THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE 
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 7 i\tf-- 
 

 
 :- 
 
 i 
 

 
THE_LOST EMPIRES OF THE 
 MODERN WORLD 
 
 Essaps in Jmpenal HMstors 
 
 WALTER FREWEN LORD 
 
 5IONS OF EmJLAND ' 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' THE LOST POSSESSIONS 
 
 LONDON 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON 
 
 ^publishers in (Drbinarg to ^)cr ^ajcstg the 
 1897 
 
 \Allrigftti rescrveif] 
 
CONTENTS 
 I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY - I 
 
 II. 
 
 THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL - 27 
 
 III. 
 
 THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN - 95 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE - 171 
 
 V. 
 
 THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND - - 287 
 
 VI. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS - 331 
 
I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
[3] 
 
 I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE world is continually bein g reminded 
 that in the arts of empire the English are 
 mere plagiarists, stupid plagiarists who have 
 spoilt what they have stolen. They have 
 not, so it is affirmed, one single original or 
 admirable quality. They were not great 
 discoverers like the Portuguese, or a great 
 Christianizing power like the Spaniards. 
 They have not the art of conciliating natives 
 like the French, nor even of making them- 
 selves beloved by their own colonists. They 
 have not even the wits to make their empire 
 pay like the Dutch. They roll up, every- 
 where, mountains of debt ; they extort only 
 that they may squander. The single quality 
 that they possess in an abundant degree is 
 
4 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 neither rare nor original. Heavy blood- 
 suckers, they bestride the earth with their 
 so-called empire like a nightmare ; the world 
 would be a sweeter place to live in without 
 them ; the amount of damage they have 
 wrought is as wide as the realm that they 
 have filched from their betters with so much 
 violence and fraud. 
 
 These pleasantries, oft repeated, have 
 grown to have the weight of arguments ; 
 and, indeed, they form a very ingenious 
 substitute for argument. For, if one would 
 answer them, it can only be done at the ex- 
 pense of much time and labour. Either one 
 must travel and see for one's self whether 
 or no the British Empire deserves this heavy 
 indictment, or one must expend much time 
 in research at home, in order to judge 
 whether our predecessors and contempo- 
 raries merit such unqualified eulogium. Both 
 courses take time to pursue with any measure 
 of thoroughness, and travelling is not only a 
 long task, but a very expensive one. Yet 
 there are many English-speaking folk who 
 are genuinely unable to give in their adhesion 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 to the imperial idea, because their thoughts 
 are so constantly disturbed by reflections 
 like these ; and perhaps by even harsher 
 comments, to all of which they can get no 
 reply, except one that varies from the ' retort 
 courteous' to the 'lie direct.' 
 
 Neither the ' retort courteous ' nor the ' lie 
 direct ' affords comfort to a troubled con- 
 science ; it must have facts. It is not a 
 matter of very great difficulty to get at the 
 facts ; the requisite research, if wide, is not 
 profound, and can be compassed by any man 
 with a year's leisure at his disposal. But the 
 number of men so fortunately placed is small, 
 and most men with a year's leisure at their 
 disposal prefer to spend it otherwise than in 
 confuting, with so much labour, a trouble- 
 some political antagonist. Such men, we 
 reflect, can always be voted down, British 
 fashion, when the time comes ; and in the 
 meantime we may rest contented to differ 
 from them. 
 
 But the man with a troubled conscience is 
 not to be so put off; he is usually a man 
 without great means or leisure, but before he 
 
6 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 votes he will know whether he is justified in 
 voting. It is with a view to helping him to 
 decide whether or not the British Empire is 
 the thing of darkness that many would have 
 us believe it to be that the present imperfect 
 attempt at history is put forward. Four only 
 of our predecessors in empire have been 
 selected for study Portugal, Spain, France 
 and Holland. It may be well reasoned that 
 there are but four European nations who 
 have preceded us in this work ; for although 
 Genoa and Venice were mighty and wealthy 
 States, they hardly rose to the position of 
 what we understand to-day by an Empire. 
 They were, rather, highly successful and 
 sumptuous trading corporations. Their in- 
 difference to their neighbours was proverbial ; 
 and it was chiefly in consequence of her long- 
 pursued policy of selfish isolation that Venice, 
 when she fell, fell without a regret, and that 
 her fall so little disturbed the polity of Europe, 
 in spite of the fact that she had so long occu- 
 pied a conspicuous, and sometimes a com- 
 manding position. Extension of territory 
 was not much sought by these wealthy 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Republics ; and it is precisely extension of 
 territory extraordinary extension of territory 
 that is the great feature of all modern 
 empires. Beyond the great days of Genoa 
 and Venice we come to the Middle Ages, 
 linked by the holy Roman Empire to the 
 ancient world ; none of which epochs have 
 any lesson for the England of to-day. 
 
 The great extension of British territory 
 that is known as the British Empire has, of 
 course, largely been achieved at the expense 
 of her predecessors ; so that we shall have to 
 consider whether the authority to which we 
 have succeeded was more nobly exercised 
 than our own, and also whether we displaced 
 our predecessors in a manner so reprehensible 
 that no conscientious man can honestly desire 
 to see our empire endure any longer. Sup- 
 posing the verdict of history to be, on the 
 whole, in favour of England, we shall then 
 consider what lessons we may draw from the 
 efforts of our predecessors ; and how far a 
 contemplation of their successes and failures 
 may help us to consolidate our own power. 
 The first European Empire of the modern 
 
8 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 world in point of time was that of Portugal : 
 it is also the most interesting. It was, 
 almost exclusively, the handiwork of the 
 Portuguese monarchs : in fact, we may say 
 that the history of Portugal is the history of 
 its kings. They were very wise kings, and 
 the world was better for their work. There 
 came a time, however, in the history of the 
 royal stock, when the statesman merged in 
 the fanatic. The change coincided with a 
 critical period in the history of the empire, 
 and proved to be an additional and most 
 dangerous source of weakness. The collapse 
 of Portugal followed with extraordinary 
 rapidity, and she has never recovered her 
 old position. Her former empire included 
 what is now the Republic of Brazil and the 
 Dutch East Indies ; but what remains is still 
 large enough to be called a Colonial Empire, 
 and the question whether it is good for the 
 world that that empire should grow and 
 prosper must be answered in the affirma- 
 tive. 
 
 With the exception of their religious 
 fanaticism (and one must admit that that is 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 a large exception) the Portuguese Empire 
 was a clear gain to the world. It would be 
 most desirable, in the interests of humanity, 
 that the Portuguese should successfully 
 develop their empire. There is not much 
 room for further expansion either in India 
 or Africa ; but there is abundant room for 
 development. On whatever lines that de- 
 velopment took place, it would result in a 
 realm of a very different type from any other 
 now struggling to life in Africa ; and that 
 would be highly advantageous. Variety of 
 excellence is more and more needed every 
 day as the world is gradually overrun by 
 mankind. 
 
 A revived Portuguese Empire is only a 
 possible event if the Portuguese can make 
 up their minds to follow their King. That 
 is the plain lesson of history. As for sup- 
 posing that there is any particular virtue in, 
 for example, a republican form of govern- 
 ment, that endows it with greater expansive 
 force than it can hope to acquire while 
 trammelled with the form of a monarchy, 
 that is a mere figment of the historical 
 
theorist. Nor, seeing how serious are the 
 troubles that follow a change of government, 
 is it any longer honest to urge the experi- 
 ment. The plain truth is, that what we call 
 representative government suits England to 
 perfection ; and in a modified degree it suits 
 some countries that are akin to us in blood. 
 But it is startling to see how easily the 
 machinery is thrown out of gear ; and in 
 Latin countries it has proved only a very 
 moderate success. The East abhors it ; and 
 when we come to a Latin country in no 
 small degree orientalized by infusions of 
 Eastern blood, we are not surprised to find 
 that it is practically a failure. 
 
 These are general reflections, and in the 
 particular example of Portugal, history shows 
 us that the country has really no chance of 
 future greatness except from trusting itself 
 to a leader. Fate has been kind to the 
 country and has given her a King, who, in 
 all human probability, ought to reign for 
 another fifty years ; if Portugal is to be 
 mighty again, he must rule as well as reign. 
 That is the simple issue before the Portuguese 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 people. If they are contented with things as 
 they are, it is well ; but if they would have 
 an empire, it is their King, and their King 
 only, who can make it for them. 
 
 The extent of territory that was once 
 Portuguese and is now English is very 
 small. All the Eastern Archipelago went 
 to the Dutch ; but Ceylon was once Portu- 
 guese ; although, inasmuch as it had been 
 Dutch for many generations before we 
 captured it, there is no reason to count it 
 as a Portuguese colony lost to England. 
 Goa, Diu and Daman we, might have had 
 over and over again had we chosen. They 
 still remain Portuguese, and it is to be hoped 
 that they will grow in wealth and strength. 
 Why they are not English will be variously 
 explained. Some will venture to assert that 
 it is from the courtesy of the strong towards 
 a temporarily enfeebled neighbour. Others 
 will say that it is from obedience to some 
 dark and cruel policy, the full iniquity of 
 which has not yet been disclosed. 
 
 As regards our future relations, there is no 
 reason why they should not be friendly, and 
 
 2 
 
12 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 even intimately friendly. Portugal has no 
 grudges against England ; England has no 
 reason to be otherwise than sincerely glad 
 at any change for the better in the outlook 
 for Portugal. We are old allies by policy, 
 and old connections by blood. What is 
 often quoted as a drawback to the advance 
 of Portugal, the infusion of foreign blood, is 
 surely considering the climates and the 
 countries where her work must be carried 
 on an advantage ; and no inconsiderable 
 one. Whether Portugal will seize her 
 opportunity is one of the most interesting 
 problems of the day. 
 
 If Portugal has no reason to owe England 
 a grudge, Spain has even some reason to 
 exult over her. For if we have taken 
 nothing from Portugal, we made two grand 
 conquests, not to mention Gibraltar, from 
 Spain Cuba and the Philippines and 
 were compelled to restore them both under 
 circumstances that must always be a source 
 of pride to Spain rather than of discomfiture. 
 There is, therefore, no reason why, in the 
 future, we should not be as friendly with 
 
INTRODUCTORY 13 
 
 Spain as with Portugal ; our present interests 
 do not clash, and there are no grounds for 
 bitter feeling arising from past history. 
 Before we quit this part of our subject, we 
 must recall for a moment the Peninsular 
 War. Surely, if ever one nation laid another 
 under an obligation, England was, at the 
 commencement of the century, in that position 
 towards Spain and Portugal. 
 
 We now come to the question whether the 
 Empire of Spain was a blessing or a curse to 
 the world. It required for its foundation the 
 mutilation of two great peoples, and the total 
 obliteration of two highly interesting civiliza- 
 tions. This is an unpromising beginning ; 
 but it is usually excused on the ground that 
 Spain converted her American subjects to 
 Christianity. This, certainly, is an excuse 
 that no Christian will undervalue. It de- 
 mands a closer study of the history of the 
 conquest ; and, unfortunately, the more 
 closely we examine it, the more deplorable 
 it looks. Whether is the better, we ask 
 ourselves, to be a pagan like the Inca, or to 
 be a lamentable wretch of a Christian like 
 
 2 2 
 
14 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Pizarro ? These mountains of corpses, these 
 rivers of gore, are they, in very truth, fitting 
 witnesses of the faith in whose name the 
 mass is daily lifted heavenward, and the 
 calvary stands by the roadside ? 
 
 On the less debatable ground of political 
 advantage we may perhaps find the justifi- 
 cation of the conquest. Unfortunately the 
 case is even clearer. Spanish South America 
 is a by-word in modern times for disorder ; 
 and the nightmare of Spanish dominion lasted 
 for three hundred years. If we inquire why 
 it fell, the answer is, that it is a marvel that 
 it endured as long as it did ; for there really 
 was no reason why it should stand. It had 
 no cohesive force, and no principle of life. 
 It was held together by sheer terror, by the 
 menace of a relentless despotism acting from 
 a vast distance over seas. 
 
 We must admit that the work of the 
 conquest was done thoroughly : the terror- 
 izing was complete. For Spain was in 
 complete decadence for fully a century and 
 a half before her dependencies dreamed of 
 throwing off their allegiance ; so fearful had 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 been the lessons of the conquest. It appears, 
 however, to be impossible to extirpate a 
 breed of the force of the ancient Mexicans 
 and Peruvians. 
 
 After two generations of disorder, some- 
 thing like settled government is now return- 
 ing to South and Central America ; the 
 inspiration of which (in so far as can be seen 
 with any degree of clearness through such a 
 tangle) is chiefly Indian. But, however that 
 may be, it seems abundantly clear that from 
 the date of the conquest down to the revolt 
 of the Spanish Colonies, there was no pro- 
 gress whatever made on the South American 
 Continent ; so that the net result of the 
 Spanish Empire was to retard a continent 
 for three centuries. As a set-off, the conti- 
 nent is, nominally at least, and perhaps more 
 than nominally, Christian. If that be all in 
 all, the claim of Spain as a civilizing power 
 must rank very high ; if there be any other 
 duties that a nation has, then Spain must be 
 confessed to have failed in all of them. 
 
 In effect, Spain was an Asiatic power of 
 the old conquering, exterminating type. In 
 
t6 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 all essential features of conduct there is 
 nothing whatever to distinguish the Con- 
 quistadores from those numerous chieftains 
 of Central Asia who have, throughout long 
 centuries, gone forth from their highlands 
 and steppes conquering and to conquer. 
 Through seas of blood they waded to the 
 domination of the gentler races of the South. 
 Tartars and Seljuks and Moguls and Turks 
 and Afghans have all founded, and in the 
 ages to come, perhaps, many other races may 
 found again, empires of the Spanish type. 
 It is idle to assert that Spain should be 
 marked off from these peoples by reason of 
 her religion. Granted that the Spanish is 
 religious, so is the Turk, deeply, fanatically 
 religious. His revelation is different, but 
 his spirit is the same. 
 
 It is a far cry from Baghdad to Lima, 
 quite as far as from London to Calcutta ; 
 nevertheless, that is the track by which the 
 East invaded the West, and even the Far 
 West. The spirit of the Orient, sweeping 
 along the north of Africa, desolating the 
 churches on its way, crossed the narrow 
 
INTRODUCTORY 17 
 
 straits and entered Spain. After a conflict 
 of many centuries, it was apparently expelled ; 
 but far from being thrust back into Africa, it 
 had entered into the very soul of the Spaniard. 
 Crossing the Atlantic, though by now it had 
 changed its name and called itself Christian, 
 it fell on the fair pagan dominions of America, 
 as of old it had fallen on Persia and Meso- 
 potamia, and repeated in Mexico the abomi- 
 nations of Tamerlane on the Tigris. 
 
 This is the grand invasion of the West by 
 the East ; just as the British Empire is the 
 grand invasion of the East by the West. 
 This is the broad distinction between 
 Portugal and England on the one hand, 
 and Spain on the other. Portugal (though 
 sadly shorn of her glory) and England (still 
 in the full tide of success) are of the West ; 
 Spain is of the East. 
 
 We now come to the lost Empire of 
 France, which, in its potentialities, actually 
 makes up the greater part of the British 
 Empire ; and we must not suppose that 
 France will ever forgive us for having taken 
 it away. There is, however, this reservation 
 
1 8 LOST EMPIRES OF THE-MODERN WORLD 
 
 to be made, that the Colonial Empire of 
 France was not a great national movement, 
 so perhaps the resentment against England 
 for its loss will not be either national or 
 enduring ; but that is rather a hope than a 
 conviction. Still there remains the fact that 
 in the past, as in the present, it is to the 
 intelligence and the imagination of a few 
 highly-placed men that France owed and 
 owes her Colonial Empire ; not to the eager 
 rush of her sons to the uttermost parts of 
 the earth. The sense of grandeur was 
 perhaps, to a certain extent, national ; but 
 the loss and disappointment certainly were 
 not. 
 
 The question of the capacity of France for 
 colonizing is one of the extremest complexity. 
 It seems hardly conceivable that a nation 
 capable of so many and varied achievements 
 should really be unable to colonize ; and yet 
 something like that conclusion is forced upon 
 us by history. By slow degrees, and with 
 infinite nursing, the French did indeed found 
 one considerable colony of their own blood 
 on the Saint Lawrence. All their other 
 
INTRODUCTORY 19 
 
 settlements outside France seem to have a 
 certain flavour of artificiality. Even Canada 
 is not a settlement of such freshness or 
 distinctiveness as to make us feel that the 
 world has suffered a loss in the check that 
 French colonization received from England. 
 When we come to empires founded on the 
 domination of other races, the case is even 
 stronger. 
 
 In days gone by, the French were con- 
 spicuous for the affection that they inspired 
 in native races. It was the great distinction 
 that marked them off from the English. 
 The position appears to be reversed to-day. 
 
 None the less is France determined to 
 persevere. Like England, she has lost one 
 empire only to found another. England 
 lost her American Colonies ; but Australia, 
 New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa, and 
 immense extensions in India, have far more 
 than made up for that great loss. France 
 lost Canada and the nascent Empire of 
 India; she has, since the commencement of 
 this century, acquired an immense territory 
 in South Eastern Asia, another in Northern 
 
20 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Africa, another (which she hopes to unite to 
 the first) in Western Africa, and quite 
 recently the most important island of Mada- 
 gascar. This is surely a mark of the most 
 exuberant vitality. But it is even more 
 astounding when we reflect that she is at 
 the same time facing the greatest naval 
 power on sea and the greatest military power 
 on land ; while bearing the burden of a 
 national debt twice the size of that of 
 England. 
 
 France has so often astonished the world 
 that she may well do so again. But to face 
 England and the Continent together proved 
 to be too much for her in the days of Louis 
 the Great, and too much for her again in the 
 days of Napoleon the Great. To that task 
 she has added to-day the burden of an 
 immense empire over-seas. There are set- 
 offs, assuredly ; but the task is Titanic, 
 nevertheless. The work of England is 
 comparatively light. 
 
 If it be to the world's advantage that each 
 nation should attain to its highest point of 
 development, thus presenting to all other 
 
INTR OD UCTOR Y 2 1 
 
 peoples the stimulating spectacle of great 
 varieties of excellence, it is much to be 
 regretted that so much of the former colonial 
 Empire of France should have merged in 
 that of England. The world would appear 
 to have lost much in not possessing some 
 realm outside France where Frenchmen have 
 stamped the genius of their country on a 
 new soil, and under new conditions. 
 
 But the idea of the loss is quite illusory ; 
 for, as a matter of history, France has never 
 put her soul into her colonial enterprises, 
 nor is she doing so to-day. Frenchmen are 
 far too happy and contented in their own 
 enchanting country to travel far afield. The 
 grave and absorbing work of empire-making 
 is irksome to a people so home-loving and 
 affectionate. So, while the voice of ambition 
 fitfully urges Frenchmen on to settle abroad, 
 the voice of France is ever calling them 
 home. 
 
 Although we can hardly expect French- 
 men to admit it, that kind of empire that 
 most attracts them the exercise of dominion 
 over native kings and races is what they 
 
22 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 appear to be even less suited for than 
 colonizing by settlement. Egypt is the most 
 complete demonstration of this position. 
 The work was done, with the exception of 
 the last touch. True, a minister hung back ; 
 but what of that ? English ministers are 
 always hanging back. It is not by one, 
 or by a hundred incapable ministers and 
 England has had quite that number in her 
 time that a race is to be kept back that 
 has empire in its blood. 
 
 So, though we may trace the loss of the 
 French -Indian Empire to this source or the 
 other, the teaching of history is very plain, 
 that even if it had been safely founded, it 
 could not have endured for long ; and the 
 probability is that it would eventually have 
 become English in spite of the delay of a 
 century, or perhaps a little more. 
 
 We now come to the last of our great 
 predecessors Holland, and we must draw 
 a great distinction between the Dutchman 
 at home and the Dutchman abroad, between 
 Hollanders founding their independence and 
 Hollanders founding their empire. The 
 
INTRODUCTORY 23 
 
 revolt of Holland against Spain is almost, 
 if not quite, the noblest episode of modern 
 history. It is largely to Holland that we 
 of the North owe it that for three hundred 
 years the desolating breath of Spanish tyranny 
 has not come nigh our shores. 
 
 The Dutchman's protest in favour of civil 
 and religious liberty is immortal, and until, 
 as may duly happen in the course of 
 centuries, the present stage of the world's 
 civilization comes to its close, Holland must 
 hold the first place among the liberators of 
 the world. It is the more strange that a 
 nation of such exalted patriotism, such 
 warmth of religious feeling, and such a 
 keen sense of justice, should display so little 
 nobility when she enters on her grand period. 
 
 It was not that Holland was bloodthirsty ; 
 far, very far indeed, was Holland from 
 that offence. It was simply that Holland 
 ' sweated,' in the modern phrase, her depen- 
 dencies. She set to work as if saying, 
 ' Hollanders have had a hard life at home ; 
 they shall have an easy life now.' Her 
 religious feelings do not seem to have re- 
 
24 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 strained her from exploiting her Eastern 
 subjects to the fullest possible extent. Rather, 
 they seem to have stimulated her in carrying 
 on her oppressions. The fierce old Hebrew 
 sentiment ' The Lord hath delivered them 
 into our hands ' exactly describes her attitude. 
 She ' worked them for all they were worth.' 
 
 Without employing this shop-keeping ex- 
 pression it is difficult to exactly describe 
 how entirely the Dutch looked on their vast 
 empire as a commercial enterprise. There 
 was no question of raising the natives in 
 material comfort or intellectual calibre ; their 
 sole reason for existing was that they might 
 make fat fortunes for Dutchmen : so long as 
 they were alive they could contribute to that 
 end, and there was no other end to which 
 they could contribute no other end, at any 
 rate, that a Dutchman cared to recognize. 
 
 The rebellion against Spain was the 
 Dutchman's work ; the founding of the 
 empire was his pleasure ; the Dutchman 
 was grim in his pleasure. Holland, the 
 noble little country, is, and must be for 
 ever, a beacon to all who seek light for 
 
INTRODUCTORY 25 
 
 noble aim and noble endeavour ; but the 
 Dutch Empire, whatever it may be now, 
 was an abominable exhibition of selfishness. 
 
 So, to return to the considerations with 
 which this chapter commenced, the con- 
 scientious hesitator may surely take comfort 
 from the contemplation of the lost empires 
 that have preceded our own. The empire 
 most like our own was that of Portugal ; its 
 downfall is to be deplored, and its revival 
 hoped for. That of Spain was simply 
 Asiatic, a mighty offshoot of the Orient, 
 stretching out even across the Atlantic. It 
 has fallen, as all Oriental empires fall, never 
 to rise again. Other States may build on its 
 ruins, but when once the flame has burnt 
 out, there is no rekindling the ashes. Both 
 these two were national enterprises, the one 
 breathing the West, the other the East. 
 But the lost empire of France was not a 
 national enterprise ; nor is the modern 
 empire of France. Both, though mighty 
 in extent, were of comparatively feeble 
 vitality. They certainly were not of any 
 damage to the cause of progress, but they, 
 
26 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 equally certainly, have not much inspiring 
 force, being but artificial creations themselves. 
 
 The empire of Holland, though called an 
 empire, was simply an immense commercial 
 enterprise. It was conducted on the strictest, 
 and even the sharpest, business principles. 
 The vast enrichment of Hollanders is, no 
 doubt, an agreeable result for Holland, but 
 the process is not interesting or elevating to 
 onlookers, and the means by which it was 
 attained are generally condemned by all 
 conscientious hesitators, being precisely those 
 which England is most constantly and unfairly 
 accused of employing. 
 
 Assuredly the British Empire is not perfect 
 nobody but a ' Jingo ' would pretend that it 
 was. But its existence is, on the whole, an 
 advantage to the world, and it is far in 
 advance of any of its predecessors, from 
 whatever point of view we consider it. If 
 it has benefited or enriched Englishmen, it 
 has also benefited and enriched the men of 
 other nations, and if it is ever to close its 
 doors to them it will only be under foreign 
 compulsion that it will do so. 
 
II. 
 
 THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL. 
 
[2 9 ] 
 
 II. 
 
 THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL. 
 
 M. DE CHAMFORT relates that when the 
 English Ambassador at Lisbon was asked 
 what was the difference between a Spaniard 
 and a Portuguese, he replied, 4 If you take 
 away all a Spaniard's good qualities, what is 
 left is a Portuguese.' 
 
 M. de Chamfort was a professional collector 
 of good stories ; and, of course, it was not to 
 be expected that he should give up such a 
 good illustration of British insolence from 
 
 o 
 
 any pedantic scruples as to whether it was 
 likely to be true or not. So he duly en- 
 shrined it in his collection : and the fable 
 has no doubt contributed not a little towards 
 the unfavourable view of the English char- 
 acter that prevails on the Continent. 
 
 32 
 
30 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 But if the anecdote is a fable as it almost 
 certainly must be the question is pertinent ; 
 and if the fable could ever have been nar- 
 rated with anything approaching a semblance 
 of truth, it was during the eighteenth century, 
 the period to which Chamfort ascribes it, 
 and at which date the Portuguese Monarchy 
 touched its lowest point of feebleness. But 
 the Portuguese Monarchy is a good deal 
 older than the eighteenth century, and has 
 a history of such not merely comparative, 
 but absolute, grandeur and heroism that a 
 mere moment of degradation such as a 
 generation or so of time in a life centuries 
 long may be made the occasion of a feeble 
 joke, but cannot be made anything else if 
 we are attempting to estimate a nation's 
 qualities. 
 
 The men of our generation have no good 
 reason to speak with respect of Portugal, 
 unless they are members of the very small 
 class of historical students. This is a com- 
 mercial age : and Portugal has no claims to 
 consideration on account of her commercial 
 achievements, for she is chronically bankrupt. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 31 
 
 Fighting has been always in fashion, but 
 Portugal has done no fighting since the 
 Peninsular War, where she certainly dis- 
 tinguished herself highly ; but the over- 
 shadowing greatness of the Duke of Wel- 
 lington has made us forget her achievements, 
 although the Duke himself always did justice 
 to them. This is an age in which every 
 country prides itself on its internal adminis- 
 tration and the security afforded to travellers, 
 and Portugal, unfortunately, is not remarkable 
 for either. 
 
 There is no surer sign of a country's real 
 grandeur than a quick eye for great char- 
 acters. In days gone by Portugal was con- 
 spicuous among the nations for knowing a 
 great man when she saw one. It was not 
 only that she did honour to her own great 
 men (of whom she had a plentiful crop) ; not 
 content with them, she welcomed with open 
 arms the eager spirits of other nations who 
 came to cast in their lot with hers. 
 
 No nation can long remain in this state of 
 noble enthusiasm, so we need not inquire 
 why Portugal no longer attracts and retains 
 
32 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 the services of accomplished foreigners. 
 Such wide sympathies so widely indulged in 
 make rare moments of grandeur in a nation's 
 history. 
 
 But where are the great men of Portugal's 
 own breeding to-day the soldiers, above 
 all, the colonial administrators ? Such men 
 there still must be in that land of heroic 
 memories, and one very great man, at least, 
 we know that there is. Inasmuch as in 
 Portugal the destiny of the throne and the 
 destiny of the people are one, we must, even 
 at the risk of impertinence, recall the history 
 of the years 1889 to 1897. The spirit of 
 Henry the Navigator and John the Perfect 
 is still there to guide the Portuguese if they 
 have not yet quite lost their old infallible 
 instinct for great men. Never had Portugal 
 greater need of that instinct ; let her look 
 overseas. The Empire of Brazil has fallen ; 
 and the miserable Government that succeeded 
 it has become a mere derelict, dangerous to 
 
 O 
 
 others, incapable of directing itself. As to 
 ' golden Goa,' let anyone who has sailed from 
 Bombay down the western coast of India 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 33 
 
 remember what ' golden Goa ' was like or 
 even Panjim and he will need a stronger 
 dose of historic imagination than most men 
 possess to enable him to realize that Portugal 
 was once mighty and may yet be mighty 
 again. 
 
 Of all the lost empires, that of Portugal 
 is the most interesting, and the most fruitful 
 in lessons to existing empires. And this 
 not only because it was romantic to an un- 
 paralleled degree, but because in the con- 
 ditions of its rise and its prosperity it more 
 exactly resembles the British Empire than 
 any other of the lost empires of history ; and 
 Englishmen, who seemingly know so well 
 how to found empires, may, by studying the 
 lost empire of Portugal, learn how best to 
 avoid losing them. It is not much in the 
 Englishman's way to learn from reading he 
 learns from experience mostly ; but we cannot 
 afford to learn from experience how empires 
 are lost, so, if we would know, we must needs 
 learn from history. 
 
 It seems to be the destiny of small king- 
 doms adjacent to mighty neighbours to be ab- 
 
34 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 sorbed in the territory of the latter. Scotland 
 merged in England, Burgundy in France 
 of late the process has gone on with extra- 
 ordinary rapidity, and famous States and 
 Monarchies have been absorbed by the dozen 
 to make up the great empire of Germany, 
 and, as some may think, the essentially 
 greater kingdom of Italy. How comes it 
 that Portugal remains independent of Spain ? 
 Unless as men are only too apt to do we 
 hastily and superficially conclude that both 
 Spaniard and Portuguese are worthless and 
 worn-out types, and that Portugal is only not 
 absorbed by Spain either because she is not 
 worth absorbing, or because Spain has not 
 the requisite strength or ambition unless we 
 are content with this entirely erroneous view, 
 we shall have to conclude that some con- 
 siderable difference between the two types 
 does exist, and that the Portuguese has a 
 native sturdiness that we have overlooked. 
 This, or something like this, is the view that 
 history leads us to. To appreciate the 
 mighty Portuguese Empire, how it arose, and 
 the forces that could overcrow its vigour, 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 35, 
 
 and produce its decline, we must perforce 
 trace the Portuguese race to its source. 
 
 Portugal has no natural boundaries, like 
 the Rhine, the Alps, or the Pyrenees, that 
 seem to mark off certain territories for the 
 habitat of different races. Everything was 
 against the probability of a separate kingdom 
 being carved out of the western portion of 
 the peninsula ; and the distinctive national 
 existence of Portugal, as well as her subse- 
 quent expansion into an empire, is due to 
 two causes : firstly, the vigour and sagacity 
 of her rulers, whether as kings, or, later 
 on, as emperors, in all but the name ; and, 
 secondly, the courage and tenacity of the 
 people. So we come back to the question, 
 What was the Portuguese people ? 
 
