Grey to Sir Harry Smith declared all this to have been a mis- take ; that blood had been shed vainly ; and all that had been done was reversed. No extension, however small, of her Majesty's dominions in South Africa was henceforward to be sanctioned. "The ultimate abandonment of the Orange River territory " [it runs] " must be a settled point of our policy. You will distinctly understand that any wars, however sanguinary, which may afterwards occur between dif- ferent tribes and communities which will be left in a state of independence beyond the colonial boundary, are to be considered as affording no ground for your inter- ference." And so Sir Harry Smith was recalled, and Sir George Cathcart, who succeeded him, concluded (January 17, 1852) "the Sand River Convention" with the Boers, by which the Transvaal was made an independent State, and the British Government undertook to abstain from all interference with native tribes bordering on it. Two years later (1854), the government of the Orange Free State was handed over to a Convention of Boers by Sir George Clerk, on behalf of England. But the native difficulty could not be thus got rid of. Sir George Grey, who became Governor in 1854, was not long in perceiving and pointing out that the policy 1814-76] BY JOHN MARTINEAU 181 of disintegration was a serious impediment to the peace, progress, and civilization of the country, and that the undisputed authority of a single paramount civih'zed power capable of enforcing fixed principles of conduct towards the natives was essential to peace and tran- quillity. The Orange Free State had by their troubles with the natives been made to feel this, and in December, 1858, had by a resolution of the Raad proposed reunion, by federation or otherwise, with the Cape Colony, Sir George Grey did 11 he could to promote it, and at first the Home Govei nent was disposed to support him. But eventually the Colonial Secretary, Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, announced that on consideration he had decided against it ; the proposal fell to the ground, and a golden opportunity was lost. Nevertheless, and in spite of the rule laid down by Lord Grey, it was found necessa«-y to intervene between the Orange River Boers and the Basutos. The latter, twice rescued by Sir George Grey's mediation, were afterwards, and after suffering much loss, saved by Sir Philip Wodehouse's good offices from annihilation, and were located (1868) on territory assigned to them by the Cape Colony. The Griquas also had a territory given to them in what became East Griqualand. Anu at Kimberley, when the discovery of the diamond-fields (1870) attracted a multitude of people to the edge of the Orange Free State, where there was pending a boundary- dispute with a nativi chief, British police and troops had to occupy the town to save it from disorder ; the boundary- dispute was settled by the payment of ;^ 90,000 to the Orange Free State, and the territory of i82 BRITISH COLONIZING GENIUS [Part 1 1 West Griqualand was added (October 27, 1871) to the British Empire. Lord Carnarvon became Colonial Minister in 1874. The success of confederation in Canada was an encour- agement to him to try a similar scheme in South Africa, and to abandon in favour of confederation the policy of disintegration initiated twenty years before. There were few South Africans who did not recognize that federation of some kind was an end to be desired. It was obvious that half a dozen contiguous territories, under distinct Governments, with different customs duties, different systems of law, different credit in the money market, and different policy towards th natives, could not progress in the same way as if there were unity of action, which would provide even justice, unre- stricted commerce, and the opening up of the country by roads, railways, and telegraphs, and which would secure peace on the frontier. But the conflicting interests and antagonisms were so many and so great as to raise almost insuperable difficuhies.—Lt/e 0/ Sir Bartle Frere 1895. THE COLONIZING GENIUS OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY If, as at some great memorial review of armies, the colonizing nations since 1500 were now by name called up, France would answer not at all ; Portugal and Holland would stand apart with dejected ej'es— dimly IS4}1 BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY 183 revealing the legend of Fuit Ilium ; Spain would be seen sitting in the distance, and, like Judxa on the Roman coins, weeping under her palm-tree in the vast regions of the Drellana ; whilst the British race would be heard upon every wind, coming on with mighty hurrahs, full of power and tumult, as some " Hailstone Chorus," and crying aloud to the five hundred millions of Burmah, China, Japan, and the infinite islands, to make ready their paths before them. Are not the advantages of these islanders which carry them thus potently ahead products of British energy? Those twenty-five thousands of ships, whose graceful shadows darken the blue waters in every climate — did they build themselves ? That myriad of acres, laid out in the watery cities of docks — are they sown by the rain as the fungus or the daisy ? Britain has advan- tages at this stage of the race, but at starting we were all equal. In such contests the power constitutes the title ; the man that has the ability to go ahead is the man entitled to go ahead ; and the nation that can win the place of leader is the nation that ought to do so. This colonizing genius of the British people appears upon a grand scale in Australia, Canada, and, as we may remind the else forgetful world, in the United States of America; ; which States are our children, prosper by our blood, and have ascended to an overshadowing altitude from an infancy tended by ourselves. — Ceylon. 1843. ( i84 ) [Part 11 ENGLAND AND LIBERTY BY WILLIAM WOKDSWORTH It is not to be thought of that the Flood Of British freedom, Avhich, to the open sea Of the world's praise, from dark antiquity Hath flowed, " with pomp of waters, unwithstood " Roused though it be full often to a mood Which spurns the check of salutary bands, That this most famous Stream in bogs and sands Should perish ; and to evil and to good Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung Armoury of the invincible Knights of old • We must be free or die, who speak the tongue ulT'f ';^!!"^'^'"^ '^^^^ ' '^^ ^^'^^^"d "'o^als hold Which Mdton held. In everything we are sprung Of Earths first blood, have titles manifold. 1802. A PLEA FOR CONSOLIDATION OF EMPIRE BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH There is a case in which a people may be benefited by resignation or forfeiture of their rights as a separate independent State ; I mean, where-of two contiguous or neighbouring countries, both included by nature under one conspicuously defined limit-the weaker is i8o9J BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 1 8; united with, or absorbed into, the more powerful ; and one and the same government is extended over both. This, with due patience and foresight, may (for the most part) be amicably effected, without the intervention of conquest ; but— even should a violent course have been resorted to, and have proved successful — the result will be matter of congratulation rather than of regret, if the countries have been incorporated with an equitable participation of natural advantages and civil privileges. Who does not rejoice that former partitions have disappeared — and that England, Scotland, and Wales are under one legislative and executive authority, and that Ireland (would that she had been more justly dealt with!) follows the same destiny? The large and numerous fiefs, which interfered injuriously with the grand demarcation assigned by nature to France, have long since been united and consolidated. The several independent sovereignties of Italy (a country the boundary of which is still more expressly traced out by nature ; and which has had no less the further definition and cement of country which language pre- pares) have yet this good to aim at : and it will be a happy day for Europe when the natives of Italy and the natives of Germany (whose duty is in like manner indicated to them) shall each dissolve the pernicious barriers which divide them, and form themselves into a mighty people. — The Convention of Cintra. 1809. ( iS6 ) IPaut II THE DANGERS OF MATERIAL PROGRESS BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH In many parts of Europe (and especially in our own country) men have been pressing forward for some time in a path which has betrayed by its fruitfulness ; fur- nishing them constant employment for picking up things about their feet, when thoughts were perishing in their minds. While Mechanic arts, Manufaciures, Agriculture, Commerce, and all those products of know- ledge which are confined to gross, definite, and tan- gible objects, have, with the aid of experimental philosophy , been every day putting on more brilliant colours, the splendour of the imagination has been fading. Sensibility, which was formerly a generous nursling of rude nature, has been chased from its ancient range in the wide domain of patriotism and religion, with the weapons of derision, by a shadow calling itself good sense. The progress of those arts also, by furnishing such attractive stores of outward accommodation, has misled the higher orders of society in their more disinterested exertions for the service of the lower. Animal comforts have been rejoiced over, as if they were the end of being. A neater and more fertile garden ; a greener field ; implements and utensils more apt ; a dwelling more commodious and better furnished ;— let these be attained, say the actively benevolent, and we arc sure not only of being on the right road, but of havuv^ iSo9) RY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 187 successfully terminated our journey. Now, a country may advance for some time in this course with