 Without exhausting the subject, we may 
 say that it was an amalgam of a pre-historic 
 tribe and some Celtic invaders, strongly 
 coloured with Roman influence and Latin 
 blood, and overlaid by Visigoth. 
 
 So far, there is not much to distinguish the 
 Portuguese from the early Briton ; and the 
 reproach if it be a reproach of ' mongrel/ 
 
36 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 which is freely levelled at the Portuguese by 
 undiscerning critics, is perhaps less applicable 
 to this race than to any other of the Aryan 
 races of Europe. In the mouth of an English- 
 man, who is probably the greatest mongrel 
 of Europe, and therefore the most successful 
 of modern types, the epithet is particularly 
 absurd. The difference between the British 
 and the Portuguese type at the end of the 
 fifth century A.D. probably amounted to this : 
 that in Portugal the Roman element was the 
 stronger, whereas in England various other 
 invading strains combined with the native 
 breed to overpower the Roman stock. The 
 influence of the discipline of the Great 
 Republic was equally great on the minds 
 and habits of thought of the two peoples. 
 But in Portugal Rome, in addition, stamped 
 her impress on the language and the laws of 
 the people, so that the Portuguese definitely 
 entered the Latin family of nations while 
 England remained definitely outside. The 
 Phoenician colonies were never more than 
 trading settlements, either in the Scilly Isles 
 or at Carthagena, and, though there are 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 37 
 
 more traces of Phoenicia in Portugal than 
 in England, the sum total of Semitic in- 
 fluence was insignificant in either case. 
 
 When all is said, the Roman was a dull 
 fellow. He was brave, fierce even ; a good 
 soldier and, according to his lights, a good 
 citizen, if a coarse human being. But he 
 lacked fire. In the arts and in literature he 
 could only imitate ; in science he invented 
 nothing ; commerce he despised. He was 
 supreme in the one intellectual pursuit where 
 hard and commonplace minds do mostly 
 triumph the study and practice of law. 
 How comes it, then, that the Portuguese 
 up to the fifth century more Roman than 
 anything else distinguished himself in 
 history by deeds which transcended the 
 flights of the wildest imagination ? Whence 
 came the unrivalled tact with which he 
 founded and governed successfully, and 
 under the most varied conditions, empires 
 in Brazil and the Indies ? What turned 
 Lisbon into the commercial capital of Europe, 
 and produced the lofty literature of Camoens? 
 
 These are essentially romantic perform- 
 
38 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 ances, and, though we derive our word 
 ' romantic ' from the city on the Tiber, 
 romantic is the last thing in the world that 
 any Roman either was or desired to be. He 
 was of the earth, earthy. 
 
 The determining strain in the Portuguese 
 race the strain that decided its destiny 
 seems to have come from the desert. 
 
 The Saracens did not enter Portugal as 
 invaders ; they were invited over the Straits 
 to be the make-weight in a domestic quarrel. 
 But, once there, they founded kingdoms. 
 They were not ardent proselytizers, and they 
 took the greater hold of the country in con- 
 sequence. There were numerous converts 
 from Christianity to Islam, just as, later on, 
 the process was reversed. But it must be 
 confessed that the conversions to Islam have 
 more the external appearance of willing con- 
 versions than those from Islam to Christianity. 
 There were many of both kinds, throughout 
 centuries. The Saracens made good and 
 capable rulers ; they brought a high, if some- 
 what exotic, civilization with them ; they 
 were tolerant and sumptuous. Portugal 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 39 
 
 prospered under them, and the national char- 
 acter took a deep tinge of Saracenic culture 
 and ideas, not only from the natural impulse 
 to imitate and admire their rulers, but from 
 the influence, at once more direct, more subtle, 
 and more lasting, of constant intermarriage in 
 all ranks of life. 
 
 Extreme precocity, both intellectual and 
 physical, is the great feature of contrast 
 between East and West. When the star 
 of the East is in the ascendant, the results 
 of this precocity seem almost miraculous to 
 the Western mind. 
 
 The great Mussulman kingdom of Southern 
 India was founded by a slave in an oasis, 
 rose to a height of glory whose mere remains 
 are the wonder and delight of travellers, 
 decayed and fell into ruins all within the 
 period between Richard III. and James II. 
 The Saracen dominion in Africa and Spain 
 took somewhat longer to found and develop, 
 and its decline was more gradual ; perhaps 
 for these reasons its influence persisted 
 longer. 
 
 When the grasp of the Caliphate was re- 
 
40 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 laxed, the Emirs of Portugal proclaimed 
 themselves independent, and became, in 
 their castles, in no way different, except in 
 religion, from the Christian chiefs in their 
 castles. Except in religion there lay all 
 the difference. That was an age of religious 
 wars, and it was not to be expected that 
 Moslem noble and Christian noble would 
 settle down side by side, content with no 
 more and no greater excitement than an 
 occasional raid on each other's territory 
 afforded. Had they been so easily satisfied, 
 the civilization of Portugal would have de- 
 veloped on all fours with the civilization of 
 Northern Italy the Italy of the Montagus 
 and Capulets, of Sforzas and Viscontis it 
 might have been as great, but it would have 
 been no greater. 
 
 But Europe was aflame with religious, or 
 pseudo-religious, zeal ; and the chieftains of 
 Portugal were soon arrayed, not, as every- 
 where else, each man against his neigh- 
 bour, but Christian against Moslem. It was 
 an age of knight-errantry. From all over 
 Northern Europe came knight adventurers, 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 41 
 
 with their trains of followers, great and small, 
 to aid in the Holy War ; and when the 
 struggle was over, and the Portuguese 
 people, burnt and hammered into unity, 
 stood before the world as a nation, a new 
 and valuable stock of Northern blood had 
 found its way into the national amalgam. 
 
 The ultimate fate of Islam is made the 
 subject of many facile speculations. It is 
 customary to speak of the faith as ' decadent.' 
 It is true that since the Turks were driven 
 from the gates of Vienna the boundaries of 
 Mussulman kingdoms have everywhere re- 
 ceded. Turkey in Europe has dwindled 
 to one-sixth of her size at the commencement 
 of this century. Her former fiefs along the 
 southern shore of the Mediterranean have 
 mostly fallen under Christian domination. 
 Persia has grievously dwindled in power 
 and population. 
 
 All this no doubt represents a period of 
 serious retrogression that has already endured 
 for two centuries. And as faith and conquest 
 are closely allied in the creed of Islam, the 
 waning of faith is followed by a more plain 
 
42 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 diminution of temporal authority than would 
 attend a similar lukewarmness among Chris- 
 tians. Probably the present languor of Islam 
 is not greater than the languor of Christi- 
 anity in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries, and against this languor we have 
 to set two great facts. The first is the 
 rapid and steady progress made by Islam in 
 Central and Western Africa, where Mussul- 
 man missionaries are yearly gaining over 
 whole tribes of excellent fighting material 
 to the creed of Mahomet. The second is 
 the Mahdist revolt in Eastern Africa. By 
 the efforts of England this revolt has now 
 been rounded off into an episode. But the 
 rise of the Mahdi was exactly one of those 
 volcanic movements which have before now 
 changed the face of continents, and may do 
 so again. Undoubtedly, if it had not been 
 for England, the Mahdi would have overrun 
 Egypt, Turkey in Asia, and even if he had 
 been turned back from Constantinople his 
 government might have had an indefinite 
 expansion into Central Asia. It was from 
 -one of these outbursts of heroic endeavour, 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 43 
 
 and the answering exaltation called forth 
 from Christendom, that the kingdom of 
 Portugal was born. 
 
 When William of Normandy was parcel- 
 ling England among his knights, the Por- 
 tuguese tribes, a sturdy remnant, were 
 struggling for dear life against the Moslem, 
 and bravely holding their own in the northern 
 provinces of what we now call Portugal. 
 Their feeble ones had long since been 
 weeded out by war, and much of their 
 country depopulated. Those that remained 
 were hardy, simple folk, pious without 
 bigotry, excellent husbandmen, excellent 
 men of the chase, excellent warriors. 
 
 Besides this assemblage of native virtues, 
 they had drawn from the blood of their 
 enemies the seeds of an adventurous and 
 romantic temper. All that they needed to 
 mould them into a mighty nation was a 
 leader. He came to them from Northern 
 Europe : Henry, a Burgundian Crusader, 
 married to a daughter of their over-lord of 
 Gallicia, by whom he had a son, Affonso. 
 These were the first leaders of the Portu- 
 
 4 
 
44 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 guese, the moulders of their character on 
 national lines, the founders of their monarchy. 
 Count Henry brought the daring, restless 
 spirit of the Crusader ; his wife brought 
 personal charm and administrative ability ; 
 their son united their good qualities, and 
 founded the royal line of Portugal. 
 
 It is no part of our subject ' The Lost 
 Empire of Portugal ' to trace the further 
 history of the little State, for little in extent 
 of European territory it always remained. 
 But, accustomed as we are to see in the 
 Portugal of to-day a feeble and unsuccessful 
 people, and in their possessions overseas 
 unimportant posts, and territories hard to 
 keep and hardly worth the keeping, we 
 almost involuntarily ascribe to the Portugal 
 of other days the same or similar character- 
 istics. We are tempted to think that if 
 Portugal ever conquered it must have been 
 because their enemies were even feebler folk 
 than themselves. In short, we do not realize 
 the Portuguese Empire. The first step to 
 that desirable end is to realize the Portuguese 
 character as it was before it embarked on its 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 45 
 
 great enterprises, and to understand that 
 when the great age of Portugal began it 
 found a nation numerically small, but morally 
 and intellectually the first of its age, and 
 governed by a dynasty that produced fewer 
 incapable monarchs than any other seated 
 on the thrones of Europe. 
 
 Portugal, naturally enough, did not im- 
 mediately expand into an empire. Two 
 problems had to be solved at home first. 
 One was to make the kingdom of Castile 
 recognize that she could not have the whole 
 peninsula to herself ; the other was to con- 
 quer the Algarves from the Moors. Both 
 problems had to be solved by force of arms, 
 and took three centuries to settle. The 
 beginning of the fifteenth century found 
 England and Portugal t in close alliance. 
 King John, the first ruler of the house of 
 A viz, had married a daughter of John of 
 Gaunt. Naturally, his sympathies were 
 Lancastrian, and Henry IV., in return for 
 his prompt recognition by Portugal as King 
 of England, had made King John a Knight 
 of the Garter. It is agreeable and interesting 
 
 42 
 
46 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 to historic students to remember that King 
 Carlos of Portugal recently received the 
 Garter from his cousin, the Queen of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 These are not trifles ; or, if there be any 
 so dour-minded as to maintain that the orders 
 of knighthood are trifles, any student of 
 history will admit that they often furnish him 
 with valuable clues. One or other of the 
 orders has always had a certain pre-eminence, 
 so that to hold it is the natural incident to 
 the sovereignty of a great State, or a mark of 
 the highest personal distinction. At one 
 time one would have inquired, Has he the 
 Golden Fleece ? at another, Has he the 
 order of the Holy Ghost ? at another, Has 
 he the Garter ? 
 
 John the First was proud of his Blue 
 Ribbon. Definitely recognized, although 
 a bastard, as one of the great European 
 sovereigns, ruler of a compact nation, and 
 himself a man of great abilities, even King 
 John could have had no idea of the glory 
 that awaited his dynasty and his nation in 
 the course of the next century and a half. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 47 
 
 John was proud of his English alliance, 
 and named his eldest son Edward, after 
 Edward III. of England. All his sons were 
 brave and enterprising. Their model and 
 idol was their cousin Henry, the victor of 
 Agincourt. They were five most remarkable 
 princes : four were men of action, one 
 Henry a man of thought. 
 
 The eldest, Edward, pondered much over 
 his duties as king, and was, perhaps, led 
 astray by his desire to increase his own 
 authority when he succeeded to the crown. 
 Two of the others. Peter and Ferdinand, 
 were knights-errant of the Crusading type, 
 and their energies produced two great events : 
 one a triumph, the capture of Ceuta ; the 
 other a disaster, the miserable attack on 
 Tangier. But success and failure alike 
 stimulated the longing of the daring Portu- 
 guese for enterprise abroad, and fed the 
 enthusiasm on which Henry, the greatest of 
 them all, calculated. 
 
 Henry the Thinker he should have been 
 called. He is known as Henry the Navi- 
 gator, although he never made a sea voyage. 
 
48 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 In him the practical temper that he inherited 
 from his English mother was informed by 
 the resolute profundity which is characteristic 
 of southern types at their best. He saw, no 
 less than his father and his brothers, what a 
 mighty engine the Portuguese nation had 
 become. But he saw, what they did not see, 
 that the energies of Portugal would be far 
 more usefully employed in exploration and 
 discovery than in romantic endeavours to ex- 
 terminate Islam or to conquer Spain. Both 
 of these were hopelessly impossible tasks 
 and useless tasks. And yet, unless some 
 other outlet were found for the energy of 
 Portugal, it would most indubitably be 
 turned to one or both of these tasks, and 
 that at once. 
 
 He wasted no time on words. He lost no 
 time in pleasure or travel. He might have 
 loitered away his time agreeably enough, for 
 he would have been welcomed and feted 
 magnificently at all the courts of Europe, not 
 only for his father's sake, but for his own. 
 Instead, he settled down at Sagres, by Cape 
 St. Vincent, the southernmost point of 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 49 
 
 Portugal, where he could daily look out on 
 the sea that led to India. His local influence 
 was unbounded, for he was Governor of the 
 Algarves. Like his father and brothers, he 
 was a Knight of the Garter. His appoint- 
 ment to the Algarves dated from 1419, and 
 for forty-one years after that date, until his 
 death in 1460, he never ceased to direct the 
 expeditions that were fitted out under his 
 orders for the discovery of the route to India. 
 Forty years seems a long time, and when we 
 consider that he died forty years before the 
 route was discovered, we are at some loss 
 whether to marvel most at the Prince's 
 pertinacity or the sailors' courage. Without 
 charts, without soundings, ignorant alike of 
 the climate and of the ocean-currents with 
 which they would have to deal, they put 
 forth in open or half-decked boats into the 
 Unknown. 
 
 On their return they visited their Prince, 
 and told him what they had done. All were 
 welcomed and rewarded. If a man got no 
 further than his predecessors, his voyage at 
 any rate confirmed, perhaps corrected, the 
 
50 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 experience of others. Any new facts were 
 eagerly noted ; discoveries might even be 
 made, and perhaps earned for the daring 
 navigator the honour of knighthood from 
 Prince Henry's own hands an honour 
 coveted by all Europe. 
 
 At home the Prince planned and watched, 
 drew up charts, studied every possible im- 
 provement in boat-building or compass, inter- 
 viewed travellers, sought out daring sailors, 
 guided, comforted, controlled. Many men 
 thought him a dreamer, some even a danger- 
 ous dreamer. His own family, however, were 
 all-powerful, and if they did not support him 
 very eagerly, at any rate they took an 
 interest in his pursuits. If they could not 
 be entirely weaned from their dreams of 
 conquering Spain and Morocco, they, at any 
 rate, allowed the Prince to have his own 
 way, and gradually results were forthcoming. 
 
 Years passed by, and the steadfast Prince 
 continued collecting facts and travellers' tales, 
 and sending out new so-called ' expedi- 
 tions,' which only meant a handful of reso- 
 lute men in a boat about the size of a first- 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 51 
 
 "class Deal lugger, and nothing like so 
 seaworthy. So much of Africa was opened 
 up in this way that the route to India, from 
 being a personal hobby, grew to a provincial 
 and then to a national enterprise. The first 
 point that Prince Henry aimed at was the 
 discovery of a sea route to Senegambia, to 
 cut out the caravans that proceeded thither 
 from Tunis. This does not seem a very 
 considerable achievement, for Cape St. 
 Vincent is in N. Lat. 36 r , and Cape Verde 
 is in N. Lat. 12, but twenty-six years 
 passed before Nuno Tristam passed the 
 Senegal. 
 
 At first the grand object of all the sailors 
 employed by Prince Henry was to round 
 Cape Bojador, and fifteen years must pass 
 before even this modest addition could be 
 made to the geography of Western Africa. 
 But they began well, for in the year after 
 Prince Henry was appointed Governor of 
 the Algarves, his men made the important 
 discovery of the island of Madeira. Then 
 came nothing but disappointment after dis- 
 appointment. The most that his men could 
 
$2 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 do was to reach one or another of the Canary 
 Islands, and Cape Bojador still remained 
 a forbidding, almost a legendary, promon- 
 tory. 
 
 At last, in 1434, it was re-discovered and 
 doubled. The next year they sailed 150 
 miles further; in 1436 210 miles further 
 still, landed, and (for the first time) cast 
 anchor, and essayed to gain the interior and 
 find the trade routes ; but that had to be 
 given up after some skirmishing with the 
 natives. So far, the Prince's work had gone 
 on with very little interruption, but about 
 this time the Tangier expedition was 
 planned. Prince Henry made no remon- 
 strances, or very few. In truth, achieve- 
 ments in his own line of exploration had 
 hitherto been but unimportant. For seven- 
 teen years of work and thought he had 
 nothing to show that would dazzle or con- 
 vince the world. The first captains whom 
 he had sent to sea were already grizzled 
 veterans, if they were not dead, and the sea 
 route to India was still a dream, a hobby of 
 his Highness's, and not to be compared with 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 53 
 
 the excitement of a campaign in Morocco. 
 But, as soon as the war-fever had been 
 stilled by copious blood-letting, and the 
 Portuguese, appalled at the fearful disaster, 
 were mourning the loss of their beloved 
 Prince Ferdinand, left a captive with the 
 Moors, the steadfast Prince Henry resumed 
 his labours, and in 1441 Tristam made the 
 important discovery of Cape Blanco. Two 
 years later Nuno Tristam sailed twenty-five 
 miles further south. 
 
 In 1445 the Prince resolved on a bold 
 stroke. He entrusted a larger expedition 
 than usual to Gonsalo de Cintra, with orders 
 to proceed straight to Guinea without putting 
 in. The expedition was a complete failure ; 
 but another, under Nuno Tristam, succeeded 
 in the comparatively humble attempt to pass 
 the Senegal. The next year Diniz Diaz, 
 greatly daring, never struck sail till he had 
 passed the Senegal. When he landed he 
 found that the native type had changed ; 
 they were no longer the Moors that he and 
 his were accustomed to fight and trade with. 
 
 o 
 
 He had made a great discovery, for he had 
 
54 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 entered the land of the negroes. He dis- 
 covered Cape Verde. There was, by this 
 time, a keen rivalry among all the captains 
 of Portugal for who should get furthest and 
 deserve best of his Prince. In the same year 
 that Diaz rounded Cape Verde, Nuno 
 Tristam closed his last voyage with a 
 brilliant triumph, for he got 300 miles 
 further than Diaz, but was killed by a 
 poisoned arrow while attempting to ascend 
 the Rio Grande. In 1446, too, Alvaro 
 Fernandes outdid even Nuno Tristam, for 
 he nearly reached Sierra Leone. This was 
 the best year of Prince Henry's life. By 
 this date over fifty vessels had been on 
 voyages of exploration more or less im- 
 portant. Nearly a thousand natives from 
 different parts of the coast had been brought 
 back to Portugal. The nation was agog 
 with excitement and curiosity ; the ocean 
 had no more terrors for them. The im- 
 possible had already been overcome, the 
 realm of dreams lay open to them ; the great 
 Prince's work was done. He had paved the 
 way for the Portuguese Empire. He had 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 55 
 
 given the people a new ambition. To be 
 adventurers, navigators, explorers ; to open, 
 enjoy, and revel in the new worlds before 
 them this was the ambition of the 
 Portuguese. What was the ambition of the 
 Englishman or the Italian at the same 
 period ? 
 
 In 1460 Prince Henry died ; but Portugal 
 was now launched on the road to Empire. 
 His work is well estimated by the royal 
 order of 1469 granting privileges to Guinea 
 traders ; and in which it was made a 
 principal condition to the enjoyment of these 
 privileges that one hundred leagues of the 
 coast of Africa should be opened up every 
 year. Exploration was recognized by the 
 highest authority in the land as the manifest 
 duty and prerogative of the Portuguese. 
 Could any such order have emanated from 
 the Sovereign in the year when, after the 
 Ceuta expedition, Prince Henry was ap- 
 pointed Governor of the Algarves ? 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the 
 Portuguese could only grasp one idea at a 
 time ; or that they succeeded merely by 
 
56 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 dogged perseverance in one line of discovery. 
 A very versatile race was the Portuguese. 
 Their minds took new impressions quickly ; 
 their energy was almost inexhaustible, and it 
 was readily turned in a new direction when 
 old directions were clearly no longer profit- 
 able. Fortunately, the men at the helm 
 of the State were wise princes. Prince 
 Henry the Thinker was now indeed dead, 
 but his spirit lived. The direction of the 
 work of exploration remained in the hands 
 of the royal family, and in 1486 John the 
 Perfect sat on the throne of Portugal. It 
 was evident to him that although India 
 might eventually be reached round the south 
 of Africa it would take a very long time to 
 discover the route. Certainly that line of 
 discovery must be persevered in ; but it 
 would be better to start other lines as 
 well. 
 
 For a good many years past there had 
 been a revival of those early rumours con- 
 cerning the land of Prester John, which, by 
 all accounts was worth discovering. It was 
 now placed by common consent in Abyssinia, 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 57 
 
 and two expeditions were fitted out in 1486 
 with the object of getting there. The first, 
 with daring originality, was ordered to sail up 
 the Senegal to its source, evidently with the 
 idea that the source of the Senegal would 
 prove to be near enough to the boundaries of 
 Abyssinia for the expedition to make its way 
 on. The King's notion of direction was 
 correct enough ; but in point of distance he 
 was out about 3,000 miles ; so that this 
 expedition got nothing but the honour and 
 glory of being the first explorers of the 
 Senegal. 
 
 The other expedition, not less daringly 
 conceived, had momentous results. It was 
 directed to sail along the Mediterranean, and 
 then work overland to the Red Sea, and 
 thence to Suakim, where apparently the 
 explorers were to inquire their way. The 
 first expedition failed because the officers 
 composing it, not knowing Arabic, found that 
 it would be useless to proceed further. It 
 was followed by the expedition of Payva and 
 Covilham. They both died in Abyssinia, 
 which country was early reached by Affonso 
 
58 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 da Payva, who kept that one object steadily 
 in view from the outset of their joint expedi- 
 tion. Covilham himself heard rumours on 
 the way that showed him how much more 
 glorious discoveries lay before him if only he 
 could hold out. He reached Aden, where 
 his restless and adventurous mind was finally 
 made up by the news he heard of India. 
 He made an extraordinary voyage, reached 
 Cananore, on the Malabar coast, and saw 
 Calicut and Goa. On the African coast he 
 put in at Sofala. Here he heard about 
 Madagascar (called the Island of the Moon), 
 and also heard enough about the geography 
 of Africa south of Sofala to entitle him to 
 consider himself as the virtual discoverer of 
 the Cape route. 
 
 One would think that this was renown 
 enough for an ordinary man, but Covilham 
 was an adventurer of the most exalted type. 
 He made his way back to Cairo, and found 
 Payva's messengers, the survivors of his 
 expedition, without much difficulty. From 
 them he learnt that Payva had died in 
 Abyssinia, and had sent them to Cairo to 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 59 
 
 await Covilham, and return to Portugal with 
 him. This was all very well, but Covilham 
 had a mind to see Abyssinia for himself. 
 No doubt if he had been endowed with 
 a more Northern sense of duty, he would 
 have returned at once. Strictly speaking, 
 he ought to have done so, but perhaps he 
 thought that his message would atone for 
 some shortcomings. So he sent back the 
 survivors to Portugal with this message : 
 
 ' Let the Guinea explorers persevere, let 
 them sail ever South and fear not. When 
 the time came that they must needs follow 
 the land North, let them ask for Sofala and 
 the island of the Moon. Here they shall 
 find news of me ; and as I crossed from 
 India to Sofala, no doubt they will be able 
 to return from Sofala to India.' 
 
 So the message went home, and Covilham 
 turned back and started for Abyssinia. He 
 never returned to Portugal, but his fate was 
 not an unhappy one. At the capital of the 
 King he was received kindly. It was a 
 Christian country, and he settled there, 
 entered the King's service, and died what 
 
 5 
 
60 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 we might call Prime Minister of Abyssinia. 
 It is evident that in Covilham's nature there 
 was (and small blame to him) a deep vein 
 of personal ambition. True, he had dis- 
 obeyed his monarch in that, having dis- 
 covered Abyssinia, he did not return and 
 report his success, but he may have reflected 
 that the discovery of Abyssinia was, after all, 
 a trifling matter beside the discovery of 
 India ; and had he not sent home to his 
 Sovereign such information as was beyond 
 the wildest hopes of any who strove to make 
 the country mighty ? Might he not now 
 with justice profit himself? At any rate, he 
 did so, and ended at the court of Abyssinia a 
 life of wilder romance than an Arabian tale. 
 
 John the Perfect, in whom the spirit of 
 Henry the Thinker survived in all its force, 
 encouraged foreigners at his court or, 
 rather, it would be more accurate to say, he 
 encouraged talent. What he wanted was 
 ability, and if a man had brains, he need not 
 fear lack of employment because his father 
 had not been a Portuguese. 
 
 Cadamosto, a Venetian, had done much 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 61 
 
 good work for Prince Henry, and at the 
 court of King John (Prince Henry's grand- 
 nephew) there was often to be seen another 
 Italian a Genoese. It seems that he had a 
 new plan for reaching India. King John 
 liked new plans. He had a plan of his own 
 for reaching Cathay by the north of Europe, 
 in pursuance of which Martin Lopes dis- 
 covered Nova Zembla. He had another 
 plan for exploring Africa, in pursuance of 
 which his messengers succeeded in discover- 
 ing Timbuctoo. 
 
 We have seen how daringly he had 
 schemed to reach Abyssinia by sailing up 
 the Senegal, and by sailing down the Red 
 Sea, and we shall soon see how gloriously 
 his perseverance in despatching expeditions 
 down the coast of Africa was to be rewarded. 
 The Genoese may therefore have well 
 reckoned on a favourable reception of his 
 own plan for discovering India. The King 
 received him very kindly, for the man was 
 known as a daring fellow, who had already 
 made voyages down the Guinea Coast in 
 the Portuguese service. But as the plan 
 
 52 
 
62 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 was unfolded, the King became more and 
 more shy of committing himself to it. On 
 the difficulties of ocean-voyaging, and the 
 best way of adapting resources to over- 
 coming them, there was no greater authority 
 living than the King of Portugal. But there 
 were some points about this new plan which 
 the King could see no way to meeting, and 
 as to which the adventurer could offer no 
 opinion except his conviction that the thing 
 could be done. 
 
 The King made up his mind that the plan 
 was impracticable. Perhaps a certain ex- 
 altation of manner on the part of the 
 Genoese contributed to this unfavourable 
 view, for he was at last told that the King 
 had no time for dreamers, and the man left 
 the Portuguese court to carry his plan else- 
 where. His name was Christopher Colum- 
 bus. So it seems to have been written in 
 the book of Fate that Portugal was not to 
 have all the glory that the world had to 
 offer. But she already had much, and was 
 soon to have more. 
 
 One Diaz, of a race of sailors and adven- 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 63 
 
 turers, was fitted out in 1486 with two ships, 
 fairly large ones as ships went at that time 
 fifty tons apiece and despatched to the 
 Guinea Coast with orders (most sagacious 
 orders !) to put in at the different well-known 
 ports, and land at each one of them some of 
 the natives who had been carried to Portugal 
 from the coast of Africa by earlier expedi- 
 tions. These natives were to tell their own 
 tale of how they had been treated in 
 Portugal, and what the Portuguese nation 
 was like. 
 
 This most statesmanlike measure would 
 suffice, even if we had no other evidence, 
 to prove that the Portuguese possessed the 
 instinct of Empire. They knew that they 
 could only rule through the confidence felt 
 in them by their subjects, and they began 
 very early in their days of empire to win 
 that confidence. Diaz's stock of ambassa- 
 dors of goodwill was exhausted long before 
 he reached the Orange River. Here his 
 troubles began. He had to face the Un- 
 known, and in his little craft of fifty tons 
 was carried far south beyond the Cape into 
 
64 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 seas growing (to their alarm), not only 
 rougher, but every day colder. 
 
 At length the wind turned, and he beat 
 north, finally landing in Algoa Bay. He 
 had turned the Cape at last, but he had 
 turned the Cape without seeing it. At 
 Great Fish Bay his crew mutinied, and 
 compelled him to turn back. It was on his 
 return journey that he first saw Table 
 Mountain, christened by him, in memory of 
 his buffeting, the Cape of Storms, but ever 
 since known by the name bestowed on it by 
 his grateful King the Cape of Good Hope. 
 
 So it could be done. After seventy years 
 of thought and study and trial, seventy years' 
 application of the maxim of the great captain 
 who died four hundred years after him, 
 ' Erst wagen, dann wagen,' Diaz laid open 
 the route to the East. There was now no 
 doubt that the Indies could be reached round 
 the Cape, and ten years later this was 
 achieved. 
 
 One is so sated with wonders in reading 
 early Portuguese history that the famous 
 voyage of Vasco da Gama seems almost 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 65 
 
 commonplace. He left Portugal on July 8, 
 1497, in command of four vessels, the largest 
 being of 120 tons burden. He circum- 
 navigated Africa, and crossed the Indian 
 Ocean from Melind to Calicut, which place 
 he reached in May, 1498. From Great 
 Fish Bay to Mombasa he was practically 
 exploring for the first time, as Covilham, his 
 predecessor, had left no notes to guide him. 
 He returned to Lisbon at the end of August, 
 1499. 
 
 So ends the story of the discovery of the 
 East by Portugal, a story which it has been 
 necessary to trace in some slight detail in 
 order that we might understand what manner 
 of men the Portuguese were. The story of 
 the foundation of their Eastern Empire and 
 of its expansion is remarkable enough, but 
 is almost commonplace beside the story of 
 how the Portuguese got there. We must 
 content ourselves with remembering that to 
 found and govern a great empire the same 
 qualities have been required in all ages. 
 The Portuguese showed that they possessed 
 these qualities in ample measure courage 
 
66 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 and daring in war, skill in administration, 
 uprightness in all things, judicial and fiscal. 
 By ' empire ' one means, of course, a settled 
 State, and not the violent and precarious 
 dominion of a predatory horde ; for the 
 making of which in all ages nothing much is 
 needed beyond recklessness as to your own 
 throat, and greater recklessness as to your 
 neighbour's. 
 