appa- rent profit ; these accommodations, by zealous encourage- (1,-nt, may be attained, and still the peasant or artisan, ti. '> master, be a slave in mind, — a slave rendered even more abject by the very tenure under which these possessions are held ; and, if they veil from us this fact or reconcile us to it, they are worse than worthless. The springs of emotion may be relaxed or destroyed within him, he may have little thought of the past, and less in- terest in the future. The great end and difficulty of life, for men of all classes, and especially difficult for those who live by manual labour, is a union of peace with innocent and laudable animation. Not by bread alone is the life of man sustained ; not by raiment alone is he warmed ; but by the genial and vernal inmate of the breast, which at once pushes forth and cherishes ; by self- support and self-sufficing endeavours ; by anticipations, apprehensions, and active remembrances ; by elasticity under insult, and firm resistance to injury ; by joy and by love ; by pride which his imagination gathers in from afar ; by patience, because life wants not promises ; by admiration ; by gratitude which— debasing him not where his fellow-being is its object — habitually expands itself, for his elevation, in complacency towards its Creator. Now, to the existence of these blessings national independence is indispensable ; and many of them it will itself produce and maintain. Love and admiration must push themselves out toward some quarter : otherwise the moral man is killed. Collaterally they advance with great vigour to a certain i88 DANGERS OF MATERIAL PR0GRES3[PartH extent — and they are checked ; in that direction, limits hard to pass are perpetually encountered ; but upwards and downwards to ancestry and to posterity, they meet with gladsome help and no obstacles ; the tract is in- terminable. Perdition to the tyrant who would wan- tonly cut off an independent nation from its inheritance in past ages ; turning the tombs and burial-places of the forefathers into dreaded objects of sorrow or of shame and reproach for the children! Look upon Scotland and Wales: though, by the union of these v/ith England under the same Government (which was effected without conquest in one instance), ferocious and desolating wars, and more injurious intrigues, and sap- ping and disgraceful corruptions, have been prevented ; and tranquillity, security, and prosperity, and a thousand interchanges of amity, not otherwise attainable, have followed ; yet the flashing eye and the agitated voice and all the tender recollections with which the names of Prince Llewellyn and William Wallace are to this day pronounced by the fireside and on the public road attest that these substantial blessings have not been purchased without the relinquishment of something most salutary to the moral nature of man, else the remembrances would not cleave so faithfully to their abiding-place in the human heart. It is to the worldlings of our own country, and to those who think without carrying their thoughts far enough, that I address myself. Let them know there is no true wisdom without imagination, no genuine sense ; that the man who in this age feels no regret for the ruined honour of other nations must be poor in i809] BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 189 sympathy for the honour of his own country ; and that if he is wanting here towards that which circumscribes the whole, he neither has nor can have a social regard for the lesser communities which country includes. Contract the circle, and bring him to his family : such a man cannot protect that with dignified love. Reduce his thoughts to his own person : he may defend himself — what he deems his honour ; but it is the action of a brave man from the impulse of the brute, or the motive of a coward. — Ibid. ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES BY ROBERT SOUTHEY Manv a tall vessel in hsr harbours lay, About to spread its canvas to the breeze, Bound upon happy errand to convey The adventurous colonist beyond the seas, Toward those distant lands where Britain blest With her redundant life the East and West. The landscape changes ; a region next was seen. Where sable swans on rivers yet unfound, Glided through broad savannahs ever green ; Innumerous flocks and herds were feeding round, And scatter'd farms appear'd and hamlets fair, And rising towns which made another Britain there. Then thick as stars which stud the moonless sky. Green islands in a peaceful sea were Peen ; igo ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES [Part II Darken'd no more with blind idolatry^ Nor cursed with hideous usages obscene, But heal'd of leprous crimes, from butchering strife Deliver'd, and reclaim'd to moral life. The light those happy islanders enjoy'd, Good messengers from Britain had convey'd (Where might such bounty, wiselier, be employ'd ? ) One people with their teachers they were made. Their arts, their language, and their faith the same, And blest in all, for all they blest the British name. Then rose a different land, where loftiest trees High o'er the grove their fan-like foliage rear ; Where spicy bowers upon the passing breeze Diffuse their precious frs^ » far and near ; And yet untaught to bene i assive knee, Wisest of brutes, the eleph '^ jams free. Ministrant there to health and public good. The busy axe was heard on every side, Opening new channels, that the noxious wood With wind and sunshine might be purified, And that wise government, the general friend. Might everywhere its eye and arm extend. Again the picture changed ; those isles I saw With every crime thro' three long centuries curst. While unrelenting Avarice gave the law ; Scene of the injured Indians' sufferings first, Then doom'd, for Europe's lasting shame, to see The wider-wasting guilt of slavery. ART II ,8,6] BY ROBERT SOUTHEY That foulest blot had been at length effaced ; Slavery was gone, and all the power it gave, Whereby so long our nature was debased, Baleful alike to master and to slave. O lovely isles ! ye were indeed a sight To fill the spirit with intense delight. The Poet's Pilgrimage to Waterloo. 1816. 191 ENGLAND AT THE TIME OF THE NAPOLEONIC WAR BY GEORGE BORROW Those were stirring times. The dreadful struggle which so long convulsed Europe, and in which England bore so prominent a part, was then at its hottest ; we were at war, and determination and enthusiasm shone in every face ; man, woman, and child were eager to fight the Frank. Oh ! those were days of power, gallant days, bustling days, worth the bravest days of chivalry, at least ; tall battalions of native warriors were marching through the land ; there was the glitter of the bayonet, and the gleam -f the sabre ; the shrill squeak of the fife, and loud rattling of the drum were heard in the streets of country towns, and the loyal shouts of the inhabitants greeted the soldiery on their arrival, or cheered them at their departure. And now let us leave the upland and descend to the sea-board ; there is a sight for you upon the billows ! A dozen men-of-war are gliding majestically out of port, their 192 THE IDEAL COLONIAL GOVERNOR [Part Ii long buntings streaming from the top-gallant masts, calling on the Frenchman to c ime forth from his bights and bays ; and what looms upon us yonder from the fog-bank in the east ? A gallant frigate towing behind her the long, low hull of a crippled privateer, which but three short days ago had left Dieppe to skim the sea, and whose crew of ferocious hearts are now cursing their imprudence in an English hold. Stirring times those, for they were days of gallantry and enthusiasm.— L avert sro. 185 1. THE IDEAL COLONIAL GOVERNOR BY THOMAS CARLYLE Contrive to send out a new kind of Governors to the colonies. This will be the mainspring of the business ; without this the business will not go at all. An ex- perienced, wise, and British man, to represent the Im- perial interest ; he, with such a speaking or silent collective wisdom as he can gather round him in the colony, will evidently be the condition of all good between the mother-country and it. If you can find such a man, vour point is gained ; if you cannot, lost. By him and his collective wisdom all manner of true relations, mutual interests and duties such as they do exist in fact between mother-country and colony, can be gradually developed into practical methods and results ; and all manner of true and noble successes and veracities in the way of governing, be won. Choose well your Governor— not from this or that poor section iSso] BY THOMAS CARLYLK '93 of the aristocracy, military, naval, or red-tapist ; where- ever there are bom kings of men, you had better seek them out, and breed them to this work. All sections of the British population will be open to you ; and, on the whole, you must succeed in finding a man fit. And having found him, I would farther recommend you to keep him some time! It would be a great improve- ment to end this present nomadism of Colonial Governors. Give your Vjovernor due power ; and let him know withal that he is wedded to his enterprise, and having once well learned it, shall continue with it, who, you mean, shall fairly gird himself to his enterprise, and fail with it, and conquer with it, and, as it were, live and die with it ; he will have much to learn ; and having once learned it, will stay, and turn his knowledge to account. From this kind of Governor, were you once in the way of finding him with moderate certainty, from him and his collective wisdom all good whatsoever might be anticipated. Britain and her colonies might find that they had true relations to each other ; that the Imperial mother and her constitutionally obedient daughters was a blessed God's-fact destined to fill half the world with its fruits one day. — Latter Day Pamphlets. 1850. ( 194 ) [Part II RELATIONS BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES IN 1850 BY THOMAS CARLYLE Constitutions for the colonies are now on the anvil ; the discontented colonies are all to be cured of their miseries by constitutions. One thing strikes a remote spectator in these colonial questions — the singular placidity with which the British statesman at this time is prepared to surrender whatsoever interest Britain, as foundress of those establishments, might pretend to have in the decision. " If you want to go from us, go ; we by no means want you to stay ; you cost us money yearly, which is scarce ; desperate quantities of trouble too : why not go, if you wish it >" Such is the humour of the British statesman at this time. And yet an instinct teaches all men that colonies are worth something to a country ; that if, under the present Colonial Office, they are a vexation to us and them- selves, some other Colonial Office can and must be con- trived that shall render them a blessing ; and that the remedy will be to contrive such a Colonial Office, or method of administration, and by no means to cut the colonies loose. Colonies are not to be picked off the street, every day, not a colony of them but has been bought dear, well purchased by the toil and blood of those we have the honour to be sons of; and we cannot afford to cut them away because the present manage- ment requires money. The present management will iSso) BY THOMAS CARLYLE 195 indeed require to be cut away ; — but as for the colonies, we purpose, through Heaven's blessing, to retain them a while yet ! Shame on us for unworthy sons of brave fathers if we do not. Brave fathers, by valiant blood and sweat, purchased for us, from the bounty of Heaven, rich possessions in all zones, and we, wretched imbeciles, cannot do the function of adminis- tering them I And because the accounts do not stand well in the ledger, our remedy is, not to take shame on ourselves, and repent in sackcloth and ashes, and amend our beggarly imbecilities, but to fling the business over- board, and declare the business itself to be bad. Is there no value, then, in human things, but what can write itself down in the cash-ledger ? All men know that to men and nations there are invaluable values which cannot be sold for money at all. Britain has other tasks appointed her in God's universe than the making of money. This poor nation, painfully dark about said tasks and the way of doing them, means to keep its colonies nevertheless, as things which somehow or other must have a value, were it better seen into. They are por- tions of the general earth, where the children of Britain now dwell ; where the gods have so far sanc- tioned their endeavour as to say that they have a right to dwell. England will not readily admit that her own children are worth nothing but to be flung out of doors ! England looking on her colonies can say : "Here are lands and seas, spice-lands, corn-lands, timber-lands, overarched by zodiacs and stars, clasped by many-surrounding seas ; wide spaces of the Maker's 196 NKCESSITY FOR EXPANSION [Partii building, fit for the cradle yet of mighty nations and their sciences and their heroism. Fertile continents, still inhabited by wild beasts, are mine, into which all the distressed populations of Europe might pour them- selves, and make at once an Old World, or a New World human. By the eternal fiat of the gods, this must yet one day be ; this, by all the divine silences that rule this universe, silent to fools, eloquent and awful to the hearts of the wise, is incessantly, at this moment, and at all moments, commanded to begin to be unspeakable deliverance ; and new destiny of thousandfold expanded manfulness for all men, dawns out of the future here. To me has fallen the godlike task of initiating all that." —Ibid. THE NECESSITY FOR THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND BY THOMAS CARLYLE Why should there not be an " Emigration Service " and Secretary, with adjuncts, with funds, forces, idle navy- ships, and ever-increasing apparatus; in fine, an effective system of emigration, so that every honest, willing workman who found England too strait, the " organiza- tion of Labour " not yet sufficiently advanced, might find likewise a bridge built to ca .ry him into new western lands, there to " organize " with more elbow-room some labour for himself; there to be a real blessing, raising new corn for us, purchasing new webs and hatches from us, leaving us at least in peace, instead of staying here 1843] BY THOMAS CARLYLE «97 to be a Physical-Force Chartist, unblessed and no blessing ? Is it not scandalous to consider that a Prime Minister could raise within the year, as I have seen it done, a hundred and twenty millions sterling to shoot the French, and we are stopt short for want ot the hundredth part of that to keep the English living ? . . . A free bridge for emigrants ; why, we should then be on a par with America itself, the most favoured of all lands that have no government ; and we should have, besides, so many traditions and mementos of priceless things which America has cast away. We could p.o- ceed deliberately to " organize Labour," not doomed to perish unless we effected it within year and day ; every willing worker that proved superfluous finding a bridge ready for him. This verily will have to be done ; the time is big with this. Our little isle is grown too narrow for us, but the world is wide enough yet for another six thousand years. England's sure markets will be among new colonies of Englishmen in all quarters of the globe. All men trade with all men, when mutually convenient, and are even bound to do it by the Maker of men. Our friends of China, who guiltily refused to trade, in these circumstances — had we not to argue with them, in cannon-shot at last, and convince them that they ought to trade ! " Hostile tariffs " will arise to shut us out, and then again will fall, to let us in ; but the sons of England, speakers of the English language, were it nothing more, will in all times have the ineradicable predisposition to trade with England. Mycale was ihc pan- Ionian, rendezvous of all the Tribes 198 ENGLAND'S GREATNESS [PartH of Ion, for all Greece : why should not London long continue the All-Saxon-homt rendezvous of all the "children of the Harz-Rock," arriving, in select samples, from the Antipodes and elsewhere, by steam and other wise, to the " season " here ! What a future ; wide as the world if we have the heart and heroism for it, which, by Heaven's blessing, we shall. " Keep not standing, fixed and rooted, Briskly venV»re, briskly roam ; Head and hand, where'er thou foot it, And stout heart are still at home. In what land 'he sun does visit, Brisk are we, whate'er betide : To give space for wandering is it That the world was made so wide." * Fourteen hundred years ago, it was by a considerable " Emigration Service," never doubt it, by much enH'.;t- ment, discussion, and apparatus, that we ourselves arrived in this remarkable island.— Paj/ and Present 1843- THE CAUSES OF ENGLAND'S GREATNESS BY THE EABL OF BEACONSFIELD I HAVE always felt that with the limited population of this United Kingdom, compared with the great Imperial position which it occupies with reference to other nations, • Goethe, Wilhelm Meister. ,8671 BY THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD i99 it is not only our duty, but it is an absolute necessity, that we should study to make every man the most effective being that education can possibly constitute him. In the old wars there used to be a story that one Englishman could beat three members of some other nation, but I think if we want to maintain our power we ought to make one Englishman equal really in the business of life to three other men that any other nation can furnish, I do not see how otherwise, with our limited population, we can fulfil the great destiny that I believe waits us, and the great position wc occupy. • • • When I remember the elements and interests of these British Isles, so vast, so various, and so complicated ; when I even call to recollection the difference of race which, however blended, leaves significant characteristics ; when I recollect that the great majority of the popula- tion of the United Kingdom rise every day and depend for their subsistence, for their daily subsistence, on their daily labour; when I recollect the delicate marvel of our credit— more wonderful, in my opinion, than our accumulated capital— the constant collision between those ancient institutions that give permanence to the State, and the requirements of the new populations that arise, and which they do not completely or adequately meet ; when I remember that it is upon the common sense, the prudence, and the courage of the community thus circumstanced that depends the fate of uncounted millions in Asian provinces, and that around the globe there is a circle of domestic settlements that watch us for example and inspiration ; when I know that not a aoo EXGLAND's grf:atne:ss Pari fi sun rises upon a British M nister that does not brinr him care, and ■ >ften inexpressible anxic y — son '^ ur expected war, a disturbed or discontei cu colony, h pestilence, a famine, a mutiny, a > laps, of cc t, a declining; trade, a decaying i venu ;. haps ne insensate and fantastic r ,nspit >cy — I . are ! oiten wonder where is the strenjjth ol thoujint a. J : fund of feeling that a ■ adequate ■ cope with such co. sal Circumstances. But when I withdraw from the ssure of individual interests, and lakr . arger an . leeper view of human affairs, I recognize Uiat i^ t untry, whatever may have been the tumult and se '.urmoi '^f now many generations here have ever been thr c mast, influences that ive at aU t Ties guided and cuntroll all other powers 4nd pa- ons. And hesea Industry, Liberty, and R gion. . Joi .s ti sacred combina- tion influences the destir of tht.- '-ountry it will not die. History will recognize its lite lot record .s decline and fall. It will say: This is i great and n ^.standing people, and it from such materials .. make the magnificence of n tions ar ' establish the splendour of terrestrial thrones.