 It is usually supposed that the Portuguese 
 Empire in the East consisted of. dominions 
 on the western coast of India of which 
 three" fragments remain, Goa, Daman and 
 Diu and of little else. But on their road 
 to India they had founded what promised to 
 be a considerable empire on the east coast of 
 Africa. They were, in fact, dominant over 
 the whole of that coast, and only natural 
 obstacles prevented them from reaching the 
 interior. The tribes with whom they con- 
 tended were savages, and much milder 
 savages than the Zulus or Matabele. Com- 
 pared to the difficulties that awaited the 
 Portuguese in India, the difficulties that con- 
 fronted them in Africa were trivial, with the 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 67 
 
 exception of two malarial fever and the 
 tsetse fly. The fever killed the men, and 
 the fly killed the cattle. The Portuguese 
 were continually struggling against these 
 difficulties without realizing how great they 
 were. With our extended knowledge we 
 can see that they were attempting an im- 
 possible task. Had they worked their way 
 up from the Cape, as we are doing now, and 
 from a station inland pushed down to the 
 sea, they would have had some chance of 
 success ; but they do not seem to have 
 thought of such a course ; and had they done 
 so they would have been too few to have 
 pursued it profitably. So the Portuguese 
 Empire in Africa remained unimportant, 
 except as a post on the road to India, and 
 was probably at no period of its existence so 
 flourishing as it is at the present moment. 
 
 But besides their settlements along the 
 East Coast of Africa, the Portuguese had 
 a wealthy station at Ormuz, on the Persian 
 Gulf, by means of which they tapped the 
 trade of Persia. They even held Aden for 
 a year, and were only driven out by the 
 
68 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Turks. What the Turks were doing dans 
 cette galere is a question, the answer to 
 which shows in the most graphic manner 
 possible how the grasp of Portugal had 
 shaken the world. The Turks were there 
 as the allies of their ancient foes, the Vene- 
 tians, who had stirred them up against the 
 Portuguese by pointing out the danger that 
 Portuguese settlements in the East might 
 prove to be to the Sultan. With all the 
 advantages of geographical position, of prior 
 possessions, and of accumulated wealth, the 
 Venetians, terrified at the rapid decline of 
 their profits, could devise no means of 
 grappling with the stout-hearted adventurers 
 from the Tagus, except setting against them 
 the huge machinery of their common foe, the 
 Ottoman Empire. As regards Aden that 
 sufficed, but the Portuguese were not to be 
 driven from Ormuz. 
 
 An immense and precious trade with the 
 far East was set up by the settlement of 
 Malacca. The Portuguese were the first 
 Europeans in Madagascar, the Mauritius, 
 the Maldives, Sumatra, the Moluccas, Siam, 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 69 
 
 and Arakan, and when one says the first 
 Europeans there, one does not imply that 
 they merely put in, or even that they sur- 
 veyed and noted down the countries and 
 peoples of the East. They settled, signed 
 treaties, established factories, opened up the 
 countries to trade, and in some cases even 
 attained to some measure of local sovereignty, 
 after the fashion of Rajah Brooke. Every 
 fresh point reached was regarded by them, 
 primarily, as the starting-point for the next. 
 
 The more one studies, the more astounded 
 one becomes at the sagacity and vitality 
 shown by the explorers ; and in even greater 
 measure at the profundity of a mind like 
 Prince Henry's, that could direct so mighty 
 a current of human force from the easy, the 
 pious, the glorious, but entirely futile task of 
 slaughtering Moslems or Spaniards, and set 
 it flowing along courses dark and perilous, 
 fraught with every danger to man known 
 and unknown, and in which, for three- 
 quarters of a century, there seemed neither 
 profit nor comfort, nor hope of profit or 
 comfort. Indeed, much that the Portuguese 
 
70 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 achieved is almost incredible. When we 
 reflect on the difficulty with which Europe 
 has in our own time opened up communica- 
 tions with Japan and China, it is scarcely 
 credible that Portugal had achieved this 
 object by individual effort, and apparently 
 with little difficulty, as early as the reign 
 of Edward VI. 
 
 I have ventured the position that the lost 
 empire of Portugal is more like the British 
 Empire than any other empire that preceded 
 the latter. It was founded as a commercial 
 enterprise, and thence expanded into a 
 military occupation, in precisely the same 
 manner as the British Empire. There was 
 this difference, that, whereas the British 
 Empire was founded by private tradesmen, 
 the Portuguese Empire in India was the 
 undertaking of the sovereign. The kings 
 and princes of Portugal had been its chief 
 inspiration from the commencement, and it 
 was only reasonable that, as they had borne 
 the entire risk, they should take the lion's 
 share of the profits. At its height the 
 Portuguese Empire in India comprised Diu 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 71 
 
 and Daman and the considerable settlement 
 of Goa, all of which the Portuguese still 
 retain. They had numerous other settle- 
 ments on the Malabar coast, the complete 
 domination of the island of Ceylon, and out- 
 posts at Ormuz and on the Hugli. These, 
 together with the settlements on the coast of 
 Africa, constituted their empire in the East. 
 
 We have now to consider their settlements 
 in the West, the great self-governing colony 
 of Portugal, afterwards the Empire, and now 
 the Republic of Brazil. 
 
 We saw that Vasco da Gama reached 
 Lisbon at the end of August, in the year 
 1499, on his return from his voyage round 
 the Cape to India. The point on the Western 
 Coast of India where it was decided to make 
 the principal settlement for trade purposes 
 was Calicut. The goodwill of the Rajah 
 of Calicut must be conciliated as the first 
 step towards opening up a trade with India. 
 No time was lost in selecting a commander 
 for this important mission, and in fitting out 
 his ships. One would naturally expect that 
 
72 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Vasco da Gama would have been selected ; 
 but the King was jealous of Vasco da Gama. 
 Portugal had seen the last of her great kings, 
 and was very near her decline when Pedro 
 Alvares Cabral was appointed Admiral of 
 the new Indian Fleet. Not that Cabral 
 was incompetent, but the passing over of 
 Da Gama shows a littleness in high places 
 that we are not accustomed to in reading 
 Portuguese history. 
 
 It is open to question whether Cabral 
 meant to discover Brazil or not. If he was 
 as wary as he was daring, he probably took 
 warning by the neglect of Da Gama, and 
 wisely kept his counsel. It seems remark- 
 able that, of the many score navigators who 
 had left Portugal for the East, not one, in 
 the eighty years of adventure that preceded 
 Cabral's voyage, had encountered an easterly 
 storm of any violence in the neighbourhood 
 of Cape Verde. Such, however, was Cabral's 
 version of what happened to him. He en- 
 countered a storm of such fury that it blew 
 him across the Atlantic, and compelled him 
 to anchor in a new land, at a place that he 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 73 
 
 gratefully christened Porto Seguro. It was 
 not until he had refitted, after discovering 
 Brazil, that he proceeded on the compara- 
 tively humdrum journey to the East Indies, 
 with his presents for the Rajah of Calicut. 
 
 Of course it is quite possible that the 
 discovery of Brazil was a lucky accident, but 
 it seems more likely that a man of Cabral's 
 capacity and daring was not without de- 
 signs. He found himself unexpectedly in 
 command of a first-rate fleet. Eight years 
 only had passed since Columbus had earned 
 an immortal name by crossing the Atlantic. 
 Why should he not do something in the 
 same line ? Of course he must say nothing 
 about his intention, for the example of Da 
 Gama showed only too clearly what a sus- 
 picious mind was his master's. Still, there 
 could be no harm in succumbing to an 
 adverse wind, and so Brazil was discovered. 
 
 It was a very long time before Brazil was 
 considered to be a place of any importance. 
 Even the grasping ambition of Spain left 
 Portugal in undisturbed possession of the 
 coast-line from Maranham to the River Plate 
 
74 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 apparently in indifference as to what they 
 might be abandoning. Indeed, there was 
 nothing to strike the imagination in Brazil. 
 There were no ancient monarchies, such as 
 those that confronted Pizarro and Cortez ; 
 no pushing energetic captains like the Adil 
 Shahis, who were founding the noble city of 
 Bijapur when the Portuguese settled in Goa. 
 The gold and the diamonds were discovered 
 later, and cast an after-glow of splendour 
 over the Portuguese monarchy in the days 
 that followed the Captivity. But at first 
 there was nothing to report, except the 
 discovery of a well-watered, fertile-looking 
 country, not unlike their own Portugal, 
 inhabited by races of gentle savages, 
 primitive and inquisitive, almost without 
 arms quite without clothing and destitute 
 of political institutions. This land soon 
 began to be settled and colonized by thrifty 
 Portuguese immigrants, and was destined to 
 be the mainstay of the monarchy for long 
 after the time when Holland and England 
 had snatched her Eastern possessions from 
 her failing grasp. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 75 
 
 Was Portugal, then, swarming with a 
 population seeking an outlet ? Are we to 
 understand that Brazil was to Portugal 
 what the self-governing colonies of England 
 would be to the population-laden mother- 
 country, if they rightly understood their own 
 interests ? 
 
 Unfortunately, it was not so. The whole 
 population of Portugal at the present 
 moment does not exceed the population of 
 London. Four hundred years ago, it would 
 probably be excessive to put it at three 
 millions, of whom not one could be spared, 
 if their native land was to be properly 
 cultivated and defended. The colonization 
 of Brazil was the result, not of a surplus 
 population at home, but of two causes : one, 
 persecution ; the other, a state of things in 
 the Southern provinces of Portugal which 
 must be separately examined ; and both 
 subjects bring us face to face with the 
 collapse of the Portuguese Empire. 
 
 To say that an event is 'inevitable,' is an 
 <iasy way of getting out of the difficulty of 
 inquiring into its causes. The word is much 
 
 6 
 
76 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 used in England, where we are somewhat 
 impatient of thinkers, and of people who ask 
 ' why ' and ' wherefore.' Thus we hear of 
 the 'inevitable' separation of England and 
 America, whereas England has surmounted 
 many and many a difficulty, far more com- 
 plicated than the simple disputes between 
 herself and the thirteen colonies. Thirty 
 years ago we heard a good deal about the 
 ' inevitable ' break-up of the British Empire, 
 but a little thought and courage (perhaps 
 twice as much as would have bound us to 
 America for ever) has made a considerable 
 change in men's ways of speech on Imperial 
 matters. Any time since 1874 we have 
 heard men say, ' Home Rule must come, it is 
 inevitable/ Is it, indeed ? we may truly 
 inquire in 1897. 
 
 A little thought and a little courage have 
 marvellously changed men's minds in this 
 respect. And so we have heard of the 
 ' inevitable ' triumph of Protestantism, and 
 the ' inevitable ' downfall of the English 
 Church ; neither of which events seems so 
 certain as they both once appeared to be to 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 77 
 
 the ' inevitable ' order of mind. And it is 
 quite of a piece with this somewhat slipshod 
 method of historical dissertation that men 
 should write and speak of the ' inevitable ' 
 collapse of the Portuguese Empire. Its 
 collapse was no more ' inevitable ' than its 
 foundation. 
 
 The natural destiny of Portugal would 
 seem to have been that it should develop 
 into a sort of Italy, with numerous semi- 
 independent lords of the soil, each reigning 
 in his own small territory ; or, perhaps, that 
 it should have waxed great by the absorp- 
 tion of territory from Castile, so that the 
 Peninsula would in the end have been 
 divided between Portugal and Spain into 
 less unequal portions than it is at present. 
 The Portuguese, although they had a long 
 coast-line, were not early conspicuous as 
 mariners. More than fifty years before 
 Prince Henry settled at Sagres, the English 
 had fought and won their first great naval 
 battle at Sluys. But even when Prince 
 Henry the Thinker took up the work of 
 exploration, his countrymen required a great 
 
 62 
 
78 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 deal of coaxing and persuasion, abundant 
 praise and lavish rewards, in order to keep 
 them up to the mark. They were not very 
 bold or adventurous navigators at first. 
 They were ignorant of boat-building and 
 the use of the compass. It needed a man 
 with the divination of a seer, as well as the 
 inflexible will of a born captain of men, and 
 endued by nature with the kindly and 
 winning temper of the early Portuguese, to 
 guide his country along the dark and dan- 
 gerous paths of ocean discovery. 
 
 Thought founded the Portuguese Empire. 
 If we would discover why it collapsed, we 
 must consider its weak points. The fatal 
 weakness was that Portugal had an un- 
 scrupulous and unfriendly neighbour, whose 
 territory was separated from its own by no 
 natural boundaries. So long as Castile and 
 Aragon remained distinct kingdoms, there 
 was little to fear : Portugal was nearly as 
 strong as either, separately, and it was 
 improbable that they would combine. But 
 from the moment when the two crowns were 
 united by the marriage of Ferdinand and 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 79 
 
 Isabella, it became a very grave danger to 
 Portugal that she had contented herself with 
 her original boundaries. Sooner or later, 
 it was certain that Spain would attack 
 Portugal ; and to prepare for that attack 
 would be the first work of any statesman or 
 monarch who cared for his country's in- 
 dependence. 
 
 It did not call for a prophet to see this 
 much. The facts were under the King's 
 nose, and to prepare against them demanded 
 nothing but thought and a few administrative 
 orders. In the first place, it would have been 
 plain to any thinker who was planning the 
 salvation of his country that Imperial ex- 
 pansion had gone on somewhat too rapidly, 
 considering the size of the mother-country. 
 It is true that that expansion had made 
 Lisbon the commercial capital of Europe, 
 and had poured rivers of wealth into the 
 country. But just at that moment steel 
 and iron and men would have been of more 
 value to Portugal than gold. Whence could 
 she draw them ? Well, there were two ports 
 in the East, Ormuz and Hugli, which could 
 
8o LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 have been abandoned without endangering 
 the rest of the empire. 
 
 Ormuz, like Aden, had been occupied by 
 Albuquerque, with the idea of closing the 
 Red Sea to the commerce of Venice 
 corking it up, as we should say now. It 
 was a grandiose scheme, like all Albu- 
 querque's schemes, but it was essentially 
 an offensive move, not necessary to the 
 proper defence of the Eastern Empire. 
 How little danger there was of aggression 
 from this direction is shown by the fact that 
 Ormuz was not stormed by the Persians 
 until 1626, or forty-six years after the first 
 year of Captivity. Hugli was an important 
 fort and trading centre that occupied a very 
 large garrison when it fell to the Moguls in 
 1629. Portugal lost 5,000 men there. It 
 was much too far off Goa to be anything 
 but a weakness to the empire. Certainly, 
 a considerable loss of income would have 
 followed on its abandonment, but what 
 Portugal wanted was not income but men. 
 The garrisons of Ormuz and Hugli being 
 withdrawn to Portugal would have repre- 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 81 
 
 sented an addition of several regiments to 
 the home army. 
 
 We now come to Goa. It had been one 
 of the great Albuquerque's plans to encourage 
 marriage between the men of the Goa garrison 
 and the native women. His idea was. to 
 build up a population that should be wholly 
 Portuguese in sentiment, and that could be 
 relied on to make a fine army for defence, 
 and perhaps for aggression. A great idea, 
 certainly, but a wrong one in essence, because 
 the offspring of these unions proved to be not 
 good for much. But without entering into 
 the question of the fighting qualities of the 
 half-caste, the settlement of the Goa garrison 
 ought to have been strictly forbidden, and a 
 term of years fixed for service in the East, 
 after which the garrison would be withdrawn 
 to the mother country. 
 
 The increased population was not needed 
 in India, as was shown by the severe defeats 
 that the small garrison had over and over 
 again inflicted on the armies of Bijapur, and 
 by withdrawing the troops to Portugal after 
 five years' service the King would have 
 
82 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 added another three or four regiments to- 
 his home army. Diu and Daman were 
 strong places, and the island of Ceylon, 
 with its wealthy trade, could easily have 
 been retained and defended, as Portugal was 
 now a first-rate naval power. Moreover, by 
 the abandonment of Ormuz and Hiigli the 
 duties thrown on the navy would have been 
 considerably lightened. Thus pruned, and 
 its strength concentrated, the Portuguese 
 Empire in India would have been practically 
 impregnable. In Africa, if the same or 
 similar measures had been adopted, another 
 regiment would have been saved, and many 
 precious lives economized. True, loss would 
 have been sustained, but to incur slight loss 
 in order to avoid a heavy loss is a process 
 followed every day in trade, and is a very 
 proper business operation. 
 
 The garrisons, withdrawn to Portugal and 
 settled in the thinly-populated southern pro- 
 vinces, would have reared families of sturdy 
 soldiery, instead of the debased type that 
 was taking the place of the original stock. 
 These southern provinces had never been 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 83. 
 
 completely cultivated, and when the trade 
 with Africa commenced the grandees im- 
 ported slaves in large numbers. The results 
 are obvious. The slaves worked cheaply or 
 for nothing ; the native peasant could not 
 compete with him, and emigrated to Brazil 
 to the great advantage of Brazil. Moreover, 
 the slave married, and the population thus 
 steadily degenerated. Undoubtedly, the 
 further importation of slaves should have 
 been forbidden, not from moral motives 
 that could hardly be expected but from 
 economical and prudential motives. Emigra- 
 tion would have been checked, and the land 
 gradually populated by the returned garrisons 
 from the East. 
 
 There was yet another source of strength 
 that was neglected. Brazil was intensely 
 loyal. Throughout all the misfortunes of 
 Portugal not a murmur came from Brazil. 
 The Brazilians were more Portuguese than 
 the Portuguese. This enthusiastic loyalty 
 was entirely neglected by the monarchs of 
 the old country, and yet it asked nothing 
 better than to be granted some share in the 
 
84 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 service of the empire. It would have been 
 quite in accordance with the spirit of the 
 time to have made grants of land in Brazil, 
 conditional on one son of the family serving 
 a term in the Portuguese army. Some such 
 measure, far from being oppressive, would 
 have been thought a high honour, and would 
 have added another regiment to the home 
 army. 
 
 By these and similar measures an armed 
 force of twenty or twenty-five thousand ex- 
 cellent soldiers, trained in the invaluable 
 school of Indian and African warfare, could 
 have been maintained without the slightest 
 inconvenience. That would have sufficed. 
 For what actually happened ? Portugal was 
 conquered in the year 1580, and eight years 
 later Spain, her conqueror, was in extremis, 
 without a fleet, without money, almost with- 
 out an army. It was not, therefore, neces- 
 sary to the preservation of Portugal to keep 
 on foot an army capable of resisting for a 
 generation the whole force of Spain. All 
 that was needed was that there should be 
 such a force in the field as would make 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 85 
 
 Spain hesitate, or, if she attacked, would 
 hold her occupied and perhaps embarrassed 
 until Spain went to pieces herself. For, 
 besides the direct loss involved in defeat in 
 the field, the Portuguese Empire, as soon as 
 it fell before the Spanish arms, naturally 
 became the prey of all the enemies and 
 they were many and fierce of Spain. If 
 Portugal had been fighting Spain, these 
 daring men would have been her enthusiastic 
 allies ; and when Drake sailed up the Tagus 
 to ' singe the King of Spain's beard,' instead 
 of burning Portuguese shipping he would 
 have been more likely to land a few hundred 
 brave Englishmen to fight the detested 
 Spaniard side by side with the Portuguese. 
 
 There is nothing miraculous in these steps 
 which were not taken ; they are simple ad- 
 ministrative measures, and could all have 
 been carried out by a royal order. Some 
 vested interests would have been disturbed, 
 but the vested interests were mostly the 
 King's. There was no board of governors 
 to consult or persuade, no body of share- 
 holders to consider, no announcement of 
 
86 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 falling dividends to be faced. Would Henry 
 the Thinker have hesitated six months over 
 any of them ? 
 
 The immediate cause of the paralysis of 
 the Portuguese intelligence is to be found in 
 the fact that in the year 1536 the Inquisition 
 was established at Lisbon. It was my fate 
 some years ago, when making an allusion to 
 the work of the Inquisition, to be told, 
 ' There never was any such thing ; it 
 is an invention of the Protestants.' It 
 may be so. We have had to give up 
 William Tell, and the Siege of Troy, and 
 very likely it may be before long demon- 
 strated that the Inquisition was only a sun- 
 myth. But if this be established, it may 
 deprive ardent divines of openings for some 
 impassioned periods, but it will redeem the 
 heresies once and for all from the frequent 
 charge of lack of imagination. 
 
 In the present state of historical inquiry it 
 appears, however, to be generally accepted 
 that the Inquisition was an important tribunal 
 of the Roman Church, established for the 
 purpose of purifying the faith from errors. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 87 
 
 It likewise appears to be established that the 
 principal instrument by which it sought to 
 attain that desirable end was the forcible 
 expulsion, from countries where it was intro- 
 duced, of all whose opinions deviated from 
 those which were authorized by the Inquisi- 
 tion. Orthodox Jews, of course, were not 
 -approved by the Inquisition, neither were 
 those conforming Jews who were called New 
 Christians in Spain and Portugal. 
 
 It seems to be established that the dis- 
 approval of the Inquisition could not be 
 lightly faced, and in Portugal, in particular, 
 the Jews and New Christians did not attempt 
 to face it at all. Rightly or wrongly they 
 had conceived an unfavourable view of the 
 procedure followed by the Holy Office in 
 cases of heresy or suspected heresy, and they 
 fled in numbers from Lisbon, selling their 
 considerable property at a loss, and often 
 abandoning it altogether. 
 
 This behaviour of the Inquisition will 
 appear to be morally reprehensible or not, 
 according to the views of the reader ; but 
 socially and economically it was a bad 
 
88 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 blunder, and in the actual state of Portugal 
 it was a worse disaster than several defeats 
 in the field. But the mischief wrought to 
 Portugal by the establishment of the Inqui- 
 sition only began with the expulsion of 
 the Jews and New Christians. Disastrous 
 though this was, it was nothing to what 
 followed. The immediate loss was no doubt 
 heavy, including, as it did, loss of men, and 
 a grave shock to credit. But the indirect 
 loss was fatal. 
 
 As we have seen, the Portuguese was pre- 
 eminently an agreeable man. His stock had 
 not the force of the Spaniard or the Dutch- 
 man, but he was far more human than either. 
 He owed his position largely to his ready 
 sympathy a truly Christian virtue with 
 those with whom he dealt, especially with 
 the so-called lower races. He was, at the 
 commencement of the sixteenth century, 
 probably the best type existing. But he 
 possessed no single quality in a transcendent 
 degree. Hence he had need of all his wits 
 if he was to face successfully a Spanish in- 
 vasion. And it is not too much to say that 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 89 
 
 the Inquisition frightened Portugal out of 
 her wits. Small wonder ! But when we 
 remember that it was Thought that founded 
 the Portuguese Empire, we are able to 
 measure, to a certain extent, the damage 
 likely to be wrought by the deliberate 
 paralysis of brain officially brought about by 
 the Sovereign of the country. One is at no 
 small loss to understand the action of the 
 King. The Portuguese were not addicted 
 to heresy. On the contrary, they were 
 faithful and even eager Churchmen, and 
 always did their best towards missionizing 
 the countries they visited or subdued. They 
 did not need a spur for their religious zeal. 
 
 We who are accustomed to the sight of a 
 great empire where missionary work not 
 only receives no official sanction, but is 
 rather frowned on than otherwise, must all 
 the more admire the tact of the Portuguese, 
 a tact which enabled them to do all the 
 mighty deeds we know them to have done, 
 while never hesitating to put in the fore- 
 front of their schemes the ardent desire to do 
 what most offends Orientals to proselytize. 
 
90 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 What is more, they did proselytize ; and 
 they managed to proselytize, not only with- 
 out getting themselves detested, but in such 
 a way as to add to their influence. No one 
 will contend that the Portuguese Empire was 
 perfect. The civil service, and, for the 
 matter of that, the army, was corrupt, but it 
 was not more corrupt than the civil service 
 of India before Clive took it in hand. There 
 was no irremediably bad feature in their 
 system of administration, and they were 
 cheerful and loyal Churchmen. But the 
 Inquisition ruined them. It scared and 
 demoralized them, and, worst of all, it 
 paralyzed their intellect. 
 
 It is almost as great a blunder to ascribe a 
 nation's ruin to a single cause as it is to say 
 that its ruin is 'inevitable/ and although the 
 immediate evil results of the introduction of 
 the Inquisition, and the still more sinister 
 indirect results of the fatal move, seem to 
 justify us in laying a good share of Portugal's 
 ruin to that account, it yet remains to be 
 inquired, ' How came the Inquisition to be 
 introduced ?' 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 91 
 
 It was introduced at the urgent entreaty of 
 the King of Portugal, so that the causa 
 causans was the wrongheadedness of the 
 King. If it had not been for the Portuguese 
 Royal Family there would have been no 
 Portuguese Empire their good qualities 
 founded it, and their bad qualities ruined it. 
 As Portugal was practically a despotism, we 
 may, if we please, say that the downfall of 
 the empire was due to there being no balance 
 of power in the State ; so that if accident 
 gave the State an incapable head, there was 
 nothing to hinder him doing his worst. 
 
 Still, there have been far worse rulers than 
 John III. and Sebastian (the last two kings 
 before the Captivity, if we omit the Cardinal 
 King, whose reign was very short) whose 
 blunders have not ruined their country. So 
 that we may say, if we please, that the ruin 
 of Portugal was owing to the misfortune 
 which gave her an incompetent King at a 
 critical period. 
 
 But this generalization remains : that the 
 foundation and ruin of the Portuguese 
 Empire were the work of the Portuguese 
 
 7 
 
92 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Royal Family. The Portuguese race was 
 not of that toughness of fibre which goes 
 to make a nation of the Imperial mould. It 
 was too gentle and homely. The extra- 
 ordinary intellectual force of its monarchs did 
 the work of guidance and control, and did 
 it admirably. There was just sufficient 
 imagination in the character of the people to 
 make empire possible ; but there was not 
 sufficient stamina to give the empire stability. 
 So long as they had able monarchs, the 
 Portuguese went on from strength to 
 strength ; so soon as the royal line grew 
 feeble the empire crumbled to pieces. 
 
 As to the future of Portugal, we can judge 
 it best by the past. The future of Portugal 
 is not only, or chiefly, an affair of the people. 
 The people is as it always was to a 
 very remarkable degree dependent on the 
 character of its monarchs. To say this is 
 no disparagement. We may say the 
 contrary of Italy and England ; but Germany 
 and France at least equally great nations 
 are like Portugal in this respect. Though 
 hardly the race they were, the Portuguese have 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF PORTUGAL 93 
 
 still sufficient vitality to give them character. 
 So lately as the Peninsular War they fought 
 admirably and fighting is a good test. 
 There is still a Portuguese nation. 
 
 But whether there will again be a Portu- 
 guese Empire (and this is a question of the 
 greatest importance, not only to Portugal, 
 but to the world) depends on one single con- 
 sideration, and on one only. France, as we 
 know, having lost one empire, has without 
 delay made for herself another ; Spain, as we 
 shall see, possessed the kind of empire that 
 is not to be revived ; the empire of Holland 
 persists because, as we shall see, it was 
 restored to her as a free gift. So far of 
 the empires that have in part passed away. 
 It appears that many nations that have not 
 possessed empires in the past are ambitious 
 of founding them in our own days. Some 
 feel themselves driven by overpopulation, 
 and some by what is called destiny, and some 
 (unwillingly) by a menacing will, and some 
 by desire to be in the forefront of modern 
 movement. 
 
 None of these controlling forces applied to 
 
 72 
 
94 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Portugal in the past, and we need not seek 
 among them for the force that is to settle her 
 future destiny whether she is to remain in 
 the list of Imperial Powers, or to subside into 
 a small European State. Thought and the 
 guiding hand of her kings made Portugal 
 great, and the change that has taken place in 
 her fortunes has emphasized the fact that 
 through the genius of her King only can her 
 empire be expected to revive. 
 
III. 
 
 THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN. 
 
[ 97] 
 
 III. 
 THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN. 
 
 WE are accustomed to congratulate ourselves 
 that the tide of Moslem invasion was rolled 
 back from Spain, and that the Christian 
 kings should have succeeded, after eight 
 hundred years of wars, in expelling Islam 
 from Europe. Our continent was thus saved 
 to civilization, so we are accustomed to 
 reflect ; and we place the struggle of Spain 
 against the Moors in the same rank with the 
 struggle of Hellas with Troy, of Rome with 
 Carthage. We feel that in each case the 
 hordes of Asia were thrust back on their 
 native barbarism, and civilization was given 
 time to breathe before the next struggle. 
 Perhaps we are right ; but in enduring the 
 yoke of Spain the world paid so fearful a 
 
98 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 price for its liberation from the sons of 
 Ishmael that there is room for speculation as 
 to whether we should not have been better 
 off if Islam had been permanently encamped 
 in the Peninsula. 
 
 Primarily, one would say, this depends on 
 the stamp of ruler that Islam produces. 
 Contemporary with the grand period of the 
 Spanish Empire, Islam produced two very 
 great rulers, Solyman and Akbar. Soly- 
 man, one of the greatest of the Turks ; and 
 Akbar, not only one of the greatest of the 
 Moguls, but also one of the greatest of the 
 sons of men. Nor has Islam, even in our 
 own days, altogether lost the trick of turning 
 out these grand figures. 
 
 Among the men of this century few 
 names deserve to stand higher than that of 
 Salar Jang. The accident of an early death, 
 and perhaps his religious views, limited his 
 field of influence. But in his mental qualities 
 he ranked with Akbar and Hanin. When 
 Islam produces men like these the world is 
 the better for Muhammadanism. But Islam 
 is not often in labour with men like Salar 
 
THE LOS7 EMPIRE OF SPAIN 99 
 
 Jang, and it is safer to assume that the 
 Spanish Caliphate would have been ruled by 
 ordinary despots like, for example, Nadir 
 Shah, or the late Shah Nasr ad Din. Spain 
 could hardly have been more desolate and 
 disorderly under their control than she was 
 under her own Philips' and Charles' ; and 
 Europe would have been saved from those 
 ' conquering bridegrooms ' whose alliances 
 threw so fatal a net round her prosperity and 
 happiness. Probably Portugal could not 
 long have maintained her independence, and 
 there would thus have been no Portuguese 
 Empire, which would have been a loss to the 
 world. But there would also have been no 
 Spanish Empire ; and that would have been 
 an immeasurable gain. 
 