— 5/m delivered at Edinburgh. 1867. f tha. the relations of England to T ^ a vast change during the )sed. The relations of England ime as they were in the days of ^rick the Great. The Queen of f sovereign of the most power- On the other side of the ijlobe I am not ia\ Europe havi u century .hat 1. to Eur are 11c Lort ..h. ham or Engic. 'd \ become ^Iof= State there ar-. establishments belonging to her, teeming mmm iS:i] BY THK EARL OF BEACOXSFI KLD due :oi with we;t th f ' population, which will, ex cise their it &^nce over the distribution of | wer. old establis.. aents of this country, now the Unite«^ ^ es of Ameri( i, throw their Icngthcnin shade ovc th Atlantic, whi :h mix vi'h European v Thest are vast and nov elemcn's m the distribi *. vcr. I acknowledge aat the policy of England th re pect to Europe shnul i })e a policy of reserve, but proud re- serve ; and i vcr to those statesmen — those mistaken statesmen v ve intimated the decay of the power of England decline of its resources, I express here my con rid jnviction that there never was a moment in our / when the power of England was so great, and her resources so vast a id inexhaustible. And yet, gentlemen, it is not nuTely our fleets and armies, our powerful artillery, our accumulated capital, and our unlimited credit, on which I so much depend, as upon that unbroken spirit of her people, which, I believe, was never prouder of the Imperial country to which they belong. — Speech delivered at Manchester. 1 872. THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE EMPIRl BY THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD Gentlemen, there is another and second great obje*. of the Tory party. If the first is to maintain the insti- tutions of the country, the second is. in my opinion, to uphold the Empire of England. If you look to the history of this country since the advent of Libtfraiism — forty years ago — you will find that there has been no 202 CONSOLIDATION OF THE EMPIRE [Part ll effort so continuous, so subtle, supported by so much energy, and carried on with so much ability and acumen, as the attempts of Liberalism to effect the disintegration of the Empire of England. And, gentlemen, of all its efforts, this is the one which was the nearest to success. Statesmen of the most distinguished ability, the most organized and efficient means, have been employed in this endeavoin-. It has been proved to all of us that we have lost money by our colonies. It has been shown with precise, with mathematical demonstration, that there never was a jewel in the crown of England, that was so truly costly as the possession of India. How often has it been sug- gested that we should at once emancipate ourselves from this incubus ! Well, that result was nearly accomplished. When those subtle views were adopted by the country, under the plausible plea of granting self-government to the colonies, I confess that I myself thought that the tie was broken. Not that I for one object to self-government I cannot conceive how our distant colonies can have their affairs administered except by self-government. But self-government, in my opinion, when it was conceded, ought to have been conceded as part of a great policy of Imperial con- solidation. It ought to have been accompanied by an Imperial tariff, by securities for the people of England for the enjoyment of the unappropriated lands which belonged to the sovereign as their trustee, and by a military code which should have precisely defined the means and the responsibilities by which the colonies should be defended, and by which, if necessary, this ,87,1 BYTHE EARLOF BEACONSFIELD 203 country should call for aid from the colonies themselves. It ought, further, to have been accompanied by the institution of some representative council in the metro- polis, which would have brought the colonies mto constant and continuous relations with the Home Government. All this, however, was omitted, because those who advised that policy-and I believe their con- victions were sincere-looked upon the colonies of England, looked even upon our connection with India, as a burden upon this country, viewing everything in a financial aspect, and totally passing by those moral and political considerations which make nations great, and by the influence of which alone men arc distin- guished from animals. Well, what has been the result of this attempt during the reign of Liberalism for the disintegration of the Empire > It has entirely failed. But how has it failed ? Through the sympathy of the colonies with the mother- country. They have decided that the Empire shall not be destroyed, and in my opinion no Minister in this country will do his duty who neglects any opportunity of reconstructing as much as possible our Colonial Empire, and of responding to those distant sympathies which may become the source of incalculable strength and happiness to this land. When you return to your homes, when you return to your counties and to your cities, you must tell to all those whom you can influence that the time is at hand, that, at least, it cannot be far distant, when England will have to decide between national and cosmopolitan 204 CONSOLIDATION OF THE EMPIRE [p AkT II principles. The issue is not a mean one. It is whether you will be content to be a comfortable England, modelled and moulded upon continental principles, and meeting in due course an inevitable fate, or whether you will be a great country ; an Imperial country ; a country where your sons, when they rise, rise to para- mount positions, and obtain not merely the esteem of their countrymen, but command the respect of the world. — Speech delivered at the Crystal Palace. 1872. I have ever considered that her Majesty's Govern- ment, of '"hatever party formed, are the trustees of the British L. pire. The Empire was formed by the enter- pnse and energy of your ancestors, my Lords ; and it is one of a very peculiar character. I know no example of it, either in ancient or modern history. No Caesar or Charlemagne ever presided over a dominion so peculiar. Its flag floats on many waters ; it has provinces in every zone ; they are inhabited by persons of different laws, manners, customs. Some of ♦' c .0 are bound to us by ties of liberty, fully consc- us -.hat without their connection with the metropolis u _y have no security for public freedom and self-government ; others are bound to us by flesh and blood and by material as well as mo.al considerations. There are millions who are bound to us by our military sway, and they bow to that sway because they know that they arc indebted to it for order and justice. All these communities agree in recognizing the commanding spirit of these Islands that has formed and fashioned in such a manner so great a portion of the globe. My Lords, that Empire is no OKi !| «.«, BY THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD 205 mean heritage, but it is not a heritage that can only be enjoyed ; it must be maintained, and it can only be maintained by the same qualities that created it-by courage, by discipline, by patience, by determination and by a reverence for public law and respect for national rights.- 5/^^f// delivered in the House of Lords. 1878. >^' gs PRAYER FOR ENGLAND'S WRLFARI-: BY LORD TENNYSOX A people's voice I we are a people yet. Tho' all men else their nobler dreams forget. Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers ; Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set His Briton in blown seas and storming showers, We have a voice, with which to pay the debt Of boundless love and reverence and regret To those great men who fought, and kept it ours. And keep it ours, O God, from brute control ; O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul Of Europe, keep our noble England whole. And save the one true seed of freedom sown Betwixt a people and their ancient throne, That sober freedom out of which there springs Our loyal passion for our temperate kings ; For, saving that, ye help to save mankind Till' public wrong be crumbled into dust, And drill the raw world for the march of mind. Ode on tlie Death of the Duke of Wellington. 1852. ^ ^ il I i I f NOTES Page I.— Francis Bacon (i 561-1626), statesman and author, was the first to write in English literary prose on inductive philosophy and the right method of advancing science. He introduced into our literature a new form of prose— the essay. H. held hig^h offices in the State, culminating in that of Lord Chancellor, 1618-1621. The essay on Plantations first appeared in the third edition af tlie Essays, published in 1625. Page I.— PlmUtioM. Literally the place planted, land biought under cultivation. In sixteenth and seventeenth-century Enjrlish it meant a planting with people or settlers, hence a colony. Page 2.— CerUin. Fixed. Page 3.— Ai it liath flured with tobMoo in Virginia. Tobacr., w.is found to be the most profitable crop in Virginia, and compl.unis were made that it was cultivated to the exclusion of other products. Pagg 3.— Bfty-Mlt. Salt obtained from sea-water by evaporation in shallow pits or basins by the heat of the sun. Page 3.— Orowing. Vegetable. Page 3.— Soap-Mtei. Ashes containing lye or potash, and hence useful in making soap. Page 3._TT8eth to make. Usually makes. Page 3.— PreiMt. Immediate. Cf. " A very present help in time of trouble." Page 4, — Diseommoditiei. Inconveniences. Page 4.— Oinglei. Jingles, rattles. Page 4.— Destitut*. Abandon. Page 4.— Oommiierable panoni. Persons to be commiserated or pitied. , . , Page 5.— Captain John Smith (i 580-1631), after servmg as a soldier in France and Hungary, and going through various strange adven- tures joined in 1605 an expedition to colonize Virginia. He was 3o8 NOTES elected President of the colony in 1608. He died in Londdn. His works (reprinted by Arber, 1884) give a full account of his travels and adventures. His English style, it will be noted, compares favourably with that of any of the prose writers of his time. Page 6.