 No people had such great Imperial oppor- 
 tunities as the Spaniards. When the crowns 
 of Castile and Aragon were united, and the 
 Moors were expelled from Spain, the 
 Spaniards found themselves the lords, not 
 only of their own country, but (by the 
 alliances of their kings) the rulers also of 
 Flanders, and of extensive territories in Italy. 
 
ioo LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Their king became Emperor, and as such 
 held sway over the whole of Central Europe. 
 Soon they became the lords of the New 
 World ; yet a century and a half and they 
 had fallen, and their lands were portioned 
 out among aliens. 
 
 The Oriental precocity of their develop- 
 ment is only one of the many baleful traits 
 that their national character seems to have 
 assimilated during the long strife with Islam. 
 
 It is a curious reflection that while inter- 
 course with Islam benefited the Portuguese 
 it damaged the Spaniard. The Portuguese 
 appears to have assimilated from his Saracen 
 antagonists a roaming and adventurous 
 temper, and little else. The Spaniard took 
 on the ponderous gravity of the Turk, and a 
 double portion of his invincible stupidity. It 
 was impossible for him to add to his valour 
 by acquiring the courage of the Mussulman, 
 for no man could be more courageous than 
 the Spaniard of the grand epoch of Spain. 
 It is a marked characteristic of all Oriental 
 or Orientalized peoples that their features 
 fluctuate with the character of their rulers ; 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN lor 
 
 and so we saw that the history of Portugal 
 is simply the history of her kings. It is not 
 so with the history of Spain. Either from 
 some strain of independence unconsciously 
 inherited from the days when she had free 
 institutions, or from some other cause, the 
 Spanish nature does not answer readily to 
 the hand of a leader. The Portuguese is 
 flexible enough, if he lacks initiative ; but 
 the Spaniard will neither move of his own 
 motive nor follow his leader. In fact, the 
 Spanish mind resembles a street in a Spanish 
 city lofty, but narrow, with a glimpse of 
 heaven at the top ; but rigid and gloomy, 
 and with no invigorating current of outside 
 air to purify its midst. 
 
 In Europe her influence was comparatively 
 short-lived. In Holland it was thrown off 
 after appalling horrors had been perpetrated 
 in the vain endeavour to uphold it. In 
 Naples and Sicily, where it persisted, the 
 depressed condition of these two naturally 
 wealthy countries remained a testimony as 
 eloquent of the baleful influence of Spanish 
 government as the condition of Spain itself. 
 
102 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 But it is in respect of the New World that 
 civilization brings the heaviest charges 
 against the Spaniards. 
 
 In a fine and musical phrase, Mr. 
 Frederick Myers foretells the possible sub- 
 sidence of the European mind into the 
 ' immemorial sadness of the East.' Perhaps 
 only one can hardly accept that fate as 
 inevitable, or even probable, without a con- 
 ception of Christian teaching which is far 
 from being universally adopted at present. 
 Besides, there is another alternative. There is 
 the 'immemorial sadness of the East, 'but there 
 is also the ' immemorial gaiety of the West.' 
 
 We have some reason to look on political 
 success and business capacity as incompatible 
 with gaiety and indiscriminate enjoyment of 
 living. The successful nations of Europe 
 have mostly been the gloomy nations the 
 Romans, the English. A certain ponderous 
 and haggard devotion to profitable employ- 
 ment is commonly regarded as indispensable 
 to the bearing of an Englishman. 
 
 The discovery of the maritime races of the 
 Pacific in various stages of civilization, from 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 103 
 
 the lowest to the highest, who all take such 
 different views of life to our own, and who 
 are capable of becoming our rivals possibly 
 our successful rivals in all the graver 
 occupations of life in war, in trade, in 
 politics ; the discovery, in fact, of the im- 
 memorial gaiety of the West, will probably 
 end by influencing our views in this respect. 
 Now, if England had fallen on Japan with 
 Maxims and ironclads, and had so handled 
 her that in twenty years' time her arts, her 
 religion, and her whole polity had become 
 nothing but a memory, England would have 
 been responsible for perhaps one-fourth of 
 the damage inflicted on the civilization of the 
 world by the conquests of Spain in the New 
 World. In Mexico, and still more in Peru, 
 mighty material achievements were com- 
 pleted by people who yet carried on life so 
 differently from either Europeans or Asiatics 
 that their civilizations had they survived 
 might have taught us lessons of incomparable 
 value. The oft-told story of these two 
 conquests must here be summarized if we 
 would appreciate the Lost Empire of Spain- 
 
104 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 ' Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
 When a new planet swims into his ken ; 
 Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes 
 He stared at the Pacific, and all his men 
 Looked at each other with a wild surmise, 
 Silent, upon a peak in Darien.' 
 
 This is the Cortez of imagination. The 
 real Cortez was a practical person, who never 
 made wild surmises about anything ; and we 
 know from his own pen that the only reflec- 
 tion that occurred to him on this moving 
 occasion was whether or not the Pacific 
 might prove to be the sea where the reputed 
 pearl islands were, and whether they would 
 be worth looting. That is, as the history of 
 the Spanish Empire reveals to us, the only 
 thing that would occur to a Spaniard, who 
 was the least romantic of mortals. His 
 grave bearing, sonorous mother tongue, and 
 remarkable military achievements, joined, 
 perhaps, to a gloomy picturesqueness in his 
 dress, have combined to give us rather a 
 false impression of the typical hidalgo. They 
 have hidden from us his contented ignorance 
 and his stupid narrowness. 
 
 His ferocious intolerance we have good 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 105 
 
 reason to remember ; but we must needs 
 take some pains before we can realize how 
 so vigorous a type may exist, and for a time 
 succeed may conquer and found an empire 
 and yet remain destitute of any glimmer of 
 real political capacity, or even of sound 
 business instinct. 
 
 Under the guise of a Christian knight, we 
 shall discover a type the nearest approach to 
 which is to be found in a Mussulman emir; 
 and we must offer our apologies to Islam for 
 the comparison. 
 
 There would have been no Spanish Empire 
 without Hernando Cortez, who was born in 
 Estremadura in the year 1485. His family 
 were not noble, but they were reputable folk, 
 his father being an officer in the army. 
 Hernando was a youth much addicted to 
 gallantry, and the scrapes that he got into 
 rather scandalized his respectable parents. 
 His last escapade severely lamed him for 
 the time, and prevented him leaving for the 
 New World with the expedition of Ovando. 
 
 After all, he began life early, for he was 
 only nineteen years of age when he left 
 
106 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Spain for Hispaniola in the search for gold, 
 without a clear idea of how he was going to 
 get it much as men leave England now for 
 Buluwayo. He landed, and presented him- 
 self at Government House. The Governor 
 was on tour, and Cortez was received by the 
 Private Secretary, who welcomed him with 
 the kindness always shown by private secre- 
 taries to young gentlemen on their travels 
 who are properly presented. 
 
 Cortez knew Ovando at home, so the 
 secretary was especially polite, and assured 
 him that he would have no difficulty in 
 obtaining a grant of land, and Indians to 
 work it. No doubt he was pleased at the 
 idea of gaining for the colony so promising 
 an immigrant. But Cortez was not excited at 
 the idea of becoming a colonial farmer, and 
 said so. In later years he used to proclaim 
 that his great object was to propagate the 
 Catholic faith, but in youth his motives 
 were more direct. ' I came to get gold,' he 
 said 'and not to till the soil, like a hind,' 
 he added, somewhat ungraciously, we must 
 admit. The secretary was shocked at this un- 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 107 
 
 ceremonious way of receiving the Governor's 
 favours. 
 
 But Cortez's letters of credit were not very 
 heavy ; and, after all, a farm as a free gift, 
 with Indian slaves to work it, implied at 
 least a living. The Governor explained to 
 his young friend that gold was not to be 
 picked up every day ; so Cortez made the 
 best of his circumstances, and settled down 
 on his land. He led an exciting life, full of 
 love-making and Indian wars, for seven 
 years. It was a life that would have satisfied 
 most men of his temperament ; but it did not 
 satisfy Hernando Cortez. 
 
 The officer charged by Ovando with the 
 conduct of the numerous wars in Hispaniola 
 was Diego de Velasquez. He had found 
 Cortez a useful man on an expedition, and in 
 the year 1511, when ordered on duty for the 
 conquest of Cuba, his first thought was to 
 secure the young colonist's services. For 
 Cortez it was the choice of Hercules. His 
 estate in Hispaniola was paying well ; and 
 he was certain, if he remained in the island, 
 to find himself growing in importance every 
 
 8 
 
108 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 year, but his dreams of gold would be as 
 far from realization as ever. He accepted 
 Velasquez's offer. 
 
 The reduction of Cuba proved to be an 
 easy matter. Velasquez was in high good 
 humour with his lieutenant, and, on being 
 appointed to the Governorship, chose Cortez 
 for Colonial Secretary. 
 
 His official position did not, however, 
 bring with it the gravity suitable to his con- 
 nection with Government House, and he 
 came into collision with the Governor over 
 a love affair in which both men were in- 
 terested. Velasquez never forgave him; and 
 Cortez found himself in this uncomfortable 
 position that he had given up a competence 
 in Hispaniola, quarrelled with the Governor 
 of Cuba, and was still as far as ever from 
 realizing his dreams of gold. For want of 
 occupation, he became a conspirator ; was 
 detected by the Governor, thrown into prison, 
 and narrowly escaped the gallows. The 
 Governor was now master of the situation. 
 Cortez, having disdained comfort and com- 
 parative respectability in his eagerness to 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 109 
 
 acquire a fortune rapidly, found himself with 
 no alternative to passing the rest of his life 
 in gaol, except to do what he was told. He 
 made his peace with the Governor, married 
 the young lady, and settled down as a farmer 
 in Cuba. 
 
 There were gold-mines on his estates which 
 could be worked profitably ; and Cortez 
 worked them. He became richer than 
 before ; but what he was still pining for was 
 a vast fortune, not a mere competence ; what 
 he aspired to was the profit of sack and 
 plunder, not the peddling yearly gains of 
 agriculture and trade. Another opportunity 
 for realizing his dreams presented itself in 
 the year 1518. Expeditions had been sent 
 to the mainland by Velasquez, and now 
 returned with the news that there at least 
 gold was quite a common material ; men 
 used it for all purposes. Moreover, the land 
 was inhabited by people with a high standard 
 of civilization. The houses were of stone ; 
 not of reeds and rushes, as in the islands. 
 
 Here evidently was a country well worth 
 plundering ; and Cortez, as soon as he heard 
 
 82 
 
I io LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 of it, determined to secure the job for him- 
 self. This was not an easy matter ; for he 
 was naturally out of favour with the Governor, 
 with whom lay the selection of the captain 
 for the new expedition. He did not make a 
 personal application, but prevailed on those 
 surrounding Velasquez to plead his cause. 
 He was probably the best man that the 
 Governor could find ; for, in addition to being 
 a man of proved daring and resource, he had 
 become a substantial person, with means 
 enough to equip the expedition at his own 
 expense. The Governor assented, and Cortez 
 set to work. He succeeded too well, and 
 was too evidently the right man for the work 
 to give entire satisfaction to so suspicious a 
 man as Velasquez. 
 
 It was contemplated to revoke his com 
 mission, but the friends who had procured it 
 for him gave timely notice of the Governor's 
 intention, and Cortez set sail from Santiago 
 de Cuba without completing his preparations, 
 leaving Velasquez in extreme anger at having 
 been foiled. With massive assurance Cortez, 
 although sailing under the Governor's in- 
 
structions, in defiance of the Governor's 
 known intention to supersede him, put in at 
 various ports of Cuba, and completed his 
 preparations. Orders were sent to arrest 
 him ; but, under the stimulating influence of 
 an independent command, his character was 
 rapidly developing. He was felt to be a 
 dangerous man to meddle with ; and, making 
 their choice between the displeasure of 
 Velasquez and the displeasure of Cortez, the 
 captains of the various ports where he put in 
 deliberately disobeyed their orders. Cortez 
 completed his preparations at his leisure, and 
 on February 18, 1519, he set sail for the 
 conquest of Mexico. He was thirty-four 
 years of age, and had been fifteen years in 
 the Colonies. 
 
 The Aztecs were originally a tribe of North 
 American Indians, who, in the course of their 
 wanderings, settled down on the shores of 
 the Lake of Mexico. About the time of 
 the sixth Crusade, they had just arrived at 
 their Central American home, and built their 
 huts of reeds and rushes on the sunny, sedgy 
 margin of the lake. Thanks to the first 
 
112 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Archbishop of Mexico who destroyed the 
 State Records in one vast bonfire, conceiving 
 them to be magical instruments ! we know 
 next to nothing of the Aztec history of the 
 next four centuries. 
 
 But at the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century the empire of Mexico was a monarchy, 
 hereditary in one family ; but the newly- 
 elected Emperor had to prove his capacity 
 before his coronation. The Head of the 
 State might be a person pursuing very 
 ordinary avocations before his call, but his 
 fitness being once demonstrated he received 
 almost divine honours. There was a punc- 
 tiliously graded aristocracy, and the little 
 Aztec tribe had so multiplied that the land 
 was thickly populated. There was a simple, 
 but efficacious, judicial system, and the judges 
 were independent of the Crown a state of 
 things not reached in England until a century 
 and a half later. This fact is, by itself, 
 evidence of high political capacity. The 
 military career was honoured, but not more 
 so than trade. 
 
 As one consequence of this state of things 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 113 
 
 so exceptional in all ages and countries 
 there was no brigandage. The land, and 
 especially the capital, were carefully policed ; 
 the roads were very good. The Aztecs had 
 no beasts of burden, but a busy commerce, 
 nevertheless, covered all the roads with 
 porters ; and the Imperial post travelled fast 
 and regularly. One hundred miles in twenty- 
 four hours was the usual time allowed for the 
 transmission of reports. Nor was this pace 
 a characteristic only of the hardy labourers ; 
 officers of the Crown were expected to be 
 equally expeditious and were so. In war 
 or peace the nobles were excellent travellers. 
 In that intense climate, blazing with sun- 
 shine and gorgeous with flowers, it is hardly 
 surprising that the arts flourished. There 
 was no writing except hieroglyphics, little 
 painting, and the music was primitive. It 
 consisted of drum, whistle and conch, and 
 revelled in half-tones and quarter-tones, like 
 the depressing noises that do duty for chants 
 and triumphs in an Indian temple. But, 
 this said, we have reached the limits of Aztec 
 ignorance, and in the other arts they far 
 
H4 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 surpassed Europeans. They were finished 
 goldsmiths. By long practice the art of 
 working in gold seems to have become almost 
 instinctive with them. The Spaniards ad- 
 mitted that Europe had nothing to show that 
 could compare with Mexican goldsmithry. 
 The most delicate specimens were melted 
 down and sent to Spain to pay for the wars 
 of the Emperor a bitter comment on the 
 Conquest, more eloquent than pages of 
 declamation. 
 
 Gold being plentiful, it was used for 
 everything : for decorating armour, for 
 friezes in houses, for table-plate on great 
 occasion wherever, in fact, it could be em- 
 ployed artistically. The art of decorating 
 in feathers is practically lost. The Mexicans 
 carried it to a high pitch of excellence. 
 Green was the royal colour, but vestments 
 and palkis were elaborately wrought in the 
 appropriate colours of the owners. Liveries 
 and heraldic devices were of necessity 
 scrupulously observed, as in all feudal States, 
 for much depended on them. 
 
 The Aztecs were excellent engineers. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 115 
 
 Their capital was built on a lake, and when 
 we consider that the population of Mexico 
 city numbered 300,000, we can form some 
 idea of the amount of causeway and irriga- 
 tion work necessary to keep order in the 
 midst of so large and busy a population. 
 They were admirable gardeners, cultivating 
 with care, and arranging with the nicest art. 
 The floating gardens on the Lake of Mexico 
 were like fairy creations. It was on these 
 diminutive but exquisite islands that all 
 the market gardening of the capital was 
 done. But many of them were simply float- 
 ing flower-gardens, created and maintained 
 for the delight of the eye and the pride 
 of life. 
 
 In architecture their performances were 
 naturally limited by their ignorance of the 
 use of iron, but they did wonderful things 
 with flint. Their temples were lofty con- 
 structions, rising to a height of 100 feet, 
 but the ordinary house was of one or two 
 stories only, and was not remarkable outside; 
 inside it was elegant and light, with suitable 
 and not cumbrous furniture. They were 
 
Ii6 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 nice in eating and drinking, and were great 
 smokers and snuff- takers. Europe owes to 
 the Aztecs at least one other delicacy 
 chocolate, which was the favourite drink of 
 the Emperor, and was consequently the only 
 drink for persons of quality. It seems to 
 have been consumed in large quantities, 
 whipped up to the consistency of a very light 
 bavaroise, an art which we have lost. The 
 common drink, pulque, still used in Mexico, 
 was slightly intoxicating. 
 
 We now come to the astounding fact that 
 a rare and special delicacy at Aztec dinners 
 was human flesh. The God of War was 
 only appropriately worshipped with human 
 sacrifices, and the privilege of consuming 
 flesh thus offered was highly appreciated. 
 The victims were, as a rule, captives taken 
 in battle, and there is no use in blinking the 
 fact that an Aztec temple must have been a 
 hideous spectacle. The frightful effigy of 
 the god looked down on an altar, only 
 rightly served when it bore a human heart. 
 The walls were foul with the splashes of 
 stale blood, and the priests were the only 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 117 
 
 people in Mexico whom we can rightly call 
 savages. Their ritual was loathsome, but 
 their prayers (of which some have fortunately 
 been preserved) were lofty and dignified. 
 As transliterated into English, the Mexican 
 tongues appear to be hideous jargon, but the 
 Europeans who first heard them spoken 
 described them as both sonorous and elegant. 
 It was not written, but the Mexicans had 
 elaborated the art of picture-writing, at 
 which they had grown adepts. The State 
 papers were kept in a sort of record-office. 
 As has been mentioned, Zumarraga, the first 
 Archbishop of Mexico, destroyed all that 
 he could lay his hands on. 
 
 The great blot on the national life was the 
 habit of human sacrifice. It was no doubt 
 as debasing to the national character as the 
 bull-fights of the Spaniards ; more so, 
 perhaps. When all is said, it was shocking 
 to the last degree, but it was a habit pursued 
 by our own ancestors a few centuries earlier. 
 It disappeared from England under the in- 
 fluence of milder teaching-. In the modified 
 
 o 
 
 degree of Sati it was practised in India not 
 
ii8 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 so long since, and was suppressed by a simple 
 legislative enactment. No doubt the Aztecs 
 who had raised themselves so high in four 
 short centuries would have dropped the 
 habit in time. It had already been practi- 
 cally suppressed in the neighbouring and 
 federated State of Tezcuco. 
 
 If we seek for a parallel to aid our con- 
 ception of the Aztec State, we shall find it in 
 Japan. In both countries we find the same 
 religious reverence for the Emperor, the 
 same punctiliously -graded aristocracy, the 
 same instinctively artistic peasantry, the 
 same capacity for political work, the same 
 fierce and dauntless spirit in war. The 
 Aztecs were behindhand in that their religion 
 was gloomy and bloody, but the Japanese 
 lagged behind the Aztecs in the extrava- 
 gant prominence that they awarded to the 
 military caste. 
 
 Such was the mighty and wealthy State 
 that Cortez proposed to subdue with an army 
 of 863 men, all told, of whom 200 were 
 Indians. On April 21, 1519, he landed on 
 the site of the city of Vera Cruz, and for 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 119 
 
 the first time realized the difficulties of his. 
 vast enterprise. Although he was never 
 turned aside from his determination to 
 conquer Mexico, either by the mutiny of his 
 followers or the loss of battles, he felt for 
 long after the outset an intense anxiety 
 as to the means he should employ to that 
 stupendous end. 
 
 It was cheering to observe the terror with 
 which the natives regarded his cavalry. 
 Having never seen a horse and his rider 
 before, they regarded them as supernatural 
 beings. This was to the good, but he only 
 had sixteen horses. He was fortunate in 
 obtaining two interpreters, one a Spaniard, 
 the survivor of an earlier expedition, the 
 other a beautiful Indian girl, who never 
 forsook him throughout all his trials and 
 dangers. Through them he learnt some- 
 thing of the politics of Central America, and 
 he turned his information to his use with a 
 dexterity and courage truly Napoleonic. He 
 very soon heard the name of Montezuma, the 
 reigning Emperor, and it became plain that 
 there were rifts within the fabric of the Aztec 
 
120 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 State, which, if widened, might well bring it 
 to the ground. 
 
 Montezuma had been on the throne for 
 seventeen years when Cortez landed, and 
 had made his name a terror through all the 
 borders of Anahuac. He was a successful 
 soldier, but his early training had been for 
 the priesthood. He was intensely orthodox, 
 and regarded the proper supply of human 
 victims as one of his first duties. His wise 
 old uncle, the King of Tezcuco, had nearly 
 succeeded in stamping out human sacrifices, 
 but Montezuma was not a reformer, any 
 more than Philip II. Like the Spanish King, 
 he loved seclusion, and took a Satanic pride 
 in his rank. He loved to isolate himself 
 in semi-divine solitude ; his sole pleasure was 
 in making other men obey him if possible, 
 obey him unwillingly. We must be content 
 therefore, in spite of his misfortunes, to rank 
 him with the second-rate men. If he had, 
 during the seventeen years of his reign, shown 
 the slightest desire to conciliate, the Spaniards 
 might have found on their landing a united 
 nation that would have driven them back to 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 121 
 
 their ships. Montezuma was powerful ; he 
 would be omnipotent and he fell. 
 
 For there were those within the boundaries 
 of the Aztec Empire who would not obey the 
 Emperor. At their head were the men of 
 Tlascala, a republican State on the Atlantic 
 border of Mexico. The Tlascalans were 
 the Swiss of Central America. They had 
 repulsed the Aztecs over and over again, and 
 maintained their independence in spite of 
 menaces and offers. The power of Monte- 
 zuma was so great that he was able to cause 
 them very great discomfort by cutting them 
 off from food supplies. They lived hardly, 
 but were stubbornly determined to maintain 
 their independence. The Emperor had 
 treated them with particular cruelty, and at 
 the time when Cortez landed they had a 
 frenzied hatred for the city of Mexico and its 
 monarch, a hatred that (as we shall see) 
 closed their ears to all appeals of reason or 
 self-interest. 
 
 All this was explained to Cortez soon after 
 his landing, and he listened attentively, with 
 outward indifference, but intense inward 
 
122 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 gratification. If he could win over the 
 Tlascalans, his conquest was assured, and he 
 was the more resolved to persist in his 
 endeavours when he heard of a certain 
 legend that was current throughout the 
 domains of Montezuma. This was the 
 legend of the fair god who had sailed away 
 into the East, and had promised to return in 
 the fulness of time, when the Aztec dominion 
 was to come to an end. Was Cortez the 
 fair god ? all men eagerly inquired, and 
 Cortez replied that he was. 
 
 This judicious assumption of the Divine 
 character had far wider and deeper results 
 than Cortez could have anticipated at the 
 time. For Montezuma was learned in all 
 the lore of his religion, and was perfectly 
 acquainted with the legend of the fair god. 
 He knew that the time was near when, 
 according to prophecy, he should return and 
 claim his own, and, being a very religious 
 man, he hardly dreamed of opposing the 
 Divine invader. Thus the resistance of the 
 city of Mexico was paralyzed from the 
 outset a most important point, for the 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN t 123 
 
 Mexicans were quite as good fighters as the 
 Tlascalans, and were better armed and 
 provided, besides being more numerous. 
 So, fighting where necessary, diplomatizing 
 wherever possible, Cortez slowly made his 
 way through Zempoalla, Tlascala and 
 Cholula, and on November 8, 1519, he 
 made his formal entry into the fairy city of 
 Mexico. 
 
 The Emperor had done all that lay in his 
 power, short of fighting, to delay the march 
 of the Spaniards. He had sent embassy 
 after embassy, each laden with presents more 
 magnificent than the last, and all conveying 
 the regret of Montezuma that he could not 
 receive Cortez in his capital. But Cortez 
 was not the man to be put aside with polite 
 phrases, and his repeated assurances that the 
 message he bore from his master could only 
 be delivered to the Emperor in his capital 
 were telling on the superstitious mind of 
 Montezuma. The mere expression of the 
 despot's wish had been, until the arrival of 
 the Spaniards, enough to awe all men into 
 acquiescence ; and here were men who not 
 
 9 
 
124 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 only declined to obey him, but were resolved 
 on taking precisely the opposite course to 
 that which he hinted was the proper one. 
 Moreover, besides the presumption from 
 prophecy that the strangers were divine, 
 there was other and very tangible evidence 
 of the fact. The Emperor had seen Cortez 
 take the road that led through Tlascala with 
 great satisfaction ; for he hoped that in this 
 mountainous region the Spaniards would be 
 destroyed. In the recesses of his mind there 
 was still a lingering hope that, after all,. 
 Cortez might not be the divine being that 
 he pretended to be, and he trusted that the 
 Tlascalans would settle the question for him. 
 There was great debate in the Tlascalan 
 Senate as to the course the Republic should 
 take, and the first decision had been for war. 
 Deep was the consternation of Montezuma, 
 when his couriers brought him the news 
 that Cortez had made mincemeat of the 
 Republicans. His musketry, his mail-clad 
 warriors, and his dreaded cavalry, had cut 
 their finest armies to pieces ; and his own 
 diplomacy had subsequently converted the 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 125 
 
 foes of Montezuma into the allies of the 
 Spaniards. Thus the men who entered 
 Mexico now came, not only as mysterious 
 strangers, but accompanied by 6,000 Tlas- 
 calan guards, who followed them like well- 
 trained dogs who knew their master. 
 
 With grand courtesy the Emperor came 
 out to meet the dreaded strangers. He 
 welcomed them to his capital, and assigned 
 a vast palace for their residence, sufficiently 
 spacious to accommodate not only the 
 Spaniards, but also the whole of the 
 Tlascalan auxiliaries. It was with some 
 trepidation and infinite precaution that 
 Cortez established himself in his new 
 quarters. In this city of solid buildings, 
 interlaced with deep canals, and swarming 
 with a warlike and unfriendly population, 
 there was every chance that he might be 
 cut off, and overwhelmed by mere force of 
 numbers. An exchange of visits followed, 
 during one of which Montezuma owned the 
 supremacy of the Spanish Crown, probably 
 not very clearly understanding what he was 
 doing. But Cortez was more discouraged 
 
 92 
 
126 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 than ever when he had seen the Emperor's 
 court and capital. The busy markets, per- 
 fectly ordered, where on booths smothered 
 in gorgeous flowers all the products of a 
 continent were displayed for sale, gave a 
 most depressing idea of the resources of the 
 Aztec State. 
 
 As for the Court, the long lines of bowing 
 nobles, the gorgeous ceremonials, the incense 
 rising everywhere, the etiquette more rigid 
 and more punctiliously exacted than the 
 etiquette of Spain itself, the unparalleled 
 beauty of the interior of the palace, left but 
 one impression on the conquistadores. They 
 were now, indeed, in the lions' den. They 
 durst not, even if they had an excuse, attack 
 an empire of such strength ; yet, if they did 
 not, nothing remained but to retreat to Cuba, 
 where they would be covered with ignominy 
 for their failure, and probably be brought to 
 trial by Velasquez. If they merely stayed 
 on as guests in the city of Mexico, they would 
 not be advancing their cause, even if they 
 were not superseded by a fresh expedition 
 sent from Cuba, or from Spain itself. They 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 127 
 
 were desperate men, and none was more 
 desperate than their chief. He called to his 
 aid the same sublime assurance with which, 
 as a lad of nineteen, he told the Governor of 
 Hispaniola that he wanted gold, not lands 
 with which he had provisioned his expedition 
 in the ports of Cuba against the express 
 orders of the Governor. He kidnapped the 
 Emperor, and put him in chains in the 
 Spanish quarters. The chains were soon 
 removed, but Montezuma remained a 
 prisoner. Fifteen hundred thousand pounds 
 sterling were exacted from him under the 
 name of a present to the King of Spain, to 
 whom he formally swore allegiance. 
 
 Cortez, having obtained an advantage, 
 pressed it home, and the Emperor sank to 
 the position of a puppet in the Spaniard's 
 hands. The people were wild with rage and 
 consternation ; but the Emperor (to save his 
 own pride) repeatedly assured them that he 
 was there of his own will ; so all excuse for 
 rising was taken away. Nevertheless, a 
 rising appeared imminent, and at the same 
 time the alarming news was brought to 
 
128 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Cortez that a new expedition had landed at 
 Vera Cruz, with orders to bring him to trial 
 for disobedience to the instructions of 
 Velasquez. 
 
 The latter news was much more dis- 
 quieting than the discontent of the Aztecs. 
 It was another crisis in the fate of Cortez. 
 Leaving behind him as many men as he 
 could afford to spare, he marched against 
 his new enemies. Narvaez was in command, 
 an incompetent vapouring soldier, who could 
 not be roused into vigilance even by the 
 news, which reached him on all hands, of 
 Cortez' astonishing achievements. Had he 
 been a man of ordinary capacity, even of 
 such humble military capacity as consists 
 in keeping a watch at night, Cortez' days 
 had been numbered ; for Narvaez' forces 
 were numerically far stronger than the little 
 band of conquistadores. However, a night 
 surprise gave Cortez the victory, with very 
 little bloodshed, and diplomacy completed 
 his triumph the next day. He represented 
 to Narvaez' men how much more profitable 
 it would be to share in the plunder of Mexico 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 129 
 
 than to go back to Cuba on the pay of a 
 common soldier, and the result was that he 
 marched back to the city of Mexico much 
 stronger than when he had started. 
 
 Alvarado, who had stayed behind to guard 
 Montezuma, was a savage man, who could 
 think of no better way of stilling the Aztec 
 discontent than to entrap 600 of the nobles 
 in an enclosed courtyard and slaughter them. 
 This act precipitated the rising of the people, 
 and immediately on Cortez' return it broke 
 out. The Spaniards were besieged in their 
 quarters. It was an additional misfortune 
 for them that the captive Emperor was 
 mortally wounded by the hands of his own 
 subjects as he was endeavouring to quiet 
 them. The Spaniards thus lost what was 
 -a perpetual guarantee for their safety and 
 indemnity for their conduct. All hope was 
 now gone ; the worst had happened, and 
 nothing remained but for Cortez to cut his 
 way out as best he could. He contrived to 
 do so, but only with the loss of all his guns, 
 most of his treasure, and half his men. His 
 Tlascalan allies were hewn down by the 
 
hundred, and he himself was severely 
 wounded. More than half the Spaniards, 
 and more than two-thirds of the Tlascalans, 
 were killed about 4,450 all told in the 
 disastrous night-retreat known to history as 
 the Triste Noche, July i, 1520. Cortez had 
 to fight one more great battle in the open ; 
 and at last, half dead himself, and with a 
 band of followers who hardly looked like an 
 armed force, he found shelter within the 
 hospitable walls of Tlascala. 
 