— Oolumbui (1447-1506), the discoverer of the New World, was born at Genoa. He conceived the design of reaching India by sailing westward, and in 1492, under the patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, reached the islands since known as the West Indies. In a third voyage (1498) he reached the mainland of South America. Page 6. — ^Tem InoogniU. Literally the Unknown Land ; now Australasia. Page 9. — Overlain. Too fully occupied, over-populated. Page 10.— Sir George FeoUuuB( hat day advised conciliatory methods. Page 46.— Jamaica is the most important of t!ie West India islands belonging to Great Britain. It was discovered by Columbus iu 1494, taken possession of by the Spaniards in 1509, and conquered by the English in 1655. Page 46.— Oouoral Jamoi Edward OglethpTt>e ( 1 696-1 785) obtained a grrmt of land in America from George I' in 1732, and named it (ieorgia, in honour of the king. Among those who went out with him to the colony were the two Wesleys. He returned to England for good in 1743. Cf. Introduction, pp. xxi.-xxii. Paga 47.— To grant a ehartar for inoorporating, ate. The work of cc^ „ ation has been and still is ofteti undertaken by an association 214 NOTES of private individuals assisted by the Government. This is what is known as a chartered company. The members, as ;i rule, are more anxious to promote lucrative trade than good government. Page 49—fmaMjUudt. Cf. Introduction, p. xix. Page 49--Willi»m Pana (1644-1718), founder of Pennsylvania, early became a Quaker, and underwent several terms of imprison- ment for preaching his faith. In 1681 he obtained a grant of land in America from the Crown in order to establish a home for his co-religionists. He governed his colony wisely and well until 1701. Page 49.— Fine a city. Philadelphia. Page 50— The Bahanui. A chain of British West India islands. They were probably the earliest discovery of Columbus. In 1629 ihey were occupied by the English, and after various vicissitudes in the wars were finally secured to Great Britain at the peace of Vers.iilles, 1783. Page so.-lUhop Berkeley (1685-1753), philosopher, formed a plan for Christianizing America, and actually spent three years at Rhode Island in preparation for the work, which was to be carried on by a college situated in the Bermudas. The exact date of composition of the poem quoted is not known. Page 51.— Adam Smith (1725-1790) was the first to write a systematic work on political economy, u is entitled " An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," and was published in 1776. In spite of errors that were corrected later by Ricardo and John Stuart Mill, it remains the greatest work in the English languajje on the subject. Its most striking feature is perhaps its doctrine of free trade, which Smith was the first to urge, and which ultimately triumphed in this country. I'agc 57. -To propoie that Great Britain ihoald TolunUrily gire np, •te. Note the unanimity of opinion on that subject. Cf. the passages by Bacon, Burke, Chatham, and Bcuconsfield. Page 59.— Edmund Bnrke (1729-1797), political writer, published m 1770 his pamphlet "Thoughts on the Present Discontents," in which he endeavoured to point out the right way of acting in a time of crisis. He composed three pieces on the American War : "American Taxation," 1774 ; " Conciliation with America," 1775 ; and "Letter to the Sheriits of Bristol," 1777. Mr. John Morley ranks these as the highest of Burke's literary achievements. Burke sympathized with the iction of the American colonists, and blameu the manner in which the English (iovernment dealt with them. There is liitle doubt that he .Va.ned I-ox's India Bill, and infected NOTES 2«5 Fox with his own enthusiasm on India's wrongs. It uis due t.< l^urke's eloquence and tenacity of purpose that the i.npcachmeni and trial of Warren Hastings took place. Pace 59 —Act of H»»lg»ttoiL Cf. Introduction, pp. xv.i.-xvm. Page 59.-The unfortnntU period of 1764. The year in wluch the Act imposing customs duties on the American colonies w is passed. „ • • P i.'e 60.— Their monopoUat. I.e. Great lUitain. Par,e 6^ -Wo are ongagod in war, ete. It is well to compare the wav Tn which our colonics voluntarily came forward to the help of their mother-country in the South African W.ir. Page 63.— Chicmo. An artful trick, cheitinj,'. Pajje 66.— Afllld»TiU. A sworn statement in writing'. Page 66— SufTerancot. The ^utrerance- wharf was a wharf licensed by customs where the custom-house officers af.cnd.-.l. P.-^'C r').— CookoU. Custom-house certificates granted to mer- chants that goods have paid duty. . , , 1 Page 66.-Cloaraneoi. Certificates tt-'76i,and again from i7f'6-i7<''V He was opposed to the p .li. y of the (loverninent towards the American colonies, and w.irmly advocated conciliatory measures. When it seemed likely that peace would be made with them on any terms, Chatham, ill as he was, went to the House of lords, April 2, 1778, and by a ,K,werful sp.e. h secured a ma.|oril> ag iinst the motion. As he finished speakir„' he feU^back exhausted into the arms of his friends, and died May ' . I77^' iBiii 2l6 NOTES Page 70.— P»pp«r-«oni. Pepper-berry, something of no appreci- able value. Cf. a pepper -corn rent = a. nominal rent. Page7i.— TliewholoHottt«of Boupbon. /.^. the kingdom of France Page 71.— Prior. Matthew Prior (1664-1721), poet, suctee-lod Locke as Commissioner of Trade and J'lantations in 1700. His genius and originality as a poet is to be found in his occasional and familiar verses. Page 71.— The Stamp Aet. This was an Act for America passed in 1765, authorizing a charge on contracts, wills, and legal docu- ments, levied by means of a stamp. (Cf. the use of receipt stamps in evcry-day matters.) Page 72.-Edward Gibbon (i737-i794), author of " The De-line and fall of the Roman Empire" (i 776-1787). became a member of Parliament in 1774, when the quarrel with the American colonies was in full progress. He was content to support the minority with a silent vote, and had neither the political insight nor the coura-e which would have led him to oppose the disastrous measures which lost us America. His autobiography ranks as one of the best in the language. Page 7:^.— Howe. William Howe (1729-1814) held a command under Wolfe at (Quebec, and succeeded General Gage as Com- mander-in-Chief in America in 1775, an offi-e he held till 1778. Page 72.— -lurgoyne. General John Burgoyne (1723-1793) was sent out to America in 1774. He was forced to surrender to the rebels at Saratoga in 1777. Page 72.-Cliiiton. General .Sir Henry Clinton (1738-1795) was sent to America in 1775 and was knighted for his services, lie became Commander-in-Chief in 1778, an office he resigned in 1781. In 1783 he pubUshed a narrative of the campaign. I'age 73.— Lord Horth (I732-I79-!) was the statesman chiefly responsible for the measures that brought about the loss of the American colonies. Page 73-— Bnrlw- Cf. note to p. 59. Page 71.—J0X. Charles James Fox (1742-1806) earnestly opposed the measures of the Government with regard to America. He framed a IJill for the better government of India, which was passed by the Commons but thrown out by the Lords (1783^. He led the opposition to William Pitt. Page 74.-OwieralQ»ge(i72i-i787) became Commander-in Chief of the Uritish forces in America in 1763, and (Jovernor of Massa- chusetts in 1774. On April 18, 177 5. he despatched several hundred Drilish troops from lioston to destroy some military btores at NOTES 2«7 Concor.l. On their return they were attacked, an.l only saved fr.^n destruction by a force sent by ('.age to their aid. Next day the skirmish at Lexin>;ton, which actually bejjan the war, took place, (iage resigned after the battle of Hunker's Hill, June 17, 1775. I'age 74. — ClutiMim. Cf. note to p. 68, I'age 74.— OoTtrnor Hntebiason. Thomas Hutchinson (17' 1- 1780) was Covernor of Massachusetts, i77'-'774- He wrote a History of Massachusetts, and his -'Diary and Letters ' cont.iiii a good account of American affairs. I'age 75.— We much tti that Qaeb«o, eta. The .Americans were not driven out of Canada until May. Page 76.— An Kngllih army of nearly 10,000 men. etc. The surrender of Gener.il Hurgoyne at Saratoga. (Cf note to p. 7--^ I'age 77.— Oeorge laacroft (i8o;-i89i), the .\merican histon.m. His " History of the United States from the Discovery of the Continent" was issued in ten volumes between 1S34 and 1H74. He was ambassador to the English Court, 1846- 1849. I'age 77.— The General. James Wolfe (1727-175')). the conqueror of (Quebec, after a successful career in the army, was appointed by Pitt to the command of the expedition for the capture dI Oucbec. He succeeded in his task, but was mortally wounded, and died in the hour of victory. I'age 77.— Cray. Thomas Gray (17 16-177 >), author of the " Elegy written in a Country Churchyard," wrote but little. Yet that little is of so exquisite a quality that it places him among the greatest of our poets. The *• Elegy " is a tine expression of the thoughts that occur to most serious-minded men when contem- plating the mystery of death. His letters, too, are of great interest. Page 77. Captain John Xnox. An officer in the English navy, and an eye-witness of the events he describes. Page 80.— 8lenr de Montcalm (1712-1759)- commander of the French troops in Canada. He was defeated by Wolfe (cf. note to p. 77) at the battle of Ouebec, where, like the English General, he WPS mortally wounded, and died the next day. Page 81. Sir Walter Beott (1771-1832), poet and novelist, pub- lished "Marmion" in 1808. To each of the six cantos Scott wrote an introductory epistle in verse. They tell us much of his habits and thoughts. \Vc quote from the first of them. Page 8 i.—Welion (1758-1805), England's greatest admiral, "the greatest sailor .