 The Aztecs now gave proof of high 
 political capacity. They sent messengers 
 to Tlascala, saying : ' We grant that we 
 have behaved badly to you in the past ; 
 but consider how much more dangerous are 
 these white men to the peace of our country 
 than any excesses of tyranny on our part can 
 be excesses that we promise shall not be 
 repeated in the future. As for these white 
 men, we received them kindly, and see what 
 they have done ; they have profaned our 
 temples and plundered our treasure ; they 
 led our Emperor captive, and he died in 
 their hands. Our sons have died by the 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 131 
 
 thousand to expel them from our city of 
 Mexico. You see, they are not gods, as 
 they pretended, but mortals like ourselves, 
 only better armed. If we have been faith- 
 less in the past, the white men are still more 
 perfidious. You see how they treated us, 
 even so will they treat you. But join us now 
 in expelling them before more come, and we 
 will arrange our differences among ourselves/ 
 The fate of Central America trembled in 
 the balance. It was the older men, reputed 
 wise, who were in favour of Cortez ; the 
 young men, of whom the chief was shortly 
 after hanged by Cortez, reputed rash, 
 showed the greater foresight. The elders 
 said : ' Let us break Mexico, and we will 
 then deal with Cortez ' ; the younger said : 
 ' Nay, we know that we can at least hold 
 our own against Mexico, but these terrible 
 strangers have beaten us all over and over 
 again, and we know not what they may do. 
 They are now in our power ; let us make an 
 end of them.' Age and authority and the 
 traditions of prescriptive policy carried the 
 day, and the embassy of the Aztecs returned 
 
132 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 after a parting jeremiad over the impending 
 fate of Anahuac. 
 
 At his leisure, and in the secure ease 
 assured to him by the credulous Tlascalans, 
 Cortez soon recovered from his wounds, and 
 prepared for his final campaign. He built 
 twelve brigantines, with which to operate 
 on the Lake of Mexico, and had them 
 carried on the shoulders of porters to the 
 shores of the Lake. He raised levies, sup- 
 plemented by the fortunate arrival of a rein- 
 forcement of men and horses from the islands, 
 and at last, with 100,000 auxiliaries and 900 
 Spaniards, he stood once more before the 
 city of Mexico. 
 
 Under the leadership of their young 
 Emperor, Guatemozin, the successor of 
 Montezuma, the Aztecs fought like tigers. 
 They cut their dykes, like the Hollanders, 
 and disputed every inch of the way into 
 their beloved capital. They repulsed many 
 assaults, on one occasion capturing sixty-two 
 Spaniards, who were sacrificed alive in 
 batches under the eyes of their comrades 
 in the camp of the besiegers. At one time 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 133 
 
 it seemed as if the allies would have melted 
 away before the tremendous labours of re- 
 ducing the Aztec capital, and without his 
 allies Cortez could have done but little. But 
 the genius of their commander carried the 
 day. Famine did most of the work, and, 
 after a three months' siege, Cortez entered 
 the heap of ruins that stood where, eighteen 
 months before, the city of Mexico had shone, 
 a fairy creation, and the conquest of Mexico 
 was complete. About 50,000 of the victors 
 had perished during the long blockade ; 
 120,000 Aztec corpses, at the lowest com- 
 putation, choked the streets and canals of 
 the ruined capital. The Emperor was 
 captured, and received assurance of Cortez' 
 great regard for his indomitable courage. 
 He was assured that a Spaniard knew how 
 to respect a chivalrous enemy. 
 
 'They praised him to his face with their courtly foreign 
 grace.' 
 
 He was then tortured, in order to make him 
 reveal the whereabouts of the Aztec treasure, 
 and was shortly after strung up by the road- 
 side like a detected footpad. Mexico, as a 
 
134 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 civilized State, disappeared from the face of 
 the earth, and its place was taken by a 
 bastard Spain, whose sordid barbarism was 
 so long a blot on the face of the earth. 
 
 This is, in a few words, the net result 
 of Spanish interference in the New World 
 the substitution of barbarism for civilization. 
 It was a retrograde movement of a violent, 
 even a cataclysmic, nature. A whole chapter 
 of the world's history was blotted out a 
 vivid and picturesque type of humanity 
 was destroyed, and the world is not advan- 
 taged by the inferior type that has taken 
 its place. This is the grand contrast be- 
 tween the work of England and the work of 
 Spain. The former is creative and con- 
 servative, the latter was destructive. 
 
 It is no doubt possible to cavil at the work 
 of England, but these facts remain : That 
 the Spaniard destroyed records where the 
 Englishman laboriously collects and pre- 
 serves them ; the Spaniard ruthlessly stamped 
 out Paganism where England has punctili- 
 ously and jealously abstained from any official 
 interference whatever with the faith of her 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 135 
 
 non-Christian subjects. Spain blotted out 
 old arts and crafts, and destroyed monu- 
 ments of quaint learning by the cartload. 
 England carefully and even tenderly pre- 
 serves the mosques and temples of India, 
 even where the failing means, and perhaps 
 the waning faith, of their votaries throw on 
 her a task that, from no narrow point of 
 view, is no part of her duty. 
 
 It may be that England will find her 
 account hereafter a heavy one ; it may be 
 that she is earning for herself the denuncia- 
 tion of the Laodiceans. Such is not the 
 opinion of the present writer, and, indeed, 
 it can hardly be the opinion of anyone except 
 a religious fanatic. Let us, however, admit 
 that to be the case ; let us grant that 
 the horrible tale of destruction that goes by 
 the name of the Conquest of the New World 
 has laid up for Spain a crown of glory, in 
 that she has made a vast population Christian. 
 
 There remains the less transcendental view 
 of the duties of a governing State, and if we 
 consider merely which of the two has con- 
 tributed to the sum of human happiness and 
 
136 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 which has diminished it, we need not mind 
 being convicted of error, and perhaps worse 
 than error, so long as in the broad outlines of 
 our policy we have contrived to differ toto 
 ccelo from the policy of Spain. 
 
 Just three centuries after the downfall of 
 Mexico the country threw off the yoke of 
 Spain, and, after some natural turbulence, 
 has, in the last twenty years, raised itself 
 once more to the rank of a respectable State. 
 Side by side with the destruction of Spanish 
 influence, a sensible diminution in the infusion 
 of Spanish blood has gone on. Native blood 
 has asserted itself, and, under the guise of a 
 Christian Republic, we are now face to face 
 with what is practically a new Aztec State. 
 
 The Conquest of Mexico is generally dis- 
 cussed as if it were a question of the personal 
 merits or demerits of Hernando Cortez. 
 By birth he was a gentleman, and upon 
 occasion he behaved like a gentleman, but 
 he was quite prepared to behave like a 
 ruffian if occasion demanded it ; he had no 
 prejudices. He was created a marquis by 
 his grateful sovereign. On the death of his 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 137 
 
 first wife he married a duke's daughter, and 
 lived in great magnificence. 
 
 The Conquest of Mexico is illumined by 
 the glamour which always gathers round the 
 exploits of a young man ; but the Conquest 
 of Peru has missed that attraction. Cortez 
 was a man of decent birth, some slight 
 education, and no small official experience. 
 But the conquerors of Peru were little better 
 than beach-combers. Francis Pizarro was a 
 colonial desperado. He was one of the 
 most illustrious of the illustrious race of 
 bastards like another conquistador, William 
 of Normandy. He was an ignorant man, 
 and could neither read nor write. At an 
 early age he left his native country, and is 
 first heard of in ' the islands ' at the age of 
 thirty-nine. By this expression we mean 
 nowadays the South Sea Islands, but in 
 Pizarro's time it meant the West Indies. 
 
 Here, so report went, a man might make 
 his way, even if he had no father to speak of. 
 If he failed, there was always sport to con- 
 sole him sport of the kind dear to a 
 Spaniard's heart, hunting natives with blood- 
 
138 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 hounds and similar diversions. At any rate, 
 it was better than herding swine, which was 
 all he had to look forward to in the old 
 country. It would seem as if Pizarro was 
 the very man to succeed in a lawless country 
 like this. He had a frame of iron, an ex- 
 pression often misused, but not out of place 
 here, when we consider the miraculous feats 
 of endurance that he performed in Peru. He 
 was devoid of any of the softer impulses of 
 mankind : he had no fear, no pity, no shame, 
 and no faith except the Catholic faith. 
 Such a man ought to succeed anywhere, and 
 especially in the rough life of the islands. 
 
 But Pizarro had no luck. Youth passed 
 away, and middle-age came and was some 
 way advanced, and still Pizarro was knock- 
 ing about the islands, leading a lawless and 
 adventurous life, but without regular em- 
 ployment, without money, and without credit. 
 Youngsters who might have been his sons 
 were making names and fortunes, but 
 Pizarro, who was grizzled now, was a beach- 
 comber still, nameless, unsuccessful, poor, 
 discredited, and fifty years of age. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 139 
 
 Then came the Conquest of Mexico, and 
 Pizarro, who, had the expression been in- 
 vented, would have said that the islands 
 were ' played out,' felt that it was time to 
 move on ; so he sailed to Mexico. 
 
 But nothing much came of it. The fighting 
 was over, the spoil apportioned, and the 
 country was fast assuming a settled aspect, 
 with officials who frowned on fresh adven- 
 turers. So Pizarro drifted across the country 
 to Panama, a city which shares with Multan 
 the reputation of being separated from the 
 lower regions only by a sheet of paper. 
 Panama was the extremest point of the 
 Spanish dominions, and officialdom had not 
 yet got it into order. It bore the reputa- 
 tion that Callao does to-day, and Pizarro was 
 at home in its congenial atmosphere. 
 
 Moreover, there were rumours abroad of a 
 new Mexico, as yet undiscovered, and lying 
 to the south. One or two expeditions had 
 been fitted out, but had returned empty- 
 handed, and brought news of a barren coast 
 and frightful storms encountered at sea. 
 But they also brought the news that every 
 
 10 
 
140 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Indian they had spoken to had persisted in 
 the story of a great country as rich in gold 
 as Mexico, that did indubitably exist, and 
 apparently asked nothing better than to be 
 conquered. This was good enough for 
 Pizarro, who asked nothing better than to 
 be a conquistador. The difficulty, of course, 
 was money. The desperadoes of Panama 
 might be persuaded to volunteer for the 
 expedition on the chance of plunder, 
 although even that much was not positively 
 certain, as the chance seemed remote. But 
 for the purchase or hire of a ship, and for its 
 provisioning with stores and arms, a con- 
 siderable sum was needed. 
 
 The Governor would do nothing for the 
 expedition ; he did not believe in the 
 Eldorado, and he did not care about Pizarro. 
 The deus ex machina was the Vicar of 
 Panama, who came forward and supplied the 
 necessary funds for Pizarro and his fellow 
 bastard adventurers. It subsequently trans- 
 pired that he was acting for the Licentiate 
 Espinosa, who really found the money. 
 
 However, the Vicar was a respectable 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 141 
 
 person the only respectable man of the 
 three, in fact and the money that he pro- 
 duced and the support of his name were 
 invaluable to the adventurers, Pizarro and 
 Almagro. Two little ships were found and 
 provisioned, and manned with about 100 
 desperadoes, led and commanded by the 
 most desperate of them all Francisco 
 Pizarro. Almagro stayed behind to com- 
 plete the furnishing of the second vessel, 
 and Pizarro set sail alone in November, 
 1524 ; he was fifty-three years of age. 
 
 We must not confuse the expedition of 
 Pizarro down the western coast of America 
 with the expedition of the Portuguese down 
 the coast of Africa a century earlier. Pizarro 
 was not anxious to add to the sum of human 
 knowledge ; he was not interested in new 
 civilization. He had no desire to trade, or 
 to see new countries for the sake of experi- 
 ence. His one object was gold, and he 
 intended to get gold by looting. The hard- 
 ships that he sustained during the next seven 
 years were almost miraculously supported by 
 himself and his followers ; but to describe his 
 
 IO 2 
 
expedition as ' chivalrous ' or ' crusading * 
 would be to forget altogether the proper use 
 of those words. For Pizarro it was neck or 
 nothing ; the chance of a miserable death on 
 the one hand, and the certainty of a prison 
 in Panama on the other. To persist was to 
 face almost unendurable hardships, but to 
 turn back was to end his days in gaol amid 
 the derision of the colony of Panama. 
 
 It would be ridiculous not to allow Pizarro 
 the fullest praise and no praise can be too 
 great for his endurance and resolution ; 
 these were so great that it is inexplicable 
 that he should have passed so many years in 
 poverty and comparative insignificance. But 
 it is surely no less ridiculous to exalt him 
 into a knight-errant, a crusader, and a mis- 
 sionary. He was a desperate gambler, play- 
 ing with borrowed money, and staking on 
 numbers. 
 
 The extraordinary struggle with adverse 
 
 fortune lasted for seven years. Pizarro and 
 
 his men sailed through fearful storms, and 
 
 landed on the shore of what is now Ecuador. 
 
 "They waded through swamps tropical 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPATN 143 
 
 swamps some died of fever, some from 
 alligators and snakes, and some from starva- 
 tion. The survivors subsisted, like marooned 
 sailors, on berries and shell-fish. They cast 
 themselves away on a desert island so as to 
 be free to breathe for a while air that was not 
 actually pestilential. 
 
 After two years of separate wandering, 
 Pizarro and Almagro met, half- naked and 
 half-starved. Pizarro had not clone much, 
 but Almagro had collected some gold and 
 silver ornaments, and both had collected 
 information as to the existence of Peru, so 
 definite that it was quite plain that a better- 
 found expedition would have no difficulty in 
 reaching the land of gold. Two things they 
 had learnt : they must not start in the rainy 
 season, and they must not waste their 
 strength in the swampy coast-country, but 
 sail further south, where there was drier 
 land and more open roads. But money was 
 wanted for this, so to Panama they must 
 needs repair. 
 
 The Governor was furious with them. In 
 his eyes they were pestilent fellows. He 
 
144 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 did not want to hear about the new countries 
 they had discovered what Spaniard would ? 
 He did not praise them for their endur- 
 ance ; he only cursed them for losing 
 lives that might have been of some use to 
 him. If he could have thrown them into gaol 
 he would gladly have done so. Never was 
 man less adventurously minded than the 
 Governor of Panama. 
 
 But Pizarro and his friend met with sym- 
 pathizers in the colony. Although they had 
 not brought back a fortune, they had brought 
 back something ; they were no longer penni- 
 less. And once more the Vicar came to the 
 rescue. He advanced 20,000 pieces of eight 
 on the condition that the spoils of Peru 
 should be divided equally between himself 
 and the two adventurers. He administered 
 the Holy Eucharist to them over the bargain, 
 and the congregation was melted to tears as 
 he divided the consecrated wafer into three 
 portions, symbolical of the threefold partition 
 of Peru. It is difficult to see what there was 
 to weep over, and the tears, unless they were 
 prophetic of the fate of the Inca, were mis- 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 145 
 
 placed. The Governor was so far softened by 
 the appearance of a cash basis for the opera- 
 tions that he gave the expedition his good- 
 will. What the value of the Governor's good- 
 will might be is not quite clear. Probably it 
 amounted to this, that the adventurers were 
 to be unmolested by the officials of the port. 
 The Governor's price was moderate 1,000 
 pieces of eight and the adventurers gladly 
 paid it out of the Vicar's loan. 
 
 The colonists of Panama seem to have 
 been easily cast down. When all was said 
 and done, Pizarro's losses had not been very 
 heavy. On his first voyage he had started 
 out with 200 men, of whom, after two years' 
 wandering in the most unwholesome climate 
 in the world, he had nevertheless contrived 
 to bring back 150. But this mortality was 
 quite enough to dissuade the men of Panama, 
 desperate though they were, from trying 
 their luck with him, and it was chiefly from 
 a band of immigrant adventurers that he 
 enlisted his crews for the second venture. 
 They made a more open country and tried 
 to penetrate inland, but the natives had 
 
146 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 grown wary : they armed and drove the 
 Spaniards back to their ships. It was out 
 of the question to try the country they had 
 been baffled in before, and Pizarro accord- 
 ingly retreated to the island of Gallo in about 
 N. Lat. 2, and sent Almagro to Panama to 
 ask for more help. 
 
 Why he did not proceed south is not quite 
 evident ; probably his crews would not have 
 permitted the venture. They wanted large 
 profits and quick returns, and had no 
 stomach for discovery for discovery's sake. 
 So Pizarro laid up at Gallo, and Almagro 
 went to Panama to ply the Vicar and the 
 new Governor. 
 
 The Vicar stood to his guns, but the 
 Governor was determined to put up with no 
 more nonsense. He despatched a vessel to 
 Gallo with orders to bring away every 
 Spaniard that was left alive, and to put an 
 end, once and for all, to Pizarro's ridiculous 
 and costly filibustering schemes. The ship 
 arrived, and the officer in command an- 
 nounced his instructions. Pizarro refused to 
 obey them, and thirteen of his fellows stood 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 147 
 
 by him ; the rest returned to Panama in the 
 Governor's ship. 
 
 It was the policy of the suspicious Govern- 
 ment of Spain to allow no Governor to hold 
 his post long enough to gain any local 
 influence, and Pedrarias was by now replaced 
 by a new Governor. We have seen what 
 his temper was, but the Vicar knew of a 
 weak point in the new Governor's armour. 
 It seems that he had, in point of fact, been 
 commanded by the Council of the Indies (or, 
 as we should call it, the Colonial Office) to 
 give Pizarro what help he wanted. So, by 
 working judiciously on this clause, it was 
 finally wrung from the Governor as an act 
 of grace that a Spanish vessel should be 
 placed at Pizarro's disposal for six months, 
 at the expiration of which period he was 
 positively commanded to return to Panama 
 and report progress. 
 
 He was absent, not six months, but 
 eighteen, and when he re-appeared, he had 
 long been given up for dead by the entire 
 colony. During his long absence he had 
 discovered the Empire of the Incas. He 
 
148 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 applied to the Governor for funds to help 
 him to subjugate and plunder it, and was 
 met with a flat refusal. It was not that the 
 Governor had any humane scruples. He 
 merely looked on Pizarro's application as an 
 unsound business -offer, which he had no 
 intention of accepting, or even of furthering 
 in any way. The adventurers were in 
 despair. Once more the Vicar came to the 
 rescue, raised funds to enable Pizarro to 
 cross the seas and lay his plans before the 
 Emperor, and despatched him to Spain with 
 his blessing. On his arrival he was arrested 
 and thrown into prison for an old debt. But 
 the Emperor soon put a stop to this 
 summary process. 
 
 Charles was a Fleming, or a Burgundian, 
 rather than a Spaniard ; and he was not 
 popular in Spain. Spain to the Spaniard 
 was the only country in the world, but to 
 Charles it was only one of his many 
 provinces. He was not at home with the 
 Spaniards ; he did not like their pride, which 
 he thought ridiculous, or their quarrelsome- 
 ness, which fretted his own diplomatic 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 149 
 
 temper. They bored him to death, and he 
 was happiest when away from their pre- 
 tentiousness, and their spiteful and intriguing- 
 politics. But he was a good business-man, 
 and did not neglect details. The Colonial 
 enterprises of Spain he had conducted from 
 the outset so as to guard his own pocket, 
 and had given them no other attention, until 
 the success of Cortez had showed him that it 
 was worth his while to do so. His quick 
 insight taught him that in Pizarro he had 
 found another adventurer, who, if carefully 
 managed, would fill his pockets with gold at 
 no expense to himself. He had no intention 
 of losing so favourable an opportunity. So 
 Pizarro was set at liberty and sent for to 
 Toledo. 
 
 In their ways of doing business the 
 Spaniards were, as they are, Orientals. We 
 find everywhere the same personal jealousies 
 and intrigues that hinder affairs in an 
 Eastern Court. Nothing moves with the 
 regularity of the affairs of a great State ; 
 backstairs rule prevails everywhere. Not 
 even the favour of the Sovereign exempts a 
 
150 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 man from the necessity of paying bakhshish. 
 And all this, not in periods of a nation's 
 decay as in Spain at present, or in England 
 under Charles II., but in the full tide of 
 national prosperity, and at a time when their 
 King was a man of the highest capacity, and 
 was Emperor as well as King. 
 
 Pizarro found this out soon enough. His 
 thrifty monarch had dignified him with high- 
 sounding titles, and a new coat of arms, had 
 commanded him to conquer and tranquillize 
 Peru, and had been graciously pleased to 
 command Pizarro to transmit to him one- 
 fifth of the plunder. But he had neglected 
 to supply him with the means to equip his 
 fleet. However, he got it together somehow. 
 The Colonial Office made a last bid for 
 bakhshish, and announced their intention of 
 inspecting his vessels, to see if their regula- 
 tions had been complied with. Pizarro 
 knew what that meant, so he started im- 
 mediately, and in January, 1530, sailed for 
 the New World. 
 
 As a conquistador, Pizarro showed him- 
 self a capable pupil of Cortez ; but it must 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 151 
 
 be admitted that he had a much easier task 
 to perform. The Peruvians were as far 
 above the Aztecs as the Aztecs were above 
 the Spaniards. In the first voyage of 
 Pizarro to Peru, they had welcomed him 
 and his men with the enchanting gaiety and 
 hospitality of the better tribes of the South 
 Seas, but they were far more advanced than 
 any of those agreeable people. The ex- 
 ternals of life were the same flowers and 
 dance and song and graceful manners but 
 the Peruvians had worked out for themselves 
 a civilization so exalted and so beautiful that 
 of the twin destroyers, Cortez and Pizarro, to 
 whom the world owes an undying grudge, 
 Pizarro must take the first place. 
 
 The Peruvian State included practically 
 the whole of the West of South America. 
 Englishmen mostly test civilization by 
 material achievements ; so perhaps the 
 greatest claim that the Incas have to our 
 respect will be found in the fact that the 
 whole of this difficult country, traversed by 
 giant ranges of mountains, was crossed by 
 roads which were miracles of engineering 
 
i$2 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 skill. They were kept in excellent order, 
 and, like those of Mexico, were quite free 
 from the hordes of brigands who swarmed 
 over the roads in Europe, to the disgrace of 
 our government, for centuries after the 
 downfall of the Incas. 
 
 The Peruvians were not a trading people ; 
 their tastes were pastoral. Their system of 
 government was socialistic, every family 
 being an object of State care. Their 
 religion was simple sun-worship. The 
 Emperor was not only the head of their 
 civil- polity, and their leader in war, but was 
 himself revered as a Child of the Sun. 
 They were a much milder race than the 
 Aztecs ; simpler, gayer, and at once less 
 ceremonious and more sociable. The 
 abundance of gfold and silver and emeralds 
 
 o 
 
 gave all their entertainments a sumptuous- 
 ness that was quite in keeping with their 
 brilliant climate and their beautiful houses. 
 If a chief object of government be to 
 increase the happiness of the governed, 
 never was government so meritorious or so 
 successful as that of the Incas. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 153 
 
 The force with which Pizarro proposed to 
 subvert this happy State consisted of 177 
 men, of whom 67 were cavalry. He landed, 
 and announced, like Cortez, his intention of 
 visiting the Inca in his camp. There was no 
 need to fight his way, for the Peruvians wel- 
 comed him everywhere with kindness and hos- 
 pitality. The reigning Emperor's name was 
 Atahuallpa. He seems to have been devoid 
 of any tincture of Montezuma's suspicious- 
 ness, and felt himself far too grand a monarch 
 to regard the strangers as anything but in- 
 teresting visitors. Pizarro was very uneasy 
 as to the possible results of his temerity. So 
 far as he had gone his schemes had excited 
 no enthusiasm, and his men followed him 
 uninterestedly, murmuring every now and 
 then at the long time it took them to find 
 gold. Every day, as the Spaniards advanced 
 into the heart of the Inca's dominions, 
 and witnessed the ordered strength of the 
 Government, their leader felt more and more 
 certain that only by a bold stroke, like that 
 of Cortez, could he hope to gain any footing. 
 Allies were not to be had ; alone they must 
 
154 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 achieve whatever they were going to do 
 277 Spaniards against an empire! 
 
 They found the Emperor at last at Caxa- 
 malca. He was a stately person, of very 
 noble presence, thirty years of age, with an 
 air of unchallenged authority. His Court 
 was gorgeous ; and his retinue, unlike the 
 somewhat ragged bands of followers who 
 crowd round an Eastern Monarch, not only 
 resplendent, but orderly. He was conclud- 
 ing a campaign ; and the feudal levies very 
 numerous levies were assembled round his 
 camp. 
 
 The Emperor was evidently not much 
 impressed by the Spaniards. He was dis- 
 tantly polite, and promised to return their 
 visit. He did not load them with costly 
 presents, or show any anxiety lest they might 
 be supernatural beings. At this rate, the 
 Spaniards would not find their adventure 
 very profitable. When the Emperor had 
 returned their visit they would have no 
 reason for staying any longer in the country. 
 They were greatly cast down. Pizzaro felt 
 that it was now or never. He left the square 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 155 
 
 in which the Inca was to be received empty, 
 posting his men, armed to the teeth, in the 
 corridors of the stone buildings surrounding 
 the square. 
 
 After some delay, the Inca arrived, borne 
 in a litter of solid gold, and surrounded by a 
 bodyguard of unarmed nobles and a con- 
 siderable train of followers. The square was 
 empty, and the Inca halted, and inquired, with 
 pardonable displeasure, where the strangers 
 might be. Father Valverde, the chaplain of 
 the expedition, acted the somewhat undig- 
 nified part of decoy. He stepped forward, 
 and delivered a long sermon, commencing 
 with the fall of man, and concluding with the 
 direct episcopal authority of the Pope. 
 
 Considering the relative position of the two 
 men, there is something grandly courteous in 
 the scene : the omnipotent, divinely-descended 
 Emperor patiently listening to a crazy 
 harangue instead of receiving the stately 
 expressions of welcome and deference to 
 which he had been accustomed all his life. 
 
 When Father Valverde arrived at the point 
 of his argument which was concerned with 
 
 ii 
 
156 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 the Pope giving Peru to Charles V., it is not 
 to be wondered at that the Inca's temper 
 gave way. It was his death-signal. At the 
 priest's exhortation, and promise of absolu- 
 tion this was apparently important the 
 Spaniards rushed from their ambush, and the 
 slaughter commenced. The Peruvians, of 
 course, had no chance ; nor had the Inca. 
 How many thousands fell is uncertain, and 
 not very important ; the rest fled, and the 
 Inca remained a prisoner in Pizaro's hands. 
 
 In Pizarro's hands he received the atten- 
 tion due to a sovereign : was allowed to hold 
 his Court, and to receive his officers, and 
 give orders relative to the administration of 
 his dominions. The Spaniards were amazed 
 at the deference shown to a man in the Inca's 
 forlorn position by nobles of the highest dis- 
 tinction and authority. They grew more 
 uneasy than ever. It was plain that they 
 had to deal with a very remarkable man. 
 
 The days slipped by, and their position 
 grew anxious. They had to mount guard 
 day and night, and, though it might be an 
 important post to mount guard over a reign- 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 157 
 
 ing sovereign, it put no money into their 
 pockets. 
 
 It was some time before Atahuallpa quite 
 realized what the Spaniards really were after. 
 Father Valverde exhorted him constantly to 
 be christened, alleging that the propagation 
 of the true faith was the only object the 
 Spaniards had in hand. His dissertations 
 ^eem to have interested the Inca, but he 
 found a difficulty in reconciling their tenour 
 with the forcible kidnapping and imprison- 
 ment of himself and the murder of his sub- 
 jects. It was perhaps natural that a man 
 who, all his life, had made no more account 
 of gold than of string should take some time 
 to realize what avarice meant. However, he 
 found out at last, and offered Pizarro a ran- 
 som. He undertook to fill his cell with gold 
 up to a certain height. The notary was 
 directed to record the offer with the measure- 
 ments of the apartment the Spaniards were 
 -careful men of business ! 
 
 Pizarro did not believe the Inca : never- 
 theless, the magic of the Sovereign's name 
 'brought gold pouring into Caxamalca. The 
 
 II 2 
 
158 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 treasury was emptied, the palaces stripped, 
 the temples despoiled ; and long before the 
 allotted sum had been realized the Spaniards' 
 mouths were watering with the lust of gain. 
 They loudly clamoured for a division of the 
 spoil ; their leader assented. The royal 
 fifth was set aside ; and, after infinite squab- 
 blings and reproaches, the division was 
 effected. Each foot- soldier got ten thousand 
 pounds ; each horse-soldier twice as much. 
 Pizarro took the Inca's golden litter and 
 about a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. 
 The lowest estimate of the total ransom is 
 three millions and a half sterling. 
 
 The conquest of Peru being Pizarro's 
 object, the first part of his plan was, of 
 course, to reward his men, and keep them in 
 a good temper. That was attained : his 
 ruffians were in excellent cue. The next 
 step was to get rid of the Inca. If they set 
 him at liberty, it was clear, from what they 
 had seen of his bearing in prison, that he 
 would speedily regain his power, and the 
 Spaniards would have to retreat. 
 
 The Inca therefore must die. There 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 159 
 
 were many ways by which this might be 
 accomplished poison, drowning, cold steel, 
 or, best of all, an attempt at escape, or a 
 rescue followed by an accident. But none of 
 these simple and commonplace methods were 
 to Pizarro's taste. Like a true Spaniard, he 
 loved the pomp and circumstance of crime ; 
 and in the case of the murder of Atahuallpa 
 he was able to indulge his taste. He deter- 
 mined to bring the Inca to trial. 
 
 The high court of justice that sat for the 
 trial of the lord of Peru consisted of Pizarro 
 and Almagro. There was, of course, no 
 charge that could possibly be brought against 
 the prisoner, but the court made out a list of 
 four crimes : firstly, his usurpation of the 
 crown ; secondly, his lavishing of the trea- 
 sures of Peru on his own friends and re- 
 lations ; thirdly, his practice of idolatry ; 
 and, fourthly, inciting rebellion against the 
 Spaniards. There was one point the last on 
 which there might have been some evidence 
 to collect, and, in point of fact, the Spaniards 
 had already tried to collect some. But the 
 trial and condemnation was completed with- 
 
160 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 out troubling about evidence, and, as a matter 
 of fact, there was none. If it is worth while 
 to distinguish one charge from the others, 
 the second is perhaps the masterpiece, con- 
 sidering that the only lavishing of treasure 
 that had taken place was the plunder of the 
 treasury for the benefit of the judges. Father 
 Valverde was deferred to as to whether it 
 was right to execute the judgment, and gave 
 it as his opinion that the Inca deserved to 
 die. He was condemned to be burnt to 
 death. 
 