-.ince our world began," as Tennyson calls him, was killed at the battle of irafalgar, 1805. He is buried m St. Paul s 3l8 NOTES Cathedral. Cf. Tennyson's " Ode on tlie Death of the Duke of Wellington," 1852. r.age 81. — Wtt, known as William Pitt, the younger (i75i>- 1806), was the second son of the Earl of Chatham (cf, note to p. 68). He was Prime Minister from 1 784-1 801, and from 1804 until his death. He is buried in Westminster Abbey. Page 81. — Baqoiueat. Requiescat in pace ; may he rest in peace ! P.ij^e 81. — fox. Cf. note to p. 73. P.iije 85. — 2arl Btanhopn (1805-1875), historian. His principal work, from which we quote, is " A History of England, 1713-1783."' It was published between 1830 and 1854. l'a;;c 85. — Liantenant Clive (i 725-1774). The best account of Robert, Lord Clivr, the creator of our Indian Empire, is to be found in Macaulay's Ess.iy. I'age 85. — Dapleix. Joseph Francois Dupleix (1697-17631, Governor-general of the French Indies, conceived the project of founding a French Empire in India on the ruins of the Mogul monarchy (see Macaulay's Essay on Clive). His ambition was frustrated by Clive, and he was recalled in 1754. Page 86.— Sepoyi. Native Hindu soldiers. A corruption of the Persian word Sipalii, a soldier. Page 87.— AurongMbe (1618-1707) was the greatest of the Mogul Emperors of India. For his c.ireer and the effects of his policy, see Macaulay's " Essay on Clive." Page 89.— Bang. A drug made from the larger leaves and seed capsules of the wild hemp. Its effect is somewhat similar to that of opium. Page 90.— Loro Kaeaalay 1800-1859), the historian and essayist, was legal adviser to the Suprem,; Council of India, 1834- 1838. He advocated the teaching of European literature and science to the natives of India, and was chairman of the Committee for preparing a Penal Code and a Code of Criminal Procedure. See " Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay," by -Sir G. O. Trevelyan. Page 91.— The Caraatie. The east or Coromandel coast of India. P.ige 91. — Primal in Indii. First in India. Page 93.— John Lawrence (181 1-1879), afterwards Lord Lawrenro, was Lieutenant-tiovernor of the Punjab, and one of the greatest of our Indian administrators. His elTectivc services during the Indian mutiny were due to his great influence over ilie native population. He is sometimes called "the .S.iviour of India." He was Governor-Gencial of India, 1863-1868. See "Life of Lord Lavvrcuce," by K. lioswonh Smith. NOTES 2 19 l>.\ge 93. — FeringhU . The name by whicb Europeans are known in the East. It is a corruption of " Frank," and dates from the Crusades. Page 93. — Cutonmentt. Permanent military towns distinct, an.l situ.- ted at some little distance from, the principal cities. Page 94.— TalnkdM. A native who acted as head of a revenue department under a superior. Page 94.— J«gh««. A district of land or its produce .nssij^nnl by the Indian Government to an individual for the support of some public establishment, generally of a military character. Page 97.— Baition. That part of the main inclosurc of a fort which projects towards the exterior. Page 97.— Panip«t. A wall or rampart reaching to the breast. Page loi.— John HichoUon (1S21-1857) was appointed Deputy- Commissioner of the Punjab in 185 1, and showed a marvtlltnis talent for managing the natives. He did perhaps more than any single man to uphold British rule in the Punjab. See "The Life of John Nicholson," by L. J. Trotter (1897). and Mrs. Steels '• On the Face of the Waters." Page 102.— OUeii. A term in fortification, meaning a sloping bank. Page 102.— 8o«rp. In fortification the interior slope of the ditch nearest the parapet. Page 107.— The Viceroy. The Earl of Lytton was Viceroy of I ndia from 1 876- 1 S80. Page 107.— Urdu (or Hindustani). A peculiar and important form of the Hindu language, with a large aamixlure of Persian and Arabic words. It is the language most commonly used throughout India, and is written in the Persian character. Page 109.-- Captaia WiUiwn Dkmpier (1652-1715), navigator, published his " Voyage round the World " in 1697. Page 109.— Mew Holland. The name given by the early Dutch explorers to what is now known as Australia. Page no.— Samphire. A plant that grows on rocky cliffs nc^ar the sc X. Page 1 10.— Of treee or ihrubi, etc. The Eucalyptus or Blue V.um tree, the characteristic vegetation of the Australian forest, is here described. Page (12.— Taeman (1602 ?-i659}, a Dutch navigator. The land he discovered is now called Tasmania. He named it Van Diemen's Land, after the Governor of B.itavia, who sent him in quc^-t of it. i'age 112.— Captaitt Cook (1728-1779; navigated the boulh bcas aao NOTES and largely added to our knowledge of them. He was killed at Hawaii by natives. Page 1 1 3.— Sydnaj. Thomas Townsend, Viscount Sydney (1 733- 1800), was Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1783-1788. The town of Sydney in New South Wales was named after him. Page 113.— rUndtrs and lUiu. Matthew Flinders (1774-1814), with George Bass {li. 1812?), discovered the strait between Tasmania and Australi.i that bears the name Bass's Strait, in i7.>S. Page 114.— 0x1*7. John Oxley (1781-1828) was an Australian explorer. He was appointed Surveyor-General of New South Wales in 1812. Between 1817 and 1823 ho made three expeditions into the interior of Australia. Page 114.— Allan Cunningliam (1791-1839) was a botanist. He made many botanizing expeditions in various parts of Australia. He died and was buried at Sydney. Page 114.— Mitahell. Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell (179^- 1855) made four expeditions to explore Eastern and Tropical Australia ; he was one of the most famous of Australian pioneers. Page 1 14.— ttut. Captain Charles Sturt (1795-1S69) made three expeditions to explore Australia. During the last he suffered great privations, which caused impaired eyesight. He was the first English traveller to reach the centre of Australia. See Life, by Mrs. Napier Sturt, 1899. Page 114.— Byre. Edward John Eyre explored the region between South and Western Australia in 1 840-1 841. He became Governor of .New Zealand in 1842, of St. Vincent in 1852, and of Jamaica in 1862. Page 114.— Bob«t CKara Bnrka (1820-1861) and William John Wills (1834-1861) were the first white men to cmss Australia from south to north. They reached the Flinders river, but both died of starvation and fatigue on the homeward journey. Page 114.— John MoDooall Stnart (1815-1866) crossed Australia from south to north in i860. Page 114.— Spinifax. Sometimes called Porcupine Grass, grows in Australia in clumps to the height of three or four feet. It is coarse, hard, and spiny. Page 115.— CapUin Arthur PhiUlp (1738-18141 was the first Governor of New South Wales. To him was entrusted, in 1786, the duty of forming a convict settlenu it in Australia. • '.ige 1 15.— The population of the Australian colonies, inci-.-dint: New Zeal.md, was in 1897,4,410,124. In i897-i89«, 553.3oo,:oS lbs. of wool were exported from Australia. NOTES 221 r.iRC 117.— MacArthur. John MacArthur (i797-i«34) is called the "father" of New South W.iles. llo devoiea hiinsilf to improving; the agriculture of the colony and the breed of sheep, and practically founded the Australian wool and wine tra.lc. l-agc 1 17.— Macquarie. I-achlan Macqu irie (-«8o5). explorer, was a surgeon by profession. He was sent to Africa in 1795 ^V ll>c African Associ- ation, and returned at the end of 1797- I" >^o5 the C.overnmcnt persuaded h m to undertake a fresh expedition, and he resolved to trace the Niger to its source. In the course of his cxplor.;:ior.s he was attacked and killed by natives. There is a great charm about Park's narrative : it reveals the character of the traveller, is an interesting tale, and is told in nervous, literary Knglish. Page 138.— francU Moore (_//. 1744) published in 1738 "Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa, cont.iininj; .1 Dcscnption of the several Nations for the space of six hundred miles up the Kiver Gambia." Page 143.— CaUbaeh. A vessel made from a gourd. Page 148.-11 eannot admit of a doubt . . . lavage and neglected lUte. Even so early as i795-<799 -^^ intelligent man saw the possibilities of Africa, possibilities which a century later are still only on the way to realization. Page 149.— DaTid Livingetono (1813- 1873). African missionary and traveller, was nrdainev' priest under the London Missionary Society, and first sailed for Africa in 1840. He laboured for some years in the Bcchuana district, and in 1852-1856 explored the country to the noth, west, and east. In 1858 he was appointed by the (loveniiiunt chief of an expeditiim for exploring the Zambesi rivet. He returned to England in 1864, and in i8^/j started again for Africa to explore the watershed of Central Africa and fix the sources of the Nile. He died in 1873 in Mala, without having actually solved the problem, but having done enough to make the solution easy for his successors. aaa NOTES Page 1 56.— "HftwyoB ny moke souadlagt?" »u. Cf. note to p -o I'ane i6o.-Th« SltTa Trad.. The first Englishman to enL'.K'e'in the slave trade was Sir John Hawkins (I5u-i59s\ Lir.-c numbers of negro slaves were conveyed from Africa to America and slavery was legalized in the British Colonies. Yet as soon as a slave set foot on English soil he wus a free man. A society fi.r the suppression of the slave trade w.is formed in London in 1787 and in 1792 a mot an was carried in Parliament to abolish the slave trade by degrees. The General Abolition Bill, making all si ive trade illegal in our colonies, was passed in 1807. A Bill wis passed in 1833, enacting that slavery was to cease on August I, 1834, and the emancipation of the slaves throughout the British colonies was accomplished by 1838. Slavery still exists in the Mahommedan countries of Africa under British protection and the Moslem slave trade is conducted with very great cruelty! But it is to be hoped that the incre.-ise of British influence in Egypt, the Soudan, and the Congo Free State u.l speedily put aj end to the wicked and dej^rnding commerce. Page i6<>-»priagbuek. An antelope founfl in Africa to the south of the /^.. abesi, generally inhabiting the ^art,>^s or . -o.— Sir Harry Smitli (1788-1860) was Governor of the Cane 1817 -,857 T... t-,wns of Harris.aith in the Orange River State, :.nd Ladysmitu m Natal, commemorate his Governorship P.ijr- IS. -Lord -ir^, H. was Under-Secretary for the Colonies .S3i-'8-j (during hs father's Ministry), and became Colonial Se> -(farv .11 i ' -.6. NOTES 223 [•age 180.— Sir OMrft Cfttheart (1794-1854, bcc.une Governor of the Cape in 1852. lie fell m the Crimean war at the battle of Inkcrman (1854). I'ajje 180. -Sir Otorga Oltrk (1787 «S'''7X statesman, was Vice- President of the Ho.iril of Trade, 1845-1846. l'a>;e 180.— 8«r Oaorg* Orey (I7 " establish the colonii-s of Hritish Cohnnbia ami nuoen.la. I'.ige 181.— Sir Fhillp Wtidthout* was Clovcnior of tiie Lajie, 1861-1870. r.iKC 182.— ThomM De Quiacey (1785-1^59^ aiillior of the 'Confessions of an English Opium-eater," wrote most of his woiks in the form of essays contributed to the m.iga/in.'s. I'age 183.— fnlt mum. Troy was. Cf. Virgil, " .i:ntid," 11. 3.'4. rage 184.— "WUlUm Wordtworth (l 770-1. S5o\ in his ' S..nnet> to Liberty " (i8o::!-i8io), gives expression to some of the feelings that animated Knglish hearts during the struggle with Napoleon. I'age 184.— "With pomp of waUrt, nnwiihitood." A line from the " Civil Wars between the two Houses of Lancister .and York " (1595-1602), the most important poem uf S.immi D.hikI (i;^:^- 1619), one of the groupof lihzabethau pilriolic poets. WonUwoilh greatly admired his work. I'age 185.— In his tract "The Converuion of Cintra," Worusw-rth expressed his horror of Napoleon's Ut ,>otic rule and lust of < on- que«t. Some see in the pamphlet the finest piece of politic .d eloquence since Hurke. I'age 185.- Tho uTenl Independent lOTereigntiei of Italy ... to form themioWes Into a mighty people. Wordsworth Ins prnvtil himself a true prophet. The uni(m of G« rmany, and the union of Italy, each under one ruler, were .accomplishid in 1871, t.) the lasting benefit of each country. I'.ige 186.— The progress of those arts, ete. In 179^! Wordsworth had written : "' For a multitude of causes unkiKiwn to tormer times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the dis- crimin.ating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for .all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities." i'age 189- Robert •outhey (1774-1843 . lH)et, formed with Cn\v- ridge, in 1794, the scheme of founding a " I'antisocracy " in RMfl »»4 NOTES some " dcli^litful part of the new back settlements " of Aineri( Twelve pentlemen of good education and liberal principles, ea to furnish ;^I25, with twelve ladies, were to form the colony, ai it was imagined that the labour of each man for two or three hou a day would suffice to support it. The produce was to be comm< properly ; there was to be a pood library, and the ample Icisu was to be devoted to study, discussion, and to the education children on a settled system. The women were to be employt in taking care if the infant children and in other suitable occup tions, not neglecting the cultivation of their minds. Kvcry one w; to enjoy his own religious and political opinions, provided they d not encroach on the rules made for the well-being of the societ The plan, however, was never carried out. Later on, Robert Ow( e<;tablished a sort of socialist colony in Indiana known as " Ne Harmony," but it was not successful. Southey was interestc throughout his life in colonization, and thought that it should I more systematically carried on. He was much roused also 1: the Napoleonic wars. They inspired his " Life of Nelson," h best prose work ; Ms " History of the Peninsular War." h " Curse of Kehama " — Kehama probably representing Napoleon- and his "Ode written during the Negoti.itions for Pe.-ice in 1814 which has been criticized as the finest occasi .iia! poem sine Milton's sonnet " On the late Massacre in Piedmont." Page 191.— Oeorge Borrow (1803-1881) learnt the gipsy tongi and himself wandered through England as a gipsy. " Lavengro is full of autobiographical interest ; and as his father was a captai of militia during his childhood, he naturally heard much aboi the Napoleonic wars. Page 192.— Thomas C«lyle (1795-1881), author, attacked th shaiiis and corruptions of modern society in " Chartism" (1839 " i' it and Present " (1843), and " Latter Day Pamphlets " (1850 la " Past and Present " Carlyle advocated many things, frot Imperial Federation to Public Washhouses, that are now familiar Page 193— Bed-Upist Red-tape is a term used to describ official formality, so called bec.iuse lawyers and governmer offici.-ils use red tape to fasten their papers together. Charle Dickens introduced the phrase. Page 193.— Komadism. Wandering about. Pastoral tribes wh had no fixed residence were called nommfcs by the Greek; Colonial governors are only appointed for a term of years. Page 196.— Fiat— In law 3. fiat is an order of the Court directin that something be dune. Latin,/^/, let it be done. NOTES 2-5 I'agc 197.— Fhyfi«»l ftwM OhutUt. A movement for ihc cxtcnsiiu of the political power of the working classes arose in this country in 1838, when a " People's Charter " was drawn up. It came to a head in 1848 ; but the monster meeting convened by its leaders proved a failure, and it gradually died out. Page 198.— ThtlMrlof ■•MOiidl«ld(i8o4-i88i), .IS Mr. Benjamin Disraeli first became Prime Minister in 1868. Me held the same office again 1874-1880, and during that time bought a share of the Sucr Canal and conferred on Queen Victoria the title of Empress of India. He pursued throughou' an " Imperial " policy. Page 203.— Tht ktttmpti of Libermllam . . . Impiri of KnglMid. There was in 1872, as there is at the present time, a party of person^ now called " Little Englanders," who believed it would be better for England to cut her colonics adrift, and confine herself solely to the good government and general improvement of Great Britain and Ireland. Page 202.— In««bM. Anything that weighs heavily on the mind, properly, a nightmare. Page 204.— 0»i«r. Julius C.T5ar(,io2 n.c.-44 n^ •) age 204.— ChwlomtfBO (742-814). King of *"*•• Franks, and Kmperor of the Romans, ruled an empire that extended from Spain to Saxony. Page 205.~Lopd TonnyiOB. The verse of Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) expresses in the highest degree the patriotic spirit at it best. He loved hit. country, his sovereign, his race, and looked with deep satisfaction on the manner m which littk England grew into Greater Britain. He regarded " Our ocean-empire, with her boundless homes For ever-broadening England, and her throne In our vast orient,'' as the true signs of England's greatness. MldOCOrY MSOUmON TMT CHAIT (ANSI ond ISO TEST CHART No. 3) 1.0 I.I l» |Z5 |U |2^ |M lit 1^ 1 12.0 L8 IiH lii I '-6 A /PPUEU IM/OE Ine t6M Emt Main StrMt NoehMtar, N«w York 14«(N USA (716) 482 - (MOO - PhoM (71») laS - MM - Fax ;hronological table Henry VII. Discovery of America by Columbus 149: Elizabeth. Newfoundland taken possession of by Sir Humphry Gilbert 158, Settlement of Virginia by Sir Walter Raleigh 158; First Charter granted to the East India Company i6o( James I. First permanent English settlement made in America by the Virginia Company at Jamestown i6oi Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in America ... 1631 Charles I. Acquisition of Madras i63< Formation of the " New England Confederation " 164 Cro.mwell. Navigation Ordinance 165 Conquest of Jamaica 165 Reorganization of East India Company 165 CH.^ivLES II. Navigation Act Council for Foreign Plantations established Carolina founded New York conquered from the Dutch Pennsylvania founded CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 327 William III. Calcutta founded ... 1690 A new East India Company established 1693 Shores of Australia first explorea by the English ... 1699 Anne. The old and new East India Companies united Nova Scotia became a British possession ... George II. Georgia founded Capture of Arcot by Clivc Battle of Plassey Conquest of Quebec 1708 •713 1732 1751 1757 «759 George III. Captain Cook's voyages to .\ustralia 1768,1770 Declaration of Independence by the United States of America, July 4 1776 Independence of the United States of America acknow- ledged by Great Britain 1783 Pitt's India Bill 1784 English settlement made at Sierra Leone 1787 First convict settlement in Australia 1788 Ceylon taken from the Dutch 1796 Cape Colony became the property of Great Britain 18 14 Victoria. New Zealand first permanently colonized 1839 Natal annexed by the British 1843 Gold discovered in Australia 1851 Indian Mutiny 1857 Government of India transferred from East India Company to the Crown 1858 British North America Act 1867 Transportation syl"*'. abohshed 1867 Opening of the Suez Canal 1869 South African Republic annexed 1871 Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India ... 1877 South African Republic restored to the Boers 1881 3S8 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE WiCTOiiiA—conitnuetf. Death of General Gordon Battle of Omdurman ... Outbreak of Third Boer War Federation of Australia 1 88; i8f)X 16% rgoc Edward VII. Proclamation in Vaal and Orange River Colonies 1901 INDEX Addison, Joseph, xi. Adelaide, 114 Aden, xl. Afghanistan, Ameer of, xxviii. Africa, British expansion in, xxxiv.- xxxix. ; exploration of, 136-139 ; gold in, 142-144 ; ivory in, 144- 148; Livingstone in, 157-176; British possessions in South, 182 Agra, 94 Ahasuerus, King, 18 ; 209 «. Alatomaha River, 47, 48 Alexander the Great, 17 ; 208 ;/. Alfred, King, xiii. ; 176 America, English colonies in, xiv.- xxii. ; loss of colonies in, xxiii. ; progress of English colonies in, 52-61 ; breach with, 72-76 Angola, 149 Anne, Queen, xi, Appamatuck, Queen of, 35 Arabia, 123 Arcot, Clive at, 85-89 Arthur's Pass, 123 Atibalipa, 26 Atlantic, the, aoi, 208 Aurungiebe, 87 ; 218 «. Australia, British colonies in, xxxi.