 The time chosen was two hours after 
 sunset. The great square of Caxamalca 
 was dark ; but by the starlight men could 
 see in the centre a darker spot than the sur- 
 rounding earth : it was the pile of faggots. 
 Slowly the Spaniards filed in and took their 
 places round the sides of the square ; they 
 bore torches. When the glare grew steady, 
 Father Valverde emerged, addressing Ata- 
 huallpa, who followed in chains. He was 
 laid on the pile. Up to this moment the 
 Inca had rejected Christianity, saying that 
 he would die in the faith of his fathers. But 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 161 
 
 Valverde made a bid : 'Be baptized only, 
 and you shall not be burnt ; you shall be 
 strangled instead.' The Inca gave way. 
 Face to face with the frightful agony of 
 death by burning, his spirit quailed. The 
 minister of Christ was granted permission to 
 sprinkle him with water. It was August 13, 
 1532, the Feast of St. John the Baptist. In 
 memory of the forerunner, the Monarch re- 
 ceived the name of John. ' John, I baptize 
 
 thee ' The garrote was affixed, and the 
 
 Inca expired. 
 
 These scenes of treachery and bloodshed, 
 masked with a show of legality and religious 
 principle, make the Spanish Empire one of 
 the most nauseating studies of history. If 
 we would know, by observation, what Spanish 
 colonial government is like when the prin- 
 ciples that dominate it are allowed full de- 
 velopment, we are so fortunate as to have a 
 model to our hand one that grew out of the 
 adventures of Magelhan. 
 
 Magelhan was a Portuguese, for whom his 
 native country could find no adequate em- 
 ployment. He offered his services to Spain, 
 
1 62 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 and was entrusted with the pilotage and com- 
 mand of a naval expedition to the coast of 
 South America, in the course of which he 
 discovered the Straits that have borne his 
 name ever since. 
 
 The record of this expedition can hardly 
 be cited under the history of the Portuguese 
 Empire, for the ships were Spanish and the 
 money that paid its expenses was Spanish. 
 It is hardly fair to give the credit of it to 
 Spain ; for, as usual, the hard work, the un- 
 remunerative and risky work of exploration, 
 the anxiety and responsibility, were all borne 
 by a Portuguese. Still, the expedition must 
 be noted, for it had very important results 
 the opening up of the South Seas. As it 
 was Spain that profited exclusively by the 
 discovery, it seems, on the whole, more 
 proper to record the incident in this chapter. 
 
 Magelhan, then, passed the Horn, and 
 discovered the islands of the South Seas. 
 He perished in a skirmish with the natives 
 of one of the islands ; but the profit of his 
 work remained to Spain ; and even to this 
 day that country enjoys the possession of a 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 163 
 
 group of wealthy and populous islands whose 
 discovery is owing to Magelhan, and where 
 we may observe, untrammelled by the 
 criticisms of the press, undisturbed (except 
 for once by England) by foreign conquest, 
 unshaken by whispers of heresy, the true 
 Spanish notions of government in full action. 
 The kind of government that Spain thinks it 
 desirable to set up and preserve is the 
 Government of Manila. 
 
 Besides Manila and her other possessions 
 in the South Seas, Spain had claims in 
 another direction claims which were often 
 urged with some show of seriousness, but 
 which could not prevail against the more 
 assertive ambitions of France and England. 
 
 At the death of the Inca there was present 
 an officer a companion of Pizarro's one De 
 Soto. In later life De Soto discovered the 
 Mississippi. It would not be correct to say 
 that he explored any great part of what are 
 now the Southern States of North America. 
 But his wanderings extended over a large 
 surface, and it was in consequence of them 
 that Spain always claimed the northern 
 
164 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 shore of the Gulf of Mexico as Spanish 
 ground. De Soto died there, and his 
 journeys had really no pretensions to be a 
 conquest ; but this expedition has to be 
 noticed, because it led later on to diplomatic 
 friction between Spain and Powers that did 
 something more than wander through the 
 valley of the Mississippi. 
 
 With these exceptions, and also with the 
 partial exception of Paraguay, Spanish 
 history is all like the story of Mexico and 
 Peru a monotonous record of plunder and 
 slaughter. It is as uninteresting as Turkish 
 history. It is even more uninteresting, for 
 the Turks and their fellow Musulmans often 
 built cities which were miracles of beauty, 
 and devised systems of legislation and social 
 life which were a great improvement on what 
 they supplanted. But the Spaniard's one 
 notion was destruction : what was Castilian in 
 the world was good, the rest was naught. 
 No Turk was ever more stupid or more brutal. 
 The Spanish Empire long held the attention 
 and the admiration of the world, on account 
 of the large sums of money poured into- 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 165 
 
 Europe in consequence of its foundation, and 
 of the immense tracts of country that came 
 to be marked as Spanish on the map of the 
 world. At its greatest extent it included, 
 besides very extensive dominions in Europe, 
 the whole of South and Central America 
 with the exception of Brazil, the West 
 Indian Islands, some parts of what is now the 
 United States of America, and some islands 
 of the South Seas. But it is not by reason 
 of its wide extent that we must deem an 
 empire great. Were it so, China would be 
 the greatest of empires. It is surely by 
 reason of the greatness of soul, or loftiness of 
 life displayed by its founders and enjoined 
 on its subjects. Not one single ennobling or 
 inspiring idea went to the making of the 
 Spanish Empire. 
 
 Greed and lust lust of blood and greed 
 of gold were the names in which the 
 Spaniards wrought all their deeds, although 
 they shouted very different ones the while. 
 It is worthy of remark that all the enterprise, 
 the difficult, dangerous, and (most significant 
 of all) unremunerative work of discovery or 
 
1 66 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 adventure was not done by Spaniards. It 
 was only when there appeared to be a 
 chance of making money quickly that a 
 Spaniard would move at all. Even then he 
 moved slowly and suspiciously. The words 
 'chivalrous zeal/ 'missionary enterprise,' 
 ' crusading ardour ' can no more be applied 
 to Cortez and Pizarro than to Tinuir or 
 Bajazet. The Spaniards fell on the New 
 World like a devastating horde, and dashed 
 it out of existence. When we recall what 
 the New World was, we realize that the 
 crimes of Spain are unpardonable. When 
 we recall the intense and peculiarly vivid life 
 that pulsed through the realms of Montezuma 
 and Atahuallpa, the innumerable lessons that 
 we of Europe could have gleaned from 
 observation of their laws, their life, their 
 customs, their history, and their arts, and 
 when we remember that Spain has destroyed 
 for ever any chance that we can profit by 
 them, it is impossible to read with patience 
 the panegyric that every historian has 
 lavished on the Empire of Spain. 
 
 It is always maintained that the Spaniards 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 167 
 
 should be pardoned much because they 
 effectually converted the New World from 
 Paganism to Christianity. It is true that 
 they did so : they converted America to 
 Christianity in precisely the same way as 
 the early Caliphs converted Africa from 
 Christianity to Islam by terror of death. 
 When we recall the conversion of America 
 we must indeed keep a sorrowful silence 
 over the destruction of the African churches, 
 for in the person of the Spaniard Christianity 
 showed itself as low as Islam lower even, 
 for when the convert had once said ' There 
 is no God but God, and Muhammad is the 
 prophet of God,' he was treasured as a man 
 by his conquerors. But Spain never rested 
 satisfied until she had stamped out of her 
 new subjects every vestige of the qualities 
 that go to make men and women. Not until 
 she had terrified the thriving intelligent 
 pagans of Mexico and Peru into a herd of 
 trembling slaves who attended Mass, was 
 she satisfied. 
 
 Nothing is more astonishing in history 
 than that the two nations the Spanish and 
 
168 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Portuguese should have lived so long to- 
 gether, and such near neighbours, should 
 both have founded empires, and should have 
 remained in such strong contrast to one 
 another : the Portuguese eager to take any 
 trouble for the sake of extending his 
 knowledge of the world, content with 
 moderate gains, eager to fraternize with 
 new nations, thinking always of how best 
 to gain their sympathy and regard ; the 
 Spaniard dull and savage, moved only by 
 the greed of gold or, like vultures, by the 
 reek of death ; stamping out with maniac 
 ferocity everything that was not Castilian, 
 enslaving, slaughtering, destroying ; and all 
 with a heavy and joyless greed and spite. 
 The history of the expansion of Portugal, 
 however badly told, can never be anything 
 but exciting and romantic. The loftiest 
 talents have been employed on the other 
 hand in writing the history of the expansion 
 of Spain, have eagerly taken up the brief 
 of Spain, and have been so wrapped up in 
 their brief as to state without any apparent 
 consciousness of absurdity that what the 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF SPAIN 169 
 
 Spaniards did in America was not as bad as 
 what the English did in Spain. All is of no 
 avail. It is only with frequent intervals of 
 nausea that we can plod through the dreary 
 story ; we wade through blood and crime, 
 and in the end we arrive at nothing but the 
 temporary enrichment of Philip II.'s treasury. 
 It is for this that Mexico and Peru were 
 blotted out. 
 
 To the eternal disgrace of Christianity we 
 must recall what the Cuban chief said when 
 exhorted to change his faith : ' I thank my 
 gods that I am going, as you say, to hell, 
 for there I shall, at any rate, meet no 
 Christians I' 
 
IV. 
 
 THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE. 
 
 12 
 
C 173 ] 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE. 
 
 ' LA colonization est pour la France une 
 question de vie ou de mort ; ou la France 
 deviendra une grande puissance africaine, 
 ou elle ne sera dans un siecle ou deux 
 qu'une puissance europeenne secondaire ; elle 
 comptera dans le monde, a peu pres comme 
 la Grece ou la Roumanie comptent en 
 Europe.' 
 
 So says M. Leroy-Beaulieu ; and M. 
 Leroy - Beaulieu's judgments, especially a 
 severe judgment like the above, must be 
 most attentively weighed by anyone who 
 would form an opinion as to whether France 
 has an Imperial future or not. 
 
 We may be permitted to doubt whether, 
 
 12 2 
 
174 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 from some points of view, France can ever 
 become a second-rate Power. The world 
 owes her, and must continue for many 
 centuries to come to owe her, too much for 
 that to be possible. But if France is to base 
 her claim to the rank of a first-rate Power 
 on the founding of a world State after the 
 model of the British Empire, nothing is more 
 certain (if the past and the present are any 
 guides to the future) than that this claim will 
 grow harder and harder to establish with 
 every year that passes away. We have seen 
 that the driving force of the Portuguese 
 Empire was thought. The driving forces 
 of the Spanish Empire were more simple, 
 being the primitive but tremendous impulses 
 of lust and greed. 
 
 The driving force of the French Empire 
 was adventure. For several centuries France 
 had continued to throw off a series of brilliant 
 men who were carried to the ends of the 
 earth by the love of inquiry or the love of 
 sport. These men were gifted, hardly with 
 an exception, with grandiose and noble ideas, 
 and with admirable powers of exposition by 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 175 
 
 which to make their aims known to their 
 countrymen. 
 
 They were often good soldiers and able 
 diplomatists ; individually they got on well 
 with native tribes. In a word, they were 
 ideal pioneers of a Colonial Empire, and a 
 sort of empire they did succeed in establish- 
 ing. But, seeing they were in the field 
 before us in some cases a hundred years 
 before us and that they came of a country 
 much more populous than the British Isles, 
 the empire that they founded ought to have 
 been impregnably strong by the time that 
 England came to attack it. That it was not 
 impregnably strong was due to the fact that 
 the great colonial pioneers of France did 
 not receive adequate support from the old 
 country. 
 
 The people of Portugal were drawn into 
 the path of colonial enterprise by the sublime 
 genius of Henry the Thinker, and were 
 guided to great deeds by the sagacity of 
 successive Portuguese kings. The people of 
 Spain entered on their career of devastating 
 conquest drawn on by the dazzling dreams 
 
176 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 of a great fortune quickly acquired. Their 
 monarchs were indifferent to their enterprise, 
 but did not throw any obstacle in its way so 
 long as their own interests were secured. 
 Both empires were national enterprises, but 
 the Portuguese succeeded through the efforts 
 of their kings, and the Spaniards in spite of 
 their kings. 
 
 The Kings of France had very little to do 
 with founding or developing the colonial 
 empire of France, but this was not neces- 
 sarily a fatal weakness, as we have seen 
 in the case of Spain. A national movement 
 cannot be arrested by the indifference of a 
 monarch. The fatal weakness of the empire 
 of France was this : That it never was a 
 national movement. The French pioneers 
 of empire showed the way, but no great 
 rush of men followed in their footsteps. 
 Their deeds, when they became known in 
 France, aroused no general enthusiasm. At 
 most, they attracted the fleeting attention of 
 a Minister, or became objects of commercial 
 interest to a clique of speculators in the 
 capital. Hence the story of ' The Lost 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 177 
 
 Empire of France' is for the most part the 
 history of the unsupported efforts of a few 
 great men. 
 
 The greatest of all these was Samuel 
 Champlain, the founder of Quebec. Champ- 
 lain received a military education, and did 
 well in the service ; but his talents were 
 rather solid than brilliant, and at the age of 
 thirty-two he had filled no higher post than 
 the respectable but not very important one 
 of Quartermaster. In this capacity, how- 
 ever, he had earned the esteem of two 
 marshals, D'Aumont and De Brissac, and 
 had so impressed the thrifty Henry IV. 
 that he had earned a pension ' to attach him 
 to the royal household.' Being for the 
 moment out of employment, and removed 
 from the necessity of earning a living, he 
 made a journey to the New World. This 
 was with the object of acquiring information 
 that might be of use to his Sovereign. He 
 made his way to Cadiz, and sailed thence, in 
 the year 1599, to Hispaniola. He kept a 
 diary, and noted in extraordinary detail, 
 and with singular accuracy of observation, 
 
everything that he saw. He was an ex- 
 cellent draughtsman ; he catalogued the 
 natural features of the islands and the main- 
 land. He rarely made comments on what 
 he saw, but when he did they were pregnant 
 comments indeed. 
 
 At Portobello, ' the most evil and pitiful 
 residence in the world,' he pointed out that 
 the obvious thing for the Spaniards to do 
 was to cut a waterway across to Panama, 
 seventeen leagues off, and save 1,500 
 leagues of sea. So Champlain anticipated 
 M. de Lesseps by two centuries and a half. 
 The furthest point that he reached was the 
 city of Mexico, which then contained a popu- 
 lation of about 100,000, including 15,000 
 Spaniards, or about one-third of its popula- 
 tion in Aztec days, sixty years before. ' All 
 these Indians,' he writes, ' are of a very 
 melancholy humour ' no wonder ' but have 
 nevertheless very quick intelligence, and 
 understand in a short time whatever may be 
 shown to them, and do not become irritable 
 whatever action or abuse may be done or 
 said to them.' Before the day of Cortez 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 179 
 
 the Aztecs were very easily irritated, but 
 when Champlain saw them they had been 
 well dragooned ; they had learnt the dire 
 consequences of being irritated with a 
 Spaniard. 
 
 He returned to France after an absence of 
 three years, and found that his old friend, 
 the Governor of Dieppe, was planning an 
 expedition to explore and settle Canada. 
 If Champlain had been valued before, he 
 was now doubly valued, and was immediately 
 selected to be one of the leaders of the ex- 
 pedition. From this year, 1603, to his death 
 at Quebec in 1635 he was continually back- 
 wards and forwards between Canada and 
 France, with the exception of a stay of five 
 weeks in London after the fall of Quebec, 
 at the end of the year 1629. Thirty-two 
 years of the labour of such a man as Champ- 
 lain, commencing at the time when he was in 
 the pride of his strength and already of ripe 
 experience, ought to have settled the new 
 colony on an impregnably solid basis. As a 
 matter of fact, it left Quebec a rudely-fortified 
 stockade, affording a scanty shelter to, at 
 
i8o LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 most, 200 men, who subsisted on supplies 
 sent out from France. 
 
 In January, 1627, he notes the death of a 
 settler named Hebert, the first man who 
 lived by what he cultivated, and in 1627 
 Quebec had been founded for nineteen years. 
 It was not Champlain's fault that the colonists 
 did not grow their own wheat ; to induce 
 them to do so was one of the prime objects 
 of his policy, but his masters in France 
 would not allow it. 
 
 He had many masters. First there was 
 the King, to whose favour he owed his 
 position ; then came the Viceroy, whose 
 deputy he was and it is a most remark- 
 able tribute to Champlain's equanimity that 
 he was the trusted deputy of seven successive 
 viceroys the Comte de Soissons, the Prince 
 de Conde, the Marquis de Themines, the 
 Prince de Conde again, the Due de Mont- 
 morency, the Due de Ventadour, and the 
 Cardinal Due de Richelieu. 
 
 The King did very little, one way or the 
 other, but the viceroys drew large profits 
 from their post, which was worth from 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 181 
 
 70,000 to 100,000 livres. They were always 
 highly-placed men, and, after the bad habit 
 of these and later days, they resided in 
 France, and concerned themselves with 
 nothing but the profits of their charge. 
 Towards the expenses of the colony they 
 contributed nothing. The merchant adven- 
 turers were a third set of masters. They 
 found the money for the ships and stores, 
 and were an exceedingly jealous, exacting, 
 litigious body of shopkeepers. They came 
 from Rouen and St. Malo, and at first en- 
 deavoured to associate with the men of La 
 Rochelle. But the Rochellais quarrelled over 
 the terms of the articles of association, and, 
 having commenced proceedings in the Courts 
 of Law at Paris, took the additional precau- 
 tion of organizing a piratical expedition on 
 their own account. ' Very bad subjects,' 
 Champlain calls them, as well he might, 
 ven if he had not been an ardent Church- 
 man, and the Rochellais equally ardent 
 Protestants. 
 
 Between viceroys, paymasters, and pirates, 
 to say nothing of Indian wars and the in- 
 
herent difficulties of the Canadian climate, one 
 might well wonder that anything moved at 
 all. It needed no less a man than Cham plain 
 to save the movement from being stifled in 
 its birth. A portrait of him that still exists 
 shows him to have been in personal appear- 
 ance something like our Strafford, but with a 
 humorous cast of features that perhaps helps 
 to explain his success. His first voyage was 
 undertaken in the year 1603. It was not 
 exactly a voyage of discovery, for the coast 
 of North America had been constantly visited 
 by Frenchmen for a century past. 
 
 And yet, although the French were quite 
 as daring explorers as the Portuguese, they 
 had nothing like the results to show for their 
 labours that the Portuguese had in half the 
 time. The countries that they visited were 
 far more full of promise than the unhealthy 
 West African coast ; but in France there 
 was no Prince Henry. With proper guidance 
 and support the French would have colonized 
 from Florida to the St. Lawrence by Champ- 
 Iain's time. We can count eighteen separate 
 expeditions between the years 1504 and 1603. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 183 
 
 each of them manned by stout-hearted sailors 
 and guided by capable captains, including no 
 less a man than Jacques Cartier, who got as 
 far as the present site of Montreal as early 
 as the year 1534. 
 
 In those early days the Indians were not 
 unfriendly, and nothing but a guiding hand 
 in the old country was needed to have 
 developed the nucleus of a great French 
 State on the Atlantic shore of North 
 America. One great difficulty, however, 
 we must not overlook. In Prince Henry's 
 days the Church was not yet torn by 
 schism ; in Champlain's time the strife be- 
 tween Catholic and Protestant was at its 
 height. It was owing to this miserable 
 state of things that one determined attempt 
 to colonize Florida came to nothing. 
 
 As early as 1565 no fewer than 600 
 French Protestants sailed in a fleet fitted 
 out by private enterprise, and settled in 
 Florida. They might have chosen a more 
 fortunate climate for their great experiment ; 
 but, still, 600 men and women formed a large 
 body of colonists, and allowed of a good deal 
 
V 
 
 1 84 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 of wasting. No doubt they would have re- 
 ceived recruits with time, and so would have 
 been able to endure, without breaking down, 
 the first hard lessons of settlers in a new 
 land. 
 
 The Spaniards fell on them from the 
 secure vantage-ground of 'the Islands,' and 
 massacred them all with horrid barbarity. 
 Those who did not perish in the Spanish 
 onslaught were hanged ; and this legend was 
 affixed to their gallows : ' These men are not 
 hanged as Frenchmen, but as heretics.' 
 This was a delicate way of intimating that 
 no diplomatic offence was intended. Two 
 or three men managed to escape the 
 slaughter, and made their way to Europe, 
 where they cried out for vengeance ; but 
 Spanish dexterity had forestalled them at 
 Court, and although diplomatic representa- 
 tions were made, it was evident that no 
 reparation would be offered by the Court of 
 Madrid. Silently and swiftly the Protestants 
 took their revenge. A second expedition 
 was privately equipped. No gewgaws for 
 Indian chiefs, or spades for cultivation, did 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 
 
 they take in their cargo, but muskets and 
 ammunition in plenty ; scaling ladders, 
 swords and daggers. They fell on the 
 Spanish settlers in Florida even as the 
 Spaniards had fallen on their brethren of 
 the Reformed Faith. They stormed the 
 stockade that stood on the site of their once 
 promising colony, and hanged all their 
 prisoners with this grim legend round their 
 necks : ' These men are not hanged as 
 Spaniards, but as traitors, robbers, and 
 murderers.' 
 
 The memory of these dark scenes was 
 strong in Champlain when, in the first year 
 of the reign of James I., he sailed across the 
 Atlantic and landed at Tadoussac. He 
 seems to have taken the squabblings in the 
 old country as part of the day's work. He 
 did not murmur that the magnificent young 
 gentlemen whose deputy he was (the Prince 
 de Conde was Viceroy at twenty-four, the 
 Due de Montmorency at twenty -five) 
 should look for, and in fact take, very large 
 sums from an enterprise to which they con- 
 tributed nothing. He recognized that the 
 
1 86 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 protection of their great name gave stability 
 to his work, and shielded him from his pay- 
 masters the merchants of Rouen, who 
 found the money and expected such terribly 
 large profits from his labours. 
 
 But what Champlain was determined to 
 put an end to was the scandalous and 
 disastrous bickering between Catholic and 
 Protestant. He himself was an ardent 
 Churchman, and spent a great deal of his 
 time in instructing natives in the dogmas of 
 the Christian faith. It was unspeakably 
 mortifying and shocking to him to see the 
 priest and the pastor come to blows over 
 their arguments, while the Indians cheered 
 and took sides as at a prize-fight. He 
 accordingly forbade the Protestants who 
 sailed with him to sing psalms or to 
 engage in common prayer. The French 
 Protestants were most devoted to their 
 reformed faith, and threatened a mutiny. 
 If Champlain had been a Spaniard he would 
 have faced the mutiny ; in which case the 
 cause of the French colonization in Canada 
 would probably have gone down in a blood- 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 187 
 
 stained derelict in the Atlantic. But 
 Champlain's whole soul was devoted to the 
 colonial expansion of France, and though a 
 good Catholic, he compromised rather than 
 lose a man. It was a most remarkable 
 testimony to the conciliatory nature of the 
 man that any compromise should have been 
 possible, considering the times and the 
 subject. Singing psalms he would not 
 endure, and his men would not submit to 
 be deprived of their common prayer. So 
 common prayer was tolerated, and psalm- 
 singing suppressed. ' Of a bad debt collect 
 what you can,' he wrote home. 
 
 His colonists, of all faiths, were a worthless 
 lot. Their diversions were drinking and 
 squabbling with the Indians. They waste- 
 fully lived on the stores exported from 
 France, often reducing themselves to the 
 verge of starvation. Their lawless conduct 
 was loudly exclaimed against by the Basques 
 and Rochellais, whose complaints were all 
 the louder because they were themselves 
 outside the Canadian ' ring.' It was to 
 quiet these outcries that, at the end of the 
 
1 88 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 year 1607, De Monts' commission was 
 cancelled. De Mont was a most patriotic 
 gentleman, who had subscribed 100,000 
 livres out of his private fortune towards the 
 expenses of the Canadian expeditions, and 
 had himself sailed in them. He was granted 
 a contingent compensation of 6,000 livres. 
 Nothing daunted, although highly indignant, 
 he fitted out another ship, and Champlain 
 again sailed for Canada, this time resolutely 
 determined to work up the St. Lawrence to 
 China. 
 
 This plan had been strictly enjoined by 
 Francis I. on Jacques Cartier, who got no 
 further on the road than Montreal. But 
 Champlain was in possession of positive 
 information. The English explorers, so he 
 was informed, had actually discovered the 
 North- West Passage ; although, owing to 
 the fact that they had been wrecked and 
 subsequently massacred by Indians, their 
 secret had died with them, except that it was 
 in the hands of Champlain's informant. On 
 May 27, 1613, he started from Montreal 
 with four Frenchmen and an Indian guide, 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 189 
 
 one of the Frenchmen being Nicholas 
 Vignau ; he it was who had undertaken to 
 pilot Champlain to China. When the party 
 had penetrated seventy -five leagues of 
 country, and suffered endless hardships, 
 Vignau fell at Champlain's feet, and con- 
 fessed that he had invented the yarn from 
 beginning to end. 
 
 Prior to this ridiculous and vexatious 
 fiasco, Champlain had married. It is the 
 most inexplicable act of his life. The 
 marriage contract exists, and shows that 
 there was no money on either side. The 
 young lady was Helene Boulle, after whom 
 the Isle St. Helene in the St. Lawrence was 
 named. She was of no great family her 
 father was Secretaire de la Chambre du Roi 
 and to crown all, Champlain was forty- 
 three and his bride was twelve. Madame 
 Champlain stayed with her parents while her 
 husband was occupied in Canada, and did 
 not join him there until ten years after her 
 marriage. 
 
 Champlain's scheme of colonization was to 
 form a strong nucleus of French settlers, and 
 
 132 
 
igo LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 to group around them bodies of friendly 
 Indians. It was probably unavoidable that 
 he should take some side in the native wars, 
 and he invariably sided with the Algonquins 
 against the Iroquois. But with his gentle 
 temper, and his genuine desire to sympathize 
 with the Indians, he would have quickly made 
 friends with other tribes than the Algonquins, 
 if his masters would have allowed him to do 
 so. There was nothing to be expected from 
 the merchant adventurers, for they openly 
 declared that they could have no part in any 
 scheme that tended to the 'independence,' as 
 they called it, of the settlements ; they did 
 not want the colonists to be capable men : all 
 that they wished was that they should be 
 docile agents for the fur trade. 
 
 Better things might have been expected 
 from the viceroys, but the great post of 
 Viceroy of Canada was unfortunately swept 
 one way or the other by all the cross-currents 
 of Paris political life. On one occasion 
 Cham plain landed at Havre, eagerly looking 
 forward to obtaining the help of the Prince 
 de Conde in developing Montreal. He found 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 191 
 
 the Viceroy in prison, whither he had been 
 conveyed by the Marquis de Themines, who 
 had been ordered to arrest him, and was 
 made a Marshal as his reward on the same 
 day. The Marquis de Themines was a man 
 who had long passed the age when men take 
 a romantic interest in the affairs of this life.* 
 From the spoils of Monsieur le Prince, the 
 Marshal arrogated to himself the office of 
 Viceroy of Canada ; not because he took 
 any interest in Canada, but because he was 
 sure that the Prince de Conde had not made 
 enough out of his post, and that he would be 
 able to make a great deal more himself. 
 Accordingly he proposed to raise the price of 
 furs, and to augment the gratifications payable 
 to the Viceroy and his deputy, especially 
 those payable to the Viceroy. 
 
 The merchant adventurers were furious, 
 and a violent quarrel ensued between the 
 trading companies and the Viceroy. Cham- 
 plain would have nothing to say to either 
 
 * He was sixty-three when he arrested the Prince de 
 Conde, and had already been a Knight of the Holy Ghost 
 for nineteen years. 
 
192 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 side. He had come to France to raise 
 money for Montreal, and as it was soon 
 made manifest to him on all sides that no 
 money would be forthcoming, he quietly 
 returned to Canada, and left his paymasters 
 to fight over the profits that he was about 
 to earn for them. 
 
 He made his voyage, and returned home 
 to find Themines and the merchants still, 
 after a lapse of twelve months, squabbling 
 over the price of fur. This time he gravely 
 remonstrated with both, and the merchants 
 appear to have been so far made ashamed of 
 themselves that on the remonstrances of their 
 servant they allowed him to choose a picked 
 band of eighty colonists. When taking them 
 back to Canada Champlain was for the first 
 time accompanied by his wife, and the settle- 
 ment looked as if it might have some 
 expansive power within it. 
 
 But this was a delusion. After a year in 
 Canada, Champlain came back, and found 
 that Montmorency, who was now Viceroy, 
 had resigned his post in favour of the Due 
 de Ventadour. The incessant changes of 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 193 
 
 Viceroy were most damaging to the cause 
 of colonization, and in this case particu- 
 larly so. 
 
 The Due de Ventadour was a very pious 
 man, most anxious for the propagation of the 
 Faith, and it appears that he was himself 
 actually in Holy Orders. He was the Jesuits' 
 man, the Due de Montmorency not being 
 sufficiently zealous in their cause. No man 
 could have been more genuinely and deeply 
 anxious to see the Faith flourish than Cham- 
 plain. It was owing to his exertions that the 
 Jesuits had obtained their first footing in 
 Canada in 1615. He approved of their 
 energy, he admired their character, and he 
 earnestly furthered their designs wherever 
 he could do so. But it was really too much 
 that they should nominate the Viceroy. 
 Champlain was duly confirmed by the Duke 
 as Deputy-Viceroy, but he could get no help 
 for his struggling colony, and it is a most 
 painful example of the extent to which 
 the greed and folly of the home authorities 
 had lamed his enterprise, that on returning 
 to Canada as Ventadour's deputy, he found 
 
194 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 only twenty-four men fit for work in his 
 entire colony. 
 
 Then came the crash that he had long 
 been anticipating. A little knot of adven- 
 turers in London fitted out an expedition, and 
 set out to conquer Canada. They were 
 commanded by David Kirk, a daring man, 
 but Champlain showed so bold a face in his 
 adversity that he actually frightened Kirk 
 into giving up his project of conquering 
 Quebec. He contented himself with de- 
 stroying the fleet, laden with provisions, 
 that he encountered in the St. Lawrence. 
 This was a less heroic feat than a siege or 
 a battle, but it was quite as effective as a 
 victory, for it reduced Champlain and his 
 little band almost to the verge of starvation. 
 Kirk was really ignorant of the amount of 
 damage that he had done, and had no idea 
 that Quebec was actually at his mercy. A 
 Frenchman gave him this valuable informa- 
 tion. 
 
 The first English expedition against 
 Canada took place in 1628. A year pre- 
 viously Richelieu had taken the affairs of 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 195 
 
 the colony in hand. He swept away the 
 companies, bought out the Due de Venta- 
 dour, shut the Jesuits out of all influence in 
 the affairs of Canada, and declared himself, 
 and made himself, supreme director of 
 colonial affairs, with the title of Grand 
 Master and Superintendent of Navigation 
 and Commerce. 
 
 Enraged at the loss of profits that he and 
 his like had so long enjoyed, a disappointed 
 speculator betrayed to David Kirk the true 
 condition of the colony. In 1629 a second 
 English expedition appeared in the St. 
 Lawrence before Richelieu had time to arm 
 or provision the place. There was no help 
 for it ; Champlain must surrender. On 
 August 21, 1629, the English flag was 
 hoisted over Quebec. Champlain was most 
 courteously entreated and shipped to England. 
 He made Plymouth on November 20, and 
 the port of London nine days later. He at 
 once sought out M. de Chateau neuf, the 
 French Ambassador, and cast about for some 
 flaw in the treaty of surrender. He soon 
 found one. It appeared that the attack had 
 
been made at a time when France and 
 England were, in fact, at peace. This was 
 enough for Champlain. His stay in London 
 lasted only five weeks. He hurried to Rye, 
 crossed to France, and laid his case before 
 the Due de Richelieu. 
 
 On the one side was English enterprise 
 that best of all enterprise, private energy 
 possession, which in such matters more than 
 in all others is nine points of the law, and 
 Charles I. On the other side was a technical 
 diplomatic advantage, with Champlain and 
 Richelieu to urge it. It is hardly necessary 
 to say that Richelieu had his way. Kirk 
 was consoled with a knighthood, and by the 
 Treaty of St. Germain-en- Laye, signed on 
 March 29, 1630, Canada was restored to 
 France. 
 
 Three years later Champlain sailed from 
 Dieppe for the last time, and on Christmas 
 Day, 1635, he died. 
 
 Great and angry emphasis has been laid 
 upon Champlain's religion by advocates 
 belonging to two opposite parties. It is 
 only right to state that there is authority for 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 197 
 
 drawing precisely the opposite conclusion as 
 to Champlain's religion to that set forward in 
 the preceding pages. Champlain is as often 
 described as a Protestant as a Catholic. The 
 passages proving him to have been a Catholic 
 are alleged to have been inserted by interested 
 narrators. It is a point worth disputing, for 
 Samuel Champlain was a man whose character 
 any religion might be proud to have formed. 
 But from the point of view of this history it 
 is perfectly immaterial. Whether priests or 
 pastors trained the youthful Champlain, they 
 trained a boy who became one of the greatest 
 and best of the sons of France. Among her 
 colonial statesmen he must stand in the first 
 rank, if not in the first place. 
 
 A very different man was La Salle, the 
 second discoverer of the Mississippi. If 
 Champlain's talents were solid La Salle's 
 were brilliant. It was La Salle who first 
 imagined the vast design that afterwards so 
 alarmed the elder Pitt the design of con- 
 necting the Canadian Lakes with the Gulf of 
 Mexico by a chain of forts along the valley 
 of the Mississippi, and so rounding off the 
 
198 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 whole of the Eastern portion of the continent 
 into a mighty French State. The effect of 
 this plan, if carried out, would be to crowd 
 the rising English settlements on the Atlantic 
 sea-board into the. space between the Alle- 
 ghanies and the ocean. There was also a 
 very good chance that the English might 
 ultimately be edged off the continent alto- 
 gether. 
 
 This is the kind of scheme that has always 
 attracted Frenchmen. It appeals at once to 
 their intelligence and their imagination. It 
 gives them a grand objective that may be 
 pursued steadily for generations, if not 
 centuries, and all the time it holds before 
 their eyes boundless possibilities of wealth 
 and power. It is an ideal that they are 
 pursuing in Africa at the present moment. 
 It will always attract a people at once intelli- 
 gent and imaginative. But it is an ideal that 
 is apt to lead its pursuers to overlook the 
 simple facts before them. In La Salle's 
 case it was a wonderful flight of imagina- 
 tion, for the Mississippi was not even ex- 
 plored at the time when he proposed to use 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 199 
 
 its waters as a link to connect Canada with 
 Mexico. 
 
 Louis XIV., who deserves the title of 
 Great much more than we are accustomed 
 to admit, had laid down rules for the develop- 
 ment of his colony of Canada, which were 
 based on the facts of the case, and not from 
 flights of imagination. He had instructed 
 his officers that, considering the rigours of 
 the climate and the dangers from Indians, it 
 was highly inadvisable to allow indiscriminate 
 colonizing. No village must be far from its 
 next neighbour, the strength of the settlers 
 must be concentrated, and no isolated posts 
 permitted. 
 
 La Salle's plans were, of course, in exact 
 opposition to the King's. If any restrictions 
 upon colonizing are desirable, Louis' regula- 
 tions were the wisest that could possibly have 
 been devised. The entire population of 
 Canada would not, at that time, have sufficed 
 to plant settlements along the banks of the 
 Mississippi in the way that La Salle desired 
 to see. But there was no harm in exploring 
 the river and in making sure that it did 
 
200 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 actually communicate with the Gulf of 
 Mexico. This La Salle achieved, and on 
 April 9, 1682, planted the flag of France at 
 the mouth of the Mississippi and founded the 
 State of Louisiana, christening it after his 
 master, the King. 
 
 He returned to France, and was well, but 
 not enthusiastically, received. Louis was at 
 the height of his glory, having pursued for 
 twenty years, unchecked, the career of Euro- 
 pean conquest to follow which he had early 
 turned aside from Colbert's plans for colonial 
 expansion. La Salle was to the world of 
 Paris in the year 1682 very much what a 
 second or third rate African explorer would 
 be in the world of London 200 years later. 
 
 However, his second expedition was 
 equipped, and he set sail for America, 
 this time with the intention of sailing up 
 the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico, 
 and so confirming his previous knowledge 
 of the river's course. It was on this ex- 
 pedition that the vices of La Salle's character 
 showed themselves so unfortunately. Able 
 and daring he undoubtedly was, but he was 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 201 
 
 intensely vain and imperious, and had no 
 power of awakening the sympathy or en- 
 thusiasm of his subordinates. 
 
 In the little-known waters of the Mexican 
 Gulf his ship went astray ; his pilots missed 
 the mouth of the Mississippi, and landed him 
 some hundreds of miles to the westward. 
 An overland journey of extreme anxiety and 
 hardship was commenced, and La Salle was 
 not equal to the task of leading it. He was 
 assassinated by his enraged and disappointed 
 followers on March 20, 1687. His grand 
 achievement was the foundation of the colony 
 of Louisiana. During his lifetime he must 
 have felt that he had been hardly treated by 
 his King, and had accomplished nothing. 
 Nevertheless, his work long remained, and 
 of such as La Salle is the colonial empire of 
 France. 
 
 This, then, was the scheme of the colonial 
 empire of France in the Americas : Firstly, 
 Canada, by which was meant a little knot of 
 settlements on the lakes ; secondly, the long 
 valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, 
 ending with Louisiana, which was held in 
 
202 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 force, in order to seal the mouth of the river 
 from attacks by Spain. Canada was to 
 expand northwards to the Pole, and south- 
 eastwards to the Atlantic. The line of the 
 Mississippi was to thrust eastwards to the 
 Atlantic. The adventures of France in the 
 West Indian Islands form a separate episode, 
 which may be left for the present. The 
 history of the mainland is the principal part 
 of the story. 
 
 We are accustomed to consider the con- 
 tinent of North America as divided into two 
 parts Canada and the United States. The 
 situation in early days was much less simple. 
 South-east of French Canada lay New 
 Amsterdam, a Dutch settlement, side by 
 side with English settlements. The Dutch 
 were quiet neighbours, extremely tenacious 
 of their own rights, but not expansive or 
 encroaching. Not so the English in Hud- 
 son's Bay. Not only were they more 
 daring than the Dutch, but the country 
 that they controlled was a fur-country, which 
 was much more highly valued by French 
 Canadians than the agricultural settlements 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 203 
 
 on the Atlantic coast. Hudson's Bay, there- 
 fore, was early marked out for acquisition by 
 the French. 
 
 But it was one thing to mark out Hudson's 
 Bay for absorption into Canada, and quite 
 another thing- to absorb that immense and 
 valuable territory. Of the prior rights of the 
 English there could not be any doubt. The 
 bay was discovered by Henry Hudson in 
 the year 1610,* and was mistaken at the 
 time for the North-West Passage to China. 
 The discovery of this passage was the grand 
 object of Hudson's life. By a most curious 
 accident Hudson, travelling north on this 
 quest, passed Champlain, travelling south 
 on the same errand, in the year 1610 ; the 
 great explorers were within fifty miles of 
 each other. Although Hudson's Bay did 
 not prove to be useful as a waterway to 
 the East, it became the centre of a valuable 
 and expanding fur-trade. The shores of the 
 bay were dotted here and there with forts, 
 and there was no talk of disputed rights 
 
 * This was a re-discovery, the first discovery having taken 
 place in the year 1498. 
 
 14 
 
204 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 there until the year 1682 the year of the 
 foundation of French influence at the ex- 
 treme south of the continent. 
 
 Hudson's Bay was finally confirmed to the 
 English by the Treaty of Utrecht, but only 
 after thirty-two years of determined struggle, 
 the French attacking and the English de- 
 fending. The diplomatic argument employed 
 by the French was an extremely ingenious 
 one. It went back to the Treaty of St. 
 Germain- en -Laye, by which, as w r e have 
 seen, the combined genius of Champlain 
 and Richelieu rescued Canada from the 
 grip of the English expedition of David 
 Kirk. It will be remembered that this 
 treaty was the beginning of a new era for 
 French Canada, an era inaugurated by the 
 foundation of Richelieu's Company of One 
 Hundred. 
 
 This company was granted exclusive 
 trading privileges up to the Arctic circle, 
 and it was argued that, as Hudson's Bay 
 lay between Canada and the Arctic circle, it 
 was plain that, as the Treaty of St. Germain- 
 en- Laye recognized the Company of One 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 205 
 
 Hundred, the French rights to Hudson's 
 Bay were established as long ago as 1633. 
 
 It was a very good point, and if colonial 
 matters had been decided in those days by 
 taking good points, very likely French 
 Canada would have run up to Hudson's 
 Bay, and the colony would have got rid 
 of one dangerous neighbour. Even as it 
 was, the rights of the Hudson's Bay traders 
 were seriously prejudiced notably, at the 
 Treaty of Ryswick. But it was not only 
 or even chiefly diplomatic activity that was 
 stirred up by the rivalry of France and 
 England in North America. When the 
 seventeenth century was three-quarters past, 
 the French became very active in Canada ; 
 we shall see why presently. In the direction 
 of Hudson's Bay they made one highly- 
 successful effort to oust us. 
 
 In the year 1686 D'Iberville expelled us 
 altogether from Hudson's Bay. D'lber- 
 ville's expedition, like so many of those 
 early colonial expeditions, was undertaken 
 at a time when the home governments were 
 actually at peace. James II. was King, and 
 
 142 
 
206 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 he had too many irons in the fire to take a 
 very decided line in colonial policy. The 
 question of Hudson's Bay was referred to 
 a joint commission of French and English 
 Barillon and Bonrepaux representing France, 
 Godolphin, Sunderland, and Middleton re- 
 presenting England and the question was 
 decided in favour of France. Thus, at the 
 very moment when the murder of La Salle 
 seemed to put an end for the time to all 
 hopes of developing Louisiana, the French 
 gained by a daring expedition, boldly sup- 
 ported in London, a far greater compensation 
 in the extreme North. 
 
 War breaking out almost immediately, the 
 French did not derive much profit from their 
 new conquest, which was finally handed back 
 to England in the year 1714. Thus ended, 
 in complete failure, the plan of extending 
 French Canada to the Arctic circle. A 
 heavy burden was thrown on the little 
 colony on the St. Lawrence a burden 
 which a colony of much greater expansive 
 force would have been unable to support. 
 But the French conceived themselves to be 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 207 
 
 obliged to enter on these exhausting enter- 
 prises by an event that took place in the 
 year 1677. This was the expedition of 
 Robert Holmes, an expedition undertaken, 
 like D'Iberville's, at a time of profound 
 peace. 
 
 Holmes reduced the Dutch settlements on 
 the West Coast of Africa, and then, crossing 
 the Atlantic, attacked and captured New 
 Amsterdam, which he re-named, in honour 
 of the Duke of York, New York. 
 
 The West African settlements we were 
 obliged to restore ; they subsequently fell 
 into the hands of the French, and Holland 
 dropped out of the race for empire. But 
 the same results did not take place in New 
 York. The colony remained in our hands, 
 and, although the French made several 
 attempts to capture it, they did not succeed. 
 The territory of New York ran up to Lake 
 Ontario, the southern shore of which was 
 claimed by the New York settlers, and the 
 other English settlements pressed hard on 
 the French possessions. It was clear that 
 the grand struggle between France and 
 
208 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 England in North America would have to< 
 be fought on the St. Lawrence. After the 
 success of Holmes' expedition, the French 
 were hemmed in between the English in 
 the Atlantic States and the English in 
 Hudson's Bay. They were probably right 
 in turning on the weaker foe first. We have 
 seen how they fared ; but before we con- 
 sider the result of their attempt to master 
 the English settlements on their southern 
 frontier, we may with advantage trace the 
 history of their other great outpost, the 
 colony of Louisiana. 
 
 La Salle's expeditions were, after all, little 
 more than ' pointers.' When D'Iberville 
 took up the work of his predecessor he was 
 himself practically rediscovering the Missis- 
 sippi. He was not sure that he had found 
 it until he fell in with some Indians, who 
 showed him a relic of La Salle's expedition 
 a prayer-book. D'Iberville was an active 
 man, and covered a great deal of ground 
 during his short stay in the colony. His 
 two great fears were either an attack by 
 Spain from the islands, or an attack by the 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 209 
 
 English from South Carolina. South Carolina 
 was at that time the most southerly of the 
 English colonies, but the English there made 
 no move towards molesting the French in 
 Louisiana. The Spaniards did send an 
 armed force with hostile intentions to the 
 mouth of the Mississippi, but, finding the 
 French colony stronger than they expected, 
 they contented themselves with a protest, 
 alleging the prior claims of Spain, founded 
 on De Soto's wanderings one hundred and 
 fifty years before. 
 
 D'Iberville's great work was the founda- 
 tion of Mobile. He died in the year 1706. 
 In the year 1708 the total civilian population 
 of Louisiana numbered 157, including women 
 and children. As in Canada, so in Louisiana, 
 the French were most reluctant to settle down 
 to the labours of agriculture. Every im- 
 migrant expected to make a fortune, either 
 by pearl fisheries or by discovering mines, 
 and there were incessant squabbles among 
 the colonial authorities, if that is not almost 
 too large an expression. 
 
 In the year 1717 the colony seemed about 
 
210 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 to take a new lease of life. The dominion 
 was transferred to Law in perpetuity, with 
 exemption from taxation for twenty -five 
 years, and many trading privileges. From 
 800 to 1,000 immigrants landed, and in 1718 
 New Orleans was founded. Two years later 
 came the collapse of Law's scheme, and a 
 new period of depression for Louisiana. In 
 1732 the province became a royal domain, 
 and in the same year a most menacing event 
 took place, an event that, as we shall see, 
 had most far-reaching effects, in that it 
 roused the government on the St. Lawrence 
 to new efforts efforts that in their turn 
 alarmed England, and brought about the 
 expulsion of France from North America. 
 Governor Oglethorpe founded the colony of 
 Georgia. 
 
 So far as Oglethorpe was concerned, this 
 was purely a benevolent undertaking ; and 
 as a benevolent undertaking it received 
 generous support in London. But it also 
 received Government support for reasons 
 not exclusively benevolent. 
 
 In the year 1732 South Carolina, the 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 211 
 
 most southerly of all the North American 
 colonies, was still exposed to dangers arising 
 from the jealousy of Spain. 
 
 Georgia, which was to lie south of South 
 Carolina, would be an effective buffer against 
 these attacks, and an annual grant of ten 
 thousand pounds was voted in aid of 
 Oglethorpe's project by Parliament in con- 
 sideration of the obvious political advantage 
 of strengthening our settlements on the 
 Atlantic coast by the foundation of a new 
 colony. 
 
 In so far, then, as Oglethorpe's action had 
 any political meaning, it was directed against 
 Spain and not against France. But France 
 could not help weighing, very seriously, not 
 only the present action of the English, but 
 also what that present action portended in 
 the future. It was now just fifty years since 
 La Salle had discovered that the Mississippi 
 emptied into the Gulf of Mexico, and since 
 the scheme had been struck out of connect- 
 ing the colonies on the St. Lawrence with 
 Louisiana by the valley of the Ohio. 
 During that fifty years the French had done 
 
212 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 almost nothing towards the realization of 
 their ambition. A few stockades, strong 
 enough to protect the defenders against a 
 surprise by Indians, and called Mobile or 
 New Orleans, and held by a few score 
 soldiers and as many civilians, represented 
 France in the valley of the Mississippi. 
 
 As for expansion eastwards to the Atlantic 
 coast, there had been no attempt to do any- 
 thing of the kind, for excellent reasons there 
 were not men enough. And now the French 
 beheld themselves forestalled, and the 
 English frontier extended to the latitude of 
 Louisiana by means of a colony occupying 
 the very ground that in their dreams the 
 French had marked out for themselves. 
 Moreover, the colony was not of the kind 
 that the French were accustomed to found. 
 It speedily showed an amount of 'spring' 
 and self-reliance that was hardly surpassed 
 by the French colonies on the St. Lawrence 
 that had been in existence for a century. It 
 actually attacked the Spaniards ; and, though 
 defeated in the attack, had strength enough 
 to repel very gallantly the return assault. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 213. 
 
 A pushing, belligerent settlement of this 
 kind was the last sort of neighbour that 
 France desired in her southern colonies. 
 The most disagreeable possibilities opened 
 out ; and it was determined to take seriously 
 in hand the policy so long academically 
 adopted as desirable, to shut the English off 
 east of the Alleghanies, to line the Ohio and 
 the Mississippi with forts, and to occupy 
 those forts in force, and turn them into 
 colonies by emigration from the older settle- 
 ments as occasion served. 
 
 Activity on distant frontiers had not 
 served the French well. In the extreme 
 North the English, far from being expelled 
 from Hudson's Bay, were more firmly 
 established there than ever. In the extreme 
 South the French not only had effected next 
 to nothing with their colony of Louisiana, 
 but saw themselves, as they supposed, 
 menaced in their turn. There remained 
 nothing but to try conclusions on the St. 
 Lawrence ; and here . the chances were much 
 more in favour of the French than they 
 probably realized. For the English policy 
 
214 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 in Georgia and Hudson's Bay was controlled 
 by the Home Government ; whereas in the 
 New England colonies the Home Govern- 
 ment was at the mercy of the Provincial 
 Assemblies. 
 
 The genius of the company of men who 
 drafted the Constitutions of the United 
 States half a century later has caused us to, 
 in a measure, overlook the performances of 
 the Provincial Assemblies at the time we are 
 now considering. They showed no political 
 capacity whatever. They were quarrelsome, 
 exacting, and incapable. They not only 
 showed no patriotism : they jeered at pat- 
 riotism. Besides being incapable, they were 
 disunited and mutually jealous. Accustomed 
 as we are now to the vigorous statesmanship 
 of our self-supporting colonies, to their 
 forward policy, their magnificent self-reliance, 
 their noble emulation in material progress, 
 their pride in each other's achievements, 
 their not infrequent chafing at the action of 
 the Home Government, which they look on 
 as leisurely and timid, it is with some 
 difficulty that we realize that in the middle 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 21 J 
 
 of the eighteenth century the situation was 
 reversed. It was the Home Government 
 that desired to push on, the Home Govern- 
 ment that urged the danger of disunion, the 
 Home Government that exhorted and im- 
 plored the Provincial Assemblies to rise 
 above a policy of sixpences, and take a view 
 of politics that had, at any rate, some 
 glimmer of statesmanship in it. 
 
 This state of things was the grand 
 opportunity for the French. Their own 
 colony was well in hand, and its policy firmly 
 directed. Although greatly inferior in 
 population to the English settlements, the 
 latter were disunited, whereas Canada was 
 one. Against the Home Government they 
 could make no way might they not succeed 
 against the Provincial Government ? The 
 chance was a good one. 
 
 Their serious efforts commenced in the 
 year 1747 with the appointment of Count de 
 la Galissoniere to be Governor of Canada. 
 We must put out of our eyes the vast extent 
 of the North American Continent, and en- 
 deavour to realize the comparatively small 
 
2i6 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 area in which France and England fought 
 out their great struggle for the domination of 
 the whole. Heavy were the blows given and 
 taken by the two rivals before the battle on 
 the Heights of Abraham closed a struggle 
 that had lasted twelve years, from De la 
 Galissoniere's appointment in 1747 to the fall 
 of Quebec in 1759. 
 
 Cape Breton, which (as the Duke of 
 Newcastle was so astonished to learn) was 
 an island, was French ground since the 
 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Nova Scotia was 
 English, and had been so since the Treaty 
 of Utrecht. Canada did not extend 
 practically beyond the extreme westerly 
 point of Lake Ontario, which was guarded 
 by Fort Niagara ; the easterly end of the 
 lake was guarded by Fort Frontenac. The 
 colony of New York claimed the southern 
 shore of Lake Ontario, and had a fort, 
 strongly held, at Oswego, in the middle of 
 the southern shore. Montreal could be 
 approached up Lake Champlain, which was 
 closed at the north by Fort Ticonderoga ; to 
 the south of Lake Champlain, on Lake 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 217 
 
 George, the English held Fort William 
 Henry. Quebec was supposed to be un- 
 approachable by the St. Lawrence, owing to 
 the difficulties of navigation. 
 
 It was in this narrow arena that France 
 and England thrust at each other during 
 twelve years. 
 
 France may be said to have drawn first 
 blood by the acquisition of Cape Breton, 
 which gave her the commanding position of 
 Louisburg a very strong fortress. Six 
 months later England founded the city of 
 Halifax. This was one of the very few 
 official colonizations by England. It was 
 admirably effected and entirely successful. 
 The close of the long war with France had 
 thrown numbers of men and officers out of 
 employment ; and these men were emigrated 
 to Nova Scotia and settled at Halifax. 
 They numbered no less than 2,576 souls, and, 
 being good material originally, they quickly 
 took root and rapidly multiplied. It was a 
 severe blow to France ; for one of the chief 
 points of the policy of De la Galissoniere had 
 been to re-acquire Nova Scotia, and so join 
 
2i8 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Cape Breton to Canada. The foundation of 
 Halifax strengthened our grip on Nova 
 Scotia ; so, turning aside from this part of the 
 French plan of conquest, the new Governor, 
 De la Jonquiere, without loss of time, 
 followed up the principal aim of his 
 predecessor and turned to the Ohio. 
 
 Both De la Galissoniere and De la 
 Jonquiere were distinguished sailors, and 
 the former is famous in history for his 
 capture of Minorca. In Canada he had laid 
 down a forward policy for France in every 
 direction. He took his policies in geo- 
 graphical order, beginning at the North with 
 Hudson's Bay ; here he did nothing. 
 Halifax checked his plan of absorbing Nova 
 Scotia ; there remained two projects : to 
 push down Lake Champlain into the heart of 
 the English settlements, and to dominate the 
 valley of the Ohio. Before giving over 
 charge, he had formally proclaimed the 
 sovereignty of the French King over the 
 whole of these regions, and had openly 
 announced his intention of securing the line 
 of the Mississippi down to Louisiana. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 219 
 
 Eight months after the foundation of 
 Halifax, De la Jonquiere took up this line of 
 policy, and formally called on Governor 
 Clinton of New York to forbid English 
 subjects to trade on the Ohio. The 
 Governor returned no reply ; English traders 
 persisted, and De la Jonquiere consequently 
 had them arrested and sent to Montreal. 
 From this year the French went on from 
 success to success. The arrest of peaceful 
 English traders was nothing less than an 
 outrage ; but it was not likely to be resented 
 by the kind of public opinion which was all 
 that the English governors had to work on, 
 and no move was made for three years. In 
 the meantime, Fort Duquesne was founded, 
 and the colonial borders were harried ever 
 more and more by French Indians. The 
 French got on very well with natives at that 
 time; it is an art that they appear to have 
 lost. 
 
 But they seem to have owed part at 
 least of their influence to the license they 
 allowed to the Indians. License to Indians 
 in the hour of victory meant permission to 
 
220 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 burn, torture, and outrage their captives ; the 
 French allowed this. 
 
 The horrors of Indian warfare were an old- 
 standing terror. They might have been 
 suppressed as between French and English, 
 but the French thought that harrying our 
 borders was good policy. De Vaudreuil 
 in particular insisted very strongly on its 
 good effects. The question of humanity 
 apart, it is probable that De Vaudreuil was 
 wrong. 
 
 The new menace was the foundation of 
 Fort Duquesne. This place, on the eightieth 
 parallel of west longitude, at the junction of 
 the rivers Alleghany and Monogahela, com- 
 manded both these rivers, and also the Ohio, 
 which rises from their confluence. The 
 Alleghany gave access to the French 
 colonies, and the Monogahela, less readily, 
 to the English colonies. The fort was 
 named after the Marquis Duquesne, who had 
 come out from France to be Governor of 
 Canada in the year 1752, with definite 
 instructions to drive the English out of the 
 valley of the Ohio. It was completed in 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 221 
 
 the year 1754; the net was fast closing 
 round the English settlements. They made 
 an attempt to break through the attempt 
 known to history as the disastrous expedition 
 of General Braddock. A considerable armed 
 force was directed on Fort Duquesne ; it 
 was defeated with great slaughter, and 
 Braddock lost his life. 
 
 The French cause was clearly in the 
 ascendant ; it was time for England to strike 
 a return blow. She struck it in Nova Scotia. 
 This province had been English ever since 
 the Treaty of Utrecht. It was largely 
 populated by settlers of French extraction, 
 who had been treated with the utmost 
 indulgence. It is hardly credible, but is 
 nevertheless the fact, that for forty-two years 
 they had steadily refused to take the oath of 
 allegiance to the English King. We over- 
 looked their attitude, only inviting them from 
 time to time to re-consider it. We even 
 allowed them exemption from taxation, in 
 the hope of winning them over by this 
 moderate treatment. It was in vain ; and it 
 appears quite certain that their rebellious 
 
 152 
 
222 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 state of mind was largely fostered (grievous 
 though it is to say) by their priests, every 
 one of whom was a political emissary, and 
 continually dangled before the eyes of his 
 flock the hope of being one day reunited to 
 Canada. In the meantime it was their 
 religious duty to make things uneasy for 
 England, and to hold out the right hand of 
 fellowship to their brethren in Cape Breton, 
 who were still French subjects. They 
 succeeded so well in their exhortations that 
 the English Government in the year 1755, 
 driven to desperation by the very grave 
 aspect of affairs in the American colonies, 
 came to, and acted upon, a stern resolution : 
 the plague spot must be cut out. 
 
 For the last time the oath of allegiance 
 was tendered ; and on its being refused the 
 entire French population, numbering some 
 six thousand souls, was deported from Nova 
 Scotia and scattered among the different 
 New England colonies. Orders were issued 
 to the different Governors to take steps 
 ensuring that the expatriated families should 
 not be permitted to reunite in any one place. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 223 
 
 This was our return blow for Braddock's 
 defeat. Nova Scotia, with the new settle- 
 ment of Halifax thriving and prospering on 
 the western coast, and with all the French 
 malcontents expelled from the eastern coast, 
 now became a solid wedge of English soil, 
 driven in between the French in Canada, 
 and the French in Cape Breton. The Home 
 Government, by this vigorous action, had 
 retrieved in the north-east something of what 
 had been lost by Duquesne's action on the 
 Ohio. 
 
 But France had at last realized that her 
 grand opportunity was in the disunion of the 
 New England States. Our action in Nova 
 Scotia was, for the moment, a heavy blow ; 
 but if her own main action succeeded, and 
 the English could be shut up between the 
 Alleghanies and the sea, Nova Scotia would 
 matter very little. Accordingly, she pursued 
 her policy with ever-increasing vigour and 
 success. In the summer of 1756 the Marquis 
 de Montcalm, the new Governor of Canada, 
 attacked and captured Oswego. Immense 
 stores fell into his hands, with ,18,000 
 
224 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 sterling in silver, and over 1,600 prisoners. 
 Oswego was razed to the ground ; and Lake 
 Ontario, with its two ends guarded by Forts 
 Niagara and Frontenac, became a French 
 lake. Montcalm spoke with contempt of the 
 English resistance. The English in the New 
 World, he said, were very different men from 
 the same men in Europe. The colonies 
 made no return blow, watching with sullen 
 resignation the dominion of the continent 
 passing from their hands. 
 
 The French pushed on, and in the next 
 year, 1757, gained yet another victory. This 
 time they followed up the third line of De la 
 Galissoniere's policy, and struck on Lake 
 Champlain. Fort William Henry was cap- 
 tured, and the French allowed their Indian 
 allies to commit frightful barbarities on the 
 defeated garrison. The end of all things 
 seemed at hand : Ontario was gone, the line 
 of the Ohio was gone, and the French had 
 pushed on into the very heart of the New 
 England settlements. It seemed to be not 
 so much a question whether the English 
 should be shut up between the Alleghanies 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 225 
 
 and the sea, as whether they would be per- 
 mitted to remain in the continent at all, 
 except as French subjects. 
 
 It was the brightest hour of the fortunes 
 of France. It was not only that the acquisi- 
 tions of France were brilliant and important : 
 it was the complete demonstration of the 
 impotence of the colonists to resist the French 
 attack that was so full of promise for the 
 French cause. Only a conjunction of four 
 events could now wrest from France the ex- 
 clusive dominion of North America : firstly, 
 that the mother country should come to the 
 help of the colonies ; secondly, that the help 
 should be not only substantial, but over- 
 whelming ; thirdly, that the general in com- 
 mand should be, not some Court favourite, 
 like Hill, not some incompetent senior, like 
 Whitelocke, but a picked man, for the emer- 
 gency was appalling ; fourthly, most im- 
 portant of all, that the English should have 
 learnt the lesson that the French had learnt, 
 and so skilfully turned to such important 
 results viz., that instead of tapping at out- 
 lying posts, we should strike at the heart of 
 
226 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 the French dominions, and at one blow 
 conquer or be conquered. 
 