- xxxiv. ; description of, 109, 1 10 ; diKovery and settlement of. I11-I17 ; sheep-farming in, 118- 122; gold-fields of, 131-136 Australasia, 20S B Bacon, Francis, remarks on colo- nies by, xli. ; essay by, I-4 ; 207 M. Ihhamas, the, 50; 214 n. Balfour, Lady Betty, extract from, 104-109 Ballarat, gold mines of, 132, 133 Bamangwato, 149 Bambouk, 137 Bancroft, George, extract from, 77 ; 217 M. Bangvreolo, Lake, 175 Barbadoes, settlement of, xvii., 43 ; 212 n, Barrackpore, 94, 95 Bass, George, 113; 220 w. Bathurst, 221 Beaconsfield, Earl of, imperialism of, xliii. ; extracts from speeches of, 198-205 ; 225 n. Bendigo, gold mines of, 132 Bennt;*, James Gordon, and II. M. Stanley, I73i «74; 2" «. Berhampore, 95 Berkeley, Bishop, xlii. ; verses by, 50-51 ; 214 «• 230 INDEX Berkeley, Sir William, 43, 44 ; 213 tt. Bermudas, the, description of, 38-40 Berreo, 26 HIaikie, W. D., extract from, 175- 176 Blue Mountains, 117, 131, 132 Boers, the, xxxix. Boomplatz, battle of, 180 Boon". 142, 143 Borrow, George, extract from, 191- 192 ; 224 ». Boston, investment of, 74 Botany Bay, convicts transported to, x\xi. Bristol diamond, 22 ; 209 n. British Columbia, xxiv. British Kaii'raria, xxxix, British North America Act, xxiv. Bunker's Hill, 217 Burgoyne, General, 72 ; 216 «. Burke, EdmunH, extracts from speeches of, 59-68, 83-85 ; 214 tt. Burke, Robert O'Hara, 114 ; 220;/. Burmah, xxviii. Burton, Colonel, 80 Ccesar, J u'ius, 204 ; 225 ». Cairo, xxxiv. Calcutta, 93 Canada, conquered by Enr,land, xxii, ; government of, xxiii.-xxv. Cape Cod, xvi. Cape Colony, settlement of. xxxviil., 177 Cardcas, 21 ; 209 w. Carlyle, Thomas, opinions of, xliii. ; extracts from, 192-198 ; 242 ». Carnarvon, Lord, 112 Camatic, the, 91 ; 218 n. Carolina, foundation of, xix. C. hay, 16 ; 208 n. Cathcart, Si George, and the Griquas, I fi ; and the Sand River Convention, 180 ; 223 »/. Chapman, Captain, 160 Charlemagne, 204 ; 225 w. Charles I., English colonies under, xvii. Charles 11., English colonic-; uni]er, xviii. ; and the East India Com pany, 84 ("harles's River, 79, 80 Charlestown, 50 Cliatham, Earl of (William Pitt tht- Elder), extract from speech ol, 68-71 ; 215 H. Chaucer, xi. Chunda .Sahib, 85, 87 Clarendon, Earl of (Edw-ird Hyde), and the English colonies, xviii., xix., xlii. ; extract from, 42-44 ; 212 ». Clarendon, Earl of, and the Zam- besi expedition, 152 Clarke, Marcus, xxxi. Clerk, Sir George, 180 ; 223 «. Clinton, General, 72 ; 216 n. Clive, Robert, xxvii.; atArcot, 85- 89 ; at Plassey, 90-92 ; 218 «. Coleridge, S. T., and " Pant i so- cracy," 223 ;/. Columbus, and the iiiscovery of America, xii. ; 20S ft., 210 «. Concord, 73, 217 Congo Fre: State, 222 Congo River, xxxv. Connecticut, Kxi. Connocke, W., xx. Cook, Captain, and his exploration of the Australian coast, 112, 113 ; 219 ; 220 ». Cortei, 25 ; 210 «. INDEX 231 Council fcr Foreign Plantation!, xviii., xix. ; 213 »• Cromwell, English colonies under, xviii. ; and the East India Com- pany, xxvi. Cunningham, Allan (the botanist), 114; 220 M. Cushman, Robert, extract from, 30-32; 211 «. Cyprus, xl. Elgin, Lord, xxir. Elizabeth, Queen, colonies "ndcr, xiv.; and the empire of the sea, 27.28 Emden, 18 ; 209 «. Epuremei, the, 23 I Esther (book of), 18 Evelyn, John, xix. the liiaiy of, 45-46 ; 213 «. Eyre, Edward Juhn, 114 ; 230 « 209 ;/. extract from Dampier, Capt. William, xxxi. ; extract from, 109-I to ; 1 12 ; 219 «. Daniel, Samuel, 223 Dante, xi. DeEridia, HI Delaware, xx Delhi and the Indian Mutiny, xxix., 104 ; Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress at, 106-I09 De Quincey, Thomas, extract from, 182, 183 ; 223 ft. Dbmond, Cape, 78 Dieppe, 192 Drake, Sir Francis, xiv. Drayton, Michael, poem by, 36-38 ; 21 T H. Dufferin, Marquis of, tfucUcf, xxiv., xliv. Dumdum, 94 Dupleix, Joseph Frangois, 85, 218 n. East Indin Company and Cromwell, xviii., .xvi., xxviii., xxx. ; history of. 83-85 Edward VII., xxx. Kgypt, Great Britain and, xxxv.- xxxviiu Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, 20S Flinders, Matthew, 113 ; 220 n. Flinders River, 220 «. Florida, 31 ; 211 «. Fort St. David, 86 Fox, Charles James and the American colonies, 73, 75 ; 216 ft. France, and Canada, xxii. ; and India, xxvii. ; and Egypt, xxxv., xxxvi. ; wars with, xliv. Frederick the (Jreat, 200 Frido, Cai>e, 19 Gage, General, 74, 216 ; 217 «. Gambia, xxxv. ; river, 136, 138, 139. 145 Garden Island, 152, 153, 154. >56 George II. md Georgi.i, 47 ; 213 «. Georgia, xi.i. ; 46-50 Germany, union of, 185 ; 223 n. Gibbon, Edward, extracts from letters of, 72-76 ; 216 «. Gilbert, Sir Humphry, and his efforts at colonization, xiv. ; and j the north-west passage, 16-20 : I 208 ti. 93* INDEX Gold Coast Colony, xxxv. Gordon, General, xxxvi., xxxvii. Gor^e, 136 Gould, Ensign, 74 Grant, General, 174 Gray, Thomas, 77 ; 217 «. Greater Britain, and the command of the sea, xix. ; Lord DufTerin and, xlv. Greece, 198 Greenland, 19 Grey, Lord, 180, 181 ; 222 «. Grey, Sir George, 180 ; 223 ». Griqualand, East, 1 81 Griqualand, West, 182 Griqua Town, 171 Guanacapa, Emperor of Peru, 26 Guascar, 26 Guiana, gold mines of, xlii., 20-27 ; 209//. H Hackluit (Hakluyt), 211 Hague, the, 177 Hakluyt, 14, 20, 38 Hamborough (Ha raburg), 1 8 ; 209 n. Hanover, 209 Harrismith, 222 Harrison, William, on the English navy, xiii., 28, 29; 210 n. Hastings, Warren, xxvi., xxvii. Hawaii, 220 Hawkins, Sir John, 222 Hemans, Felicia, quoted^ xvi. Henry VII., 210 Henry VIII,, xiv. Herschel, Sir John, 167 Hicks, General, xxxvi. Himalayas, the, 93 Holinshed, Raphael, 210 •• Holinshed's Chronicle," xiii. Holland and the Cape, 177, 178 Holland, N .09; 210 ti. Houghton, Major, 136, 140 Howard of Effingham, Lord, 210 Howe, Willinm, 73; 216 w. Hungary, 207 Hutchinson, Governor, 73, 74 ; 217 «. Iboe, 159 Iceland, 134 Ilala, 221 Independence, declaration of, xxiii. India, England and, xxvi.-xxx. ; the road to, xl. ; Empress of, 104- 109 India Bill (Pitt's), xxviii. India Bill (Fox's), 214 Indian Mutiny, xxviii.-xxx., 93- 104 Indies, the, 11 Indies, East, 136, 148 Indies, West, 25, 45 ; America and, 54. 148 Inga, 25 Inkerman, bittle of, 223 Italy, 185 ; 223 «. Jallonkadoo, 142 Jamaica, conquest of, xviii. ; 213 «. James IL, and the English navy, xix. Jamestown, xv. Jersey (America), 75 Jumna River, 96 Kalahari Desert, 166, 167, 169, 170 INDEX 233 Kamalia, 143, 146 Khartoum, xxxvii. Khelat, Khan of, 106, 107 'lilwa, 159, 160 Kinaberley, l8t Kingsley, Charles, xiv., xxxii. Kingsley, Henry, xxxii. Kirk, Dr., 164 Kitchener, Lord, xxxvii. Knox, Capt. John, extract from, 77-80; 217 «. Kongone Harbour, 163 Ladys~; , Lagos, x\ Langlard. xi. Lawrence, Lord, 93, 96 ; 218 «. Lawrence, Major, 85, 99, loi, 104 Lecky, Mr. W, E. H., xx. Lesseps, Ferdinand de, xxxv. Lexington, 217 Leyden, xvi. Livingstone, Charles, 153, 164 Livingstone, David, exploration of Africa by, xxxiv. ; extracts from, 149-174; work of, 17s, 176; 221 n. Llewellyn, Prince, 188 Locke, John, xix. ; 216 w. Louis XIV., 222 Louisburg, 79 Lu'-.inoltz, Carl, extracts from, iii- 120, 131-136 Lyly, John, xliii. Lyndon, Lake, 123 Lytton, Earl of, 108; 219 //. Lytton, Lady, 107 Lytton, Sir Edward Bti'wer, 181 ; 223 «. M Mabotsa, 161 Mac Arthur, John, 117 ; 221 «. Macaulay, Lord, on NViUiam Penn. xix. ; extract from, 90-92 ; 218 «. Macquarie, Lachlan, 117 ; 221 /;. Madeiras, the, 48 Magellan, Straits of, ill Mahan, Captain, quotcii, xx., xl. Maharajah Sindiah, loS Mahdi, the, xxxvi. Mahommed Ali, 88 Malmesbury, Earl of, 1 52 Manding, 142, 143 Manoa, I.ake of, 23, 25 ; 209 "■ Marlinctu, John, extract from, 177- 182 Marvell, Andrew, verses by, 40, 41 ; 212 n. Maryland, xxi., 56 Massachusetts, foundation of, xvi. Massachusetts Bay, 72 Mauritius, xl. Mebalwe, 161, 162, iC^ Meerul, 94, 96 Melbourne and the gold 9S United States of America, the Declaration of Independence of the, xxiii., xxiv. Utrecht, Peace of, xx. j Vaal (colony), xxxv. Van Diemen's Land, discovery of, 113 ; and convicts, 116 ; 319 tt. Vellore, 87 Venezuela, 309 Versailles, Treaty of, xxiii., 314 Victoria, Queen, xxx., 235 Victoria (Australia), gold mines of, 131-133 Virginia, settlement of, xiv.-xvii. ; description of, 33-34. 43. 49 ; tobacco in, 207 ». Virginia Company, xv. W Waimakariri River, 123 Wakefield, Edward Gil)l)on, xxxii. Wales, Prince of, 105 ! Wallace, William, 18S INDEX »37 1 Waller, Edmund, xix. Walsh, Colonel Hunt, 79 Ward, Colonel, 74 Washington, George, 176 Wellington, Duke of, 91 Whiddon, Captain, ao, 33 William and Mary, xix. Willoughby of Parham, Lord, 43 : 313 n. Wills, William John, 1 14 ; 230 «. W'lson, Captain, 160 Winslow, Edward, oMiacl from, 14-16 ; 308 M. Witu, XXXV. Wodehousc, Sir I'hilii., 181 ; 223 «• Wolfe, General, xxii., 79; 317 «• Wordsworth,William, cxlracls from, 1 84-) {9; 323 w. Yarra Uivcr, lo3 Yellowstone I'ark, 134 /.anibcsi Expedition, 151, 152 Zambesi Falls, JS2-155; 2") «. Zambesi Kivcr, xxxv. /omba. Mount. 164 Zouga River, 140 THE tNU LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWIS ANU SONS, LiHI. O. STAMFORD STREET AMD CHARING CROSS. H By the Same Author A SCHOOL HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE Vol. I. — Chaucer to Marlowe. i.v. dd. Vol. II.— Shakespeare to Dryden. 2s. BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, Glasgow and London. " Excellent little volumes."— .4Mwcrttw. •« The work is exceedingly well Aonc.'^— Saturday Kcvir.c. "Miss Lee not only shows a remarkable grasp of her subject in its historical continuity as a whole, but also a mastery of details which bears witness to the breadth and depth of her study of the materials. Her style is attractive, clear, and unpretentious."— C^wM limes. COWPER: THE TASK, AND MINOR POEMS (Blackwoods* English Classics.) 2s. dd. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, Edinburgh and London. •'Miss Elizabeth Lee scores a distinct success with her edition of Cowper's 'Task, and Minor Poems.' Her Introduction is to the point, and none too long j her Notes arc apt and adequate."— O-Kan/wM. ♦• Both the Introduction and Notes arc admirable in their respective ways. . . . This edition can be safely recommended to all students of Cowper." — University Correspottdetit. .")