 All four conditions were fulfilled, for Pitt 
 was the Minister, Wolfe the general, and 
 Quebec the point of attack. On July 28, 
 1758, Louisburg fell. Between 5,000 and 
 6,000 French were taken prisoners ; Cape 
 Breton was ours, and the way up the St. 
 Lawrence was open. But the lustre of this 
 great achievement was dimmed by the news 
 of yet another French victory. In attempt- 
 ing to throw back the French from their 
 point of vantage on Lake Champlain, Aber- 
 crombie was heavily defeated at Ticonderoga 
 with a loss of 2,000 men ; George, third 
 Viscount Howe, who is commemorated under 
 the north-west tower of Westminster Abbey, 
 was among the dead. Pitt was greatly de- 
 pressed ; for only a few weeks now remained 
 in which to operate before the St. Lawrence 
 was closed by the ice. Te Deums were 
 chanted in the churches of Quebec in thank- 
 fulness for the victory and the approaching 
 triumph of the cause of France. They were 
 shortly to be succeeded by Misereres. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 227 
 
 The victory of Ticonderoga was the last 
 gleam of success that gilded the arms of 
 France. Stung by the repulse, and deter- 
 mined to drown in action the fatal depression 
 that had fallen on the spirits of the colonists, 
 Bradstreet obtained leave to make yet one 
 more attempt to threaten the French on the 
 St. Lawrence. The expedition of Wolfe still 
 delayed to attack, and we had sustained a 
 bloody defeat on Lake Champlain ; perhaps 
 a move might be made on Lake Ontario. 
 
 On August 29 Fort Cataraqui (by Fort 
 Frontenac) fell to the English. It was the 
 first of a long series of successes. A fort- 
 night later Quebec itself fell : Wolfe died, 
 but Montcalm died also, and a blow was 
 struck at the heart of the French settlements 
 that left them prostrate. Early in the winter 
 the dreaded Fort Duquesne was approached 
 and found deserted. It was occupied by 
 the English, and re-christened in comme- 
 moration of the mighty genius who had 
 inspired the whole campaign Pittsburg. 
 
 In the next year Ticonderoga and Crown 
 Point fell to Amherst, and Montreal to- 
 
228 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Murray. Nothing remained to France but 
 Louisiana ihefons ^ origo mali. 
 
 So ended the empire of France in North 
 America. The French had a plan ; the 
 English had none. The French plan was 
 perfectly feasible ; it only failed because it 
 was unsupported. Daring though the scheme 
 may appear of connecting, in those early 
 days, the settlements on the St. Lawrence 
 with the Gulf of Mexico, there was nothing 
 really insuperable in the obstacles to be over- 
 come. Fort Duquesne, for example, could 
 easily have been built fifty years before the 
 date of its actual foundation, at a time when 
 the English had not crept far from the coast. 
 In the rather feeble and cross-grained temper 
 of the Provincial Assemblies there would 
 have been found no centre of opposition to 
 this move ; and the ' Protectorate ' to use 
 the modern word of the French being once 
 recognized diplomatically, there could have 
 been no opposition in Europe. ' Pegging out 
 the claim ' would have been even easier at 
 the other end of the line ; for the English 
 were so far off that protests from them would 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 229 
 
 have been ridiculous. France delayed, it is 
 true ; but when her scheme was once taken 
 in hand seriously it had a rapid and startling 
 success. The conjunction of the genius of 
 Pitt and the genius of Wolfe was almost 
 miraculous, and that conjunction alone it was 
 that ruined the cause of France. 
 
 Louisiana a damnosa hereditas indeed for 
 France had an eventful history, terminating 
 in an episode that is worth studying. The 
 colony was ceded to Spain in the year 1762, 
 as the price of the Spanish alliance against 
 England. It remained in the hands of Spain 
 for forty years ; and then became the centre 
 of one of those intrigues that justly earned 
 for Napoleon the nickname of Jupiter-Scapin. 
 His dealings with Louisiana showed a truly 
 Olympian vastness of design a design that 
 he worked out with the tortuous cunning of 
 a rascally attorney. The problem was to 
 raise money for the English war ; and he 
 began as far from his object as to offer the 
 King of Spain a throne for a member of 
 his family. The throne was to be formed 
 out of the territories of Parma territories 
 
230 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 that it is perhaps needless to say did not 
 belong to France. So far, there was nothing 
 in the transaction to awaken suspicion or to 
 reveal Napoleon's object. It was natural 
 that the King of Spain should desire to see 
 another throne in his family ; it was natural 
 that Napoleon should feel flattered at the 
 idea of creating a king, and keeping him 
 waiting in his ante-chamber, as he actually 
 did. The kingdom was formed the kingdom 
 of Etruria and the Spanish Prince took 
 possession. 
 
 Napoleon's price was the really very 
 moderate price of the cession of Louisiana 
 a colony that had never profited any 
 European Power yet. Spain made the 
 cession without demur. Louisiana was in- 
 deed valueless to France as a colony. But 
 Napoleon did not propose to re-open the 
 question of French colonization in North 
 America. Nor did he propose to offer the 
 colony to any other European Power : he 
 offered it to the United States, who would 
 be, as he calculated, eager purchasers. He 
 was right. They paid him three millions 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 231 
 
 and a quarter sterling for an asset which he 
 had acquired for nothing ; so that the First 
 Consul had the profit of paying this very 
 large sum into his war-chest, and the pleasure 
 of dealing England a shrewd thrust. 
 
 It is often made a matter of reproach to 
 France that she has produced so many 
 colonial adventurers. It has even been 
 maintained that the scanty success enjoyed 
 by France in her Imperial enterprises is 
 largely to be ascribed to her superabundant 
 crop of adventurers. It is chiefly French 
 writers who take this view writers who 
 admire and envy the more solid results that 
 have been attained by the comparatively 
 plodding English. Such writers overlook 
 the immense debt that England herself 
 owes to her adventurers her Raleighs, and 
 Drakes, and Hudsons. France failed, not in 
 consequence of her adventurers, but in spite 
 of them. Adventurers not only are not 
 harmful to a country seeking to found a 
 colonial empire they are indispensable to 
 such a country ; they are her pioneers. 
 Without adventurers an empire cannot be 
 
232 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 founded, although it is true that in order to 
 consolidate an empire so founded one of two 
 subsequent conditions is indispensable either 
 a spontaneous outflow of settlers, or else a 
 steady colonizing policy on the part of the 
 Home Government. 
 
 France enjoyed neither of these advan- 
 tages, and yet how nearly she succeeded I 
 It is true that there was too much adventure 
 altogether about the Canadian population : 
 there were too many coureurs de bois among 
 their scanty numbers. Nevertheless, the 
 French colony founded by adventurers was 
 more than a match for the English colony 
 founded by settlers. But because France 
 had begun too late to fill out this first sketch 
 of a colonial empire, the slender fabric of the 
 French colony went down before the dead 
 weight of the English assault. 
 
 About the history of Canada we have to 
 remark that there was a settled population 
 sufficiently large, with permanent interests 
 of sufficient magnitude, to neutralize one 
 very painful feature of the French policy 
 of adventure the personal jealousy and 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 233 
 
 rivalries of individuals. Of course there 
 were such jealousies and rivalries, but they 
 were neither so bitter in themselves nor so 
 disastrous to France as the same painful 
 incidents proved to be in India. On the 
 whole, the policy of French Canada was 
 free from these dissensions, and yet Canada 
 passed over to England. 
 
 But France had her revenge. Not twenty 
 years had passed after the fall of Quebec 
 before she dealt a heavy return blow at 
 England. She recognized the United States, 
 and, by placing her navy in opposition to 
 the navy of England, she finally severed 
 the colonies from their mother- country. In 
 North America, at the close of the long 
 duel, France was a little more than quits. 
 
 On the mainland the contest for the 
 dominion of the continent was almost exclu- 
 sively between France and England. Hol- 
 land dropped out of the running very early ; 
 Spain had comparatively trifling interests 
 there. But in the vast and varied region 
 of the West Indies all the colonizing races 
 of the world struggled with each other for 
 
234 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 two centuries and a half. The shiftings of 
 power in North America, although great, 
 were definitely effected but seldom, and at 
 rare intervals of time. But war in the West 
 Indies never ceased, for when peace was 
 officially concluded there still remained the 
 buccaneers. The shiftings of power were 
 not only frequent but kaleidoscopic, and if 
 any attempt were to be made to record them 
 nothing less than an encyclopaedia would 
 suffice. Nevertheless, we shall not lose 
 much by passing them over, for they all 
 depended in the past, as they must depend 
 in the future, on the balance of sea-power. 
 In the past, when the great fleet actions had 
 been fought, the islands invariably fell, one 
 by one, to the victors. So it will be in the 
 future. 
 
 At the present day the West Indian 
 Islands are held by Spain, France, Holland, 
 and England. Spain, with the aid of 250,000 
 soldiers or rather more than the whole army 
 of India, native and English combined still 
 maintains a precarious dominion in Cuba. 
 France holds Martinique and Guadaloupe, 
 
235 
 
 with some dependencies ; Holland holds 
 Curasao, finally returned to her at the great 
 peace ; England holds the greater part of the 
 remaining islands. The two great posses- 
 sions of France, Martinique and Guadaloupe, 
 have over and over again been English 
 possessions, and have regularly been re- 
 stored at the conclusion of peace. There 
 is only one lesson to be learnt from all these 
 incidents, and that is the very plain one that 
 nothing is certain here except to the Power 
 that commands the sea. 
 
 On the whole, there is little for France to 
 regret in the West Indies. Any losses that 
 she has sustained she has sustained as the 
 direct consequence of the loss of sea-power, 
 and without sea- power the most exalted 
 genius for colonization would not have 
 secured for her more than her present 
 possessions. 
 
 Far different is the case with the East 
 Indies, for French India is a great 'might 
 have been,' which France must needs regret 
 ven unto this day. She has good reason to 
 do so. British India is the greatest political 
 
 16 
 
236 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 achievement since the empire of Alexander. 
 We are still too near to the colossal fabric to 
 appreciate its grandeur. It is only down the 
 perspective of centuries that the structure 
 can be seen in its right proportions. Why 
 is this not a French instead of a British 
 Empire ? The French were there before 
 us ; they possessed in a high degree the two 
 qualities of intelligence and imagination, both 
 of which are invaluable in such an enter- 
 prise ; and these qualities had full play, 
 without the neutralizing influence of a popu- 
 lation of settlers an influence which always 
 tells in favour of England for there was 
 from the commencement no possibility of 
 settling. 
 
 The reason may be found in the fatal 
 weakness of a policy of pure adventure 
 a policy of which the characteristics, both 
 good and bad, had untrammelled play in 
 India, and the bad outweighed the good. 
 As a rule, the English in India, although 
 often personally inferior to their French 
 rivals, pulled together. This was because 
 they had a deeper sense of their duty towards 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 237 
 
 each other than the French, and a stronger 
 feeling of the obedience due to the home 
 authorities. There resulted a sort of sense 
 of discipline or service feeling, which, though 
 rough, sufficed for the circumstances. All 
 this was wanting to the French, and in 
 consequence they simply cut each other's 
 throats. We are accustomed to blame our- 
 selves for the scurvy treatment that we dealt 
 out to our great Indian pioneers, and to 
 deplore their spirit of dissension among 
 themselves. But we were a band of 
 brothers compared to the French, whose 
 personal vanity and inconceivable spite and 
 envy towards each other were the real causes 
 of their failure. Sea- power plays only a 
 secondary part in this drama ; there was at 
 least one opportunity of founding a great 
 French empire in India which sea-power 
 could not have hindered, or even seriously 
 annoyed when once it was founded. 
 
 It is only with partial reason that Macaulay 
 complains of the treatment that India has 
 received at the hands of English historians. 
 No doubt Indian history has been dully 
 
 1 6 2 
 
238 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 treated, but if Macaulay is a brilliant excep- 
 tion, he only attained that position by laying 
 on the colours, as he himself would have 
 said, half an inch thick, by wild generaliza- 
 tions, by extravagant exaggeration, and by 
 violent partisanship. The simple truth is 
 that at this period Indian history is appal- 
 lingly dreary. 
 
 When the great age of the Moguls was 
 over, when Akbar had become a memory 
 and Bijapur a ruin, Indian history subsides 
 into a record of the scrambles of a horde of 
 tenth-rate men. Some palace favourite, some 
 soldier more daring than his fellows, seizes 
 the Masnad, and rules precariously until a 
 palace intrigue or the revolt of a provincial 
 officer terminates his little day of glory by 
 poison or steel, and his place is taken by a 
 rascally rebel like himself Zimri succeeds 
 Omri. There is movement in plenty, but 
 it is the movement of a seething cauldron 
 movement without advance. 
 
 In the broad wakes that the course of 
 France and England traced in this Male 
 bolge we find now one princelet, now another, 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 239 
 
 swept to the surface, and for a time before 
 he is once more submerged he remains visible 
 and perhaps conspicuous. A great native 
 ruler, a Haidar or a Shivaji, arises but rarely, 
 and his type is always the same that of the 
 ruthless soldier. India is no longer in labour 
 with Akbars, and not as yet with Salar 
 Jungs. The old type of statesman no longer 
 appears ; the new type, trained under English 
 influence, is not to be developed for another 
 century and a half ; the immediate future of 
 the continent is clearly, from the commence- 
 ment of the protracted period of collapse, in 
 the hands of France or of England. There 
 are three great epochs in each of which it 
 appeared possible that France might wrest 
 the Empire of India from England, or rather 
 when it appeared almost certain that England 
 would be expelled from the continent, where 
 her foothold was not yet secure. In the first 
 two of these decisive epochs, nothing but 
 the mutual jealousy of Frenchmen ruined 
 the cause of France ; in the third, nothing 
 but sheer good luck saved the cause of 
 England. 
 
240 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 These three epochs are : 
 
 1. The epoch of Dupleix and Labourdon- 
 nais. 
 
 2. The epoch of Lally, Bussy and D'Ache. 
 
 3. The epoch of Suffren. 
 
 These three epochs form three distinct 
 crises in the fate of the East. They are to 
 a certain extent linked together by the 
 services of Bussy, who was conspicuous in 
 the first two struggles between France and 
 England, and who also gave some assistance 
 to Suffren, although in 1782 he was only the 
 shadow of the Bussy of thirty years before. 
 
 Just as in studying the lost Empire of 
 France in North America we had to put out 
 of our heads the vast extent of the American 
 continent, and realize that the fate of the 
 country was settled in a comparatively small 
 area round the Canadian Lakes ; so in regard 
 to the lost Empire of France in India, we 
 have to fix our attention on one small part of 
 the Presidency of Madras. In this narrow 
 space it was that France and England three 
 times struggled for empire ; here it was that 
 France was three times thrown, and here it 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 241 
 
 was that, even as late as Napoleon's Egyptian 
 campaign, there were good hopes that the 
 influence of France might be re-established 
 through the sympathy of ' Citoyen Tippoo.' 
 These hopes, which were well founded, were 
 finally extinguished at the fall of Seringapatam, 
 in the year 1 799. This event took place one 
 hundred years after the birth of Dupleix, 
 who was actually a man of the seventeenth 
 century. He was not a noble, as were most 
 of the great French adventurers in the East : 
 he was a man of good commercial connec- 
 tions ; early initiated into the habits of 
 trade, he remained throughout his life an 
 excellent man of affairs. 
 
 But that was not all. Dupleix was a man 
 of the highest capacity ; and, conspicuous 
 though he was as a man of business, he was 
 still more remarkable as a political organizer, 
 and a past grand master in the arts of Oriental 
 intrigue. His general business training was 
 supplemented by a long service, half com- 
 mercial, half official, in the French places of 
 business, Pondicherry and Chandanagar, and 
 at the age of forty-three he found himself 
 
242 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Governor-General of the French Indies. 
 The headquarters of the Government were 
 at Pondicherry, about one hundred miles 
 south of Madras. He immediately set to 
 work to develop the trading centre of 
 Pondicherry into something more dignified 
 into a great French State. 
 
 We are to remember that at this moment 
 Clive and Warren Hastings were still both 
 boys ; Clive had just joined at Madras as a 
 junior writer, and Hastings had just entered 
 at Westminster ; so long a start had this very 
 great man of the two most illustrious empire 
 makers of modern days. We are also to 
 remember that in his dream of turning 
 European traders into conquerors he was 
 entirely original. We must also give 
 Dupleix the credit for having discovered the 
 means to realize his dream the drilling of 
 native troops on the European plan, and, by 
 joining the forces so raised to small bodies 
 of European troops, to form an army that 
 would be irresistible by any native levies. 
 
 His success was immediate, complete, and 
 startling. His weaknesses served him as 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 243 
 
 well as his virtues, even better perhaps. He 
 was excessively vain, but the circus-riding 
 costume in which he indulged only passed for 
 becoming pomp. Moreover, the people were 
 too deeply impressed with Dupleix's person- 
 ality to remark that he called himself, 
 indifferently, by the Hindu title of Raja or 
 the Mussulman title of Nawab. He held 
 gorgeous receptions which he was able to 
 pay for without impairing the vast fortune 
 that his shrewdness had enabled him to 
 acquire. His spies were everywhere ; in the 
 inmost recesses of palaces the secrets of courts 
 were whispered to the agents of Dupleix. 
 The immediate influence that he exercised was 
 already considerable ; the indirect influence 
 that he acquired by means of his genius for 
 intrigue was incalculable probably incalcul- 
 able even to himself. The French Empire was 
 founded. From the Prince on the Masnad 
 to the petty English traders at Madras, the 
 whole of Southern India trembled at the 
 frown of Dupleix. He was the master of 
 thirty millions of men, whom he ruled with 
 more absolute authority than his master 
 
244 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 ruled the inhabitants of France. If the 
 command of the sea had been assured to 
 him, there is no doubt that the days of the 
 English in India would have been numbered. 
 Among the causes of the ruin of the 
 French Colonial Empire, the neglect by the 
 home authorities of their brilliant adventurers 
 takes a high place. Dupleix, like all who 
 followed him, suffered severely from this 
 neglect. The empire which he had founded 
 depended, of course, on a kernel of good Euro- 
 pean troops and a small supply of French 
 officers to train and lead the natives. This 
 would not have been a severe tax on the 
 resources of France not at all a heavy price 
 to pay for an* empire ; and, considering the 
 magical consequences of the use to which 
 Dupleix had put the forces actually at his 
 disposal, it may be said to have been abso- 
 lutely trifling. But he was miserably served 
 in this respect. He ought to have been all 
 the more grateful to Labourdonnais for coming 
 so opportunely to his aid, especially con- 
 sidering that the fleet was provided from 
 Labourdonnais' private resources. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 245 
 
 Labourdonnais was Governor of the Isles 
 of France and Bourbon. On the outbreak 
 of war with England he was eager to aid 
 in the expulsion of the English from India. 
 The Government would give him no ships ; 
 he managed to get some together himself. 
 If he had no ships, still less had he supplies 
 or men. He managed to provide everything. 
 With a vigour and patriotism that is beyond 
 praise, he made his way with his scratch 
 squadron to the Coromandel coast. He 
 sighted the fleet of Paton, and by feints 
 and a bold bearing that reminds one of 
 the resources of Cochrane he managed to 
 frighten Paton away. He, a retired merchant 
 captain, with an amateur crew, drove off a 
 fleet of King's ships. 
 
 He immediately set to work to blockade 
 the town of Madras that Paton had been 
 despatched to guard. Madras capitulated 
 after a bombardment, and was ransomed for 
 a sum variously stated. The average of the 
 different statements is a little over half a 
 million sterling. Here, indeed, was an ally 
 worthy of Dupleix's genius ; Dupleix ought 
 
246 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 to have welcomed him with open arms. He 
 himself, a mere business man, was founding 
 an empire ; Labourdonnais, a mere civilian, 
 was capable of beating off a squadron of 
 King's ships, and reducing Madras in less 
 than a week. Two such men, acting to- 
 gether, would have been irresistible. 
 
 Dupleix's conduct on this occasion is trace- 
 able to no principle of human action except 
 the meanest spite and jealousy, developed 
 to an incomprehensible pitch. Instead of 
 praising Labourdonnais for coming at all, 
 he severely rebuked him for not having come 
 earlier. Instead of warmly thanking him for 
 raising vessels at his own expense, he bitterly 
 complained that his squadron was so weak. 
 He tore up Labourdonnais' treaty, and 
 violated the pledged word of France in the 
 face of all India. Labourdonnais had been 
 literally and emphatically forbidden to make 
 any fresh acquisitions of territory on the 
 mainland ; hence his stipulations for a 
 ransom. Dupleix over-rode all his stipu- 
 lations, burnt Madras to the ground, and 
 carried away the Governor and the principal 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 247 
 
 inhabitants to figure in a sort of triumph at 
 Pondicherry. 
 
 It is a miserable exhibition of spite and 
 jealousy from beginning to end, and one stands 
 the more aghast at such a maniacal outbreak 
 in that up to this time one cannot avoid 
 feeling great sympathy with Dupleix. His 
 daring was so great, his genius so original 
 and profound, that we are carried away with 
 admiration for him, in spite of the fact that 
 he was daily compassing the ruin of the 
 English in India. 
 
 His jealousy drove Labourdonnais to sea 
 again. Dupleix would concert nothing with 
 the captor of Madras, and the great sailor, 
 who asked nothing better than to serve his 
 country to the best of his ability, was hunted 
 out of the Indian Ocean. Arrived at 
 Mauritius, he found another man, a nominee 
 of Dupleix, installed in his place. His 
 accounts were called for, and he was ordered 
 home. Surely hatred and malice must be 
 exhausted by now. 
 
 But Dupleix's fund of jealousy was in- 
 exhaustible, and his arm was long. He 
 
248 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 pursued Labourdonnais to France with his 
 malice, and caused him to be thrown into 
 the Bastile immediately on his arrival in 
 Paris. He was allowed to languish in prison 
 for three years and a half he, an absolutely 
 innocent man ; and not only an innocent 
 man, but one who had rendered the most 
 distinguished services to his country. He 
 was brought out of prison and tried for 
 what, it would be hard to say. But one 
 reply of his has been preserved, and shows 
 wonderful gallantry and courage, considering 
 his forlorn circumstances. He was asked 
 how it was that his private affairs had 
 prospered so much more than the com- 
 pany's, and he replied to his cross-questioner : 
 ' Because when I managed my own affairs 
 I did what I thought best, and when I had to 
 manage yours I had to do what you told me.' 
 Labourdonnais was acquitted and set at 
 liberty, but he died six months afterwards 
 of a broken heart. His widow was accorded, 
 with many consoling and flattering expres- 
 sions, the derisive pension of eight pounds 
 a month. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 249 
 
 The fall of Dupleix is generally narrated 
 as if it were the sad fate of a gallant man 
 who is badly supported by his Government, 
 and this is in part true. But the story of 
 the collapse of Dupleix's power is generally 
 told without detailed reference to Labour- 
 donnais, excepting that the two men did not 
 get on well ; one's pity is all asked for 
 Dupleix. But when we realize how odiously 
 he behaved to Labourdonnais it is not only 
 without regret, it is with actual complacency 
 that we read the story of his ruin ; it is a 
 positive tale of poetic justice. 
 
 In Dupleix's situation a navy would have 
 been useful. We have seen how he behaved 
 to the man who brought him one, for no 
 other reason than that the sole merits of its 
 achievements could not be claimed by him- 
 self. If a navy was desirable, an army, a 
 European army, was indispensable. Climate 
 and active warfare, and perhaps irregular 
 living, had thinned the ranks of his French- 
 men ; his officers were few and incompetent ; 
 the recruits sent him were bad material ;~and 
 Dupleix himself was no soldier. The story 
 
told of his preference for an undistinguished 
 position in the rear of a battle, on the ground 
 that the whistling of musket-balls disturbed 
 his reflections, is told on good authority 
 Dupleix's own. But it is hard to believe 
 that so great a man was a coward. It 
 is incontestable, however, that he was no 
 general. 
 
 There was associated with him at this time 
 a young man of considerable military talents, 
 the Marquis de Bussy. Bussy was destined 
 to play towards Lally, in the second great 
 epoch of French adventure, a similar part to 
 that which Labourdonnais played towards 
 Dupleix himself. At this time, however 
 whether or not it was that he had taken 
 warning by the fate of Labourdonnais he 
 was far away from headquarters, busily and 
 most successfully engaged in extending 
 French influence in the northern Deccan. 
 The English Dupleix had hitherto, and with 
 good reason, looked down upon as mere 
 book-keepers. The natives thought even 
 more meanly of us. 
 
 But among the book-keepers there was a 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 251 
 
 young man named Robert Clive. It was not 
 Clive who put an end to the ambitions of 
 Dupleix, as we shall see ; but he rendered 
 his country this great service, that he changed 
 the English cause from one hopelessly lost 
 into one that had a right to be represented 
 as still existing, and even rivalling the French. 
 For it was in Paris that Dupleix was ruined. 
 If Clive had not, by the defence of Arcot, 
 restored our prestige, and regained for us a 
 party among the natives in fact, given 
 something for diplomatists to work on, 
 Dupleix would never have been recalled. 
 As it was, we regained by diplomacy most 
 of what had been lost in war. 
 
 It was represented by us in Paris that 
 affairs in the East Indies had grown deplor- 
 ably confused from the habit of French traders 
 interfering in the affairs of native princes. 
 From the English point of view, this was 
 indeed a deplorable habit, for the French 
 were infinitely cleverer at the work than 
 we were. It was further represented that 
 the Governor-General, Dupleix, had greatly 
 exceeded his powers, and that there could 
 
 17 
 
252 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 be no reasonable expectation of a lasting 
 peace until he was recalled ; he was nothing 
 but a fire-brand, so it was urged. These 
 statements were all absolutely true from the 
 English point of view ; but it is none the less 
 extraordinary that the French Ministry should 
 have fallen into so simple a trap. They 
 agreed to desist from interference with native 
 courts ; they consented to recall Dupleix. 
 He was recalled, and died in straitened 
 circumstances soon after, of disease brought 
 on by anxiety and disappointment. 
 
 His immense fortune had been dissipated 
 in the service of his country, and he could 
 obtain no indemnity for his expenses out of 
 pocket incurred in combating the English. 
 He received no title of honour, and no 
 recognition for his work. Perhaps he some- 
 times thought of Labourdonnais and his three 
 years of gaol, or, in his poverty, of Madame 
 Labourdonnais, with her pension of eight 
 pounds a month. The fate of both men 
 was a disgrace to their Government, but 
 the fate of Dupleix was, personally, richly 
 deserved. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 253 
 
 The first epoch of the great struggle 
 between France and England in India closed 
 on October 5, 1754, when Dupleix sailed 
 from Madras for the last time. His 
 dismissal was a capital blunder on the 
 part of the French Government, but it was 
 only the crowning blunder of a policy of 
 mistakes. These mistakes were : refusing a 
 fleet to Labourdonnais ; omitting to censure 
 Dupleix for his treatment of that most useful 
 public servant ; permitting Labourdonnais to 
 be iniquitously brought to trial for nobly 
 serving his country ; neglecting to send 
 Dupleix a proper supply of soldiers and 
 officers ; and finally weakly consenting to his 
 recall. 
 
 On all these occasions, we are to re- 
 member, it was not a mere possibility that 
 was at stake ; the empire was there, already 
 built up. These blunders are all reducible to 
 the single formula : neglect of the Home 
 Government to support its adventurers. 
 Dupleix's only blunder was his atrocious 
 behaviour towards Labourdonnais ; he was 
 not too severely punished for it by the 
 
 17 2 
 
254 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 neglect that he himself received at the hands 
 of the Home Government. 
 
 When we compare the conduct of Dupleix 
 towards Labourdonnais with the conduct of 
 Lawrence towards Clive, we realize that it 
 is actually in a superior moral force that the 
 British found the strength to overthrow the 
 French. Clive had just performed one of the 
 greatest military feats of his generation, and 
 was proceeding on a career of conquest when 
 a superior officer landed. Although Clive 
 had in fact received no military training, his 
 native talent was clearly of the highest order. 
 Yet he at once placed himself under 
 Lawrence's orders. One would say that he 
 did so modestly, if modesty were not alto- 
 gether out of keeping with his character. 
 In his early days Clive was an extremely 
 ill-bred, ill-mannered young man, sullen to all 
 and insolent to his superiors. In his maturity 
 he showed himself exceedingly vain of a very 
 ugly person, inordinately proud of his peerage 
 and his red ribbon, pushing, ostentatious and 
 assertive. He was fully as acquisitive as 
 Dupleix himself, amassed an immense fortune, 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 255 
 
 and did not conceal the fact that he felt as much 
 pride in his money as in his title. In truth, 
 the mighty Clive was made of very common 
 clay. This haughty, successful, rebellious 
 young man placed himself under the orders 
 of Lawrence not ostentatiously, boasting of 
 his self-abnegation, but simply and quietly as a 
 matter of duty, or rather as a matter of course. 
 
 When we have said thus much it is perhaps 
 unnecessary to add that he did not intrigue 
 against Lawrence, or strive to increase his 
 own glory at the expense of his senior's 
 renown. 
 
 If we turn now to Lawrence, we find that 
 he was a deserving, steady officer, a major at 
 that time. He was, as Chesterfield said of 
 Marlborough, ' of a good plain middling 
 understanding,' capable as a soldier, and 
 respectability itself. Respectability is always 
 frightened of genius, and an able, insolent 
 young amateur like Clive was just the sort of 
 man to alarm a Lawrence. He might well, 
 without discredit to himself, have put forward 
 Clive's somewhat irregular position as an 
 excuse for refusing him active employment. 
 
256 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 But Lawrence had that touch of loftiness 
 which comes from devotion to one's country, 
 and which can ennoble even the most re- 
 spectable people. He not only did not 
 decline Clive's services he not only did not 
 belittle them, or Clive himself he embraced 
 the chance of availing himself of the services 
 of such a genius of war, a genius so far 
 superior to his own ; and he warmly defended 
 Clive against his many enemies who sneered 
 at his ' luck.' ' Not luck,' said Lawrence,. 
 ' but eminent ability.' 
 
 Here, in a nutshell, is the secret of the 
 downfall of the French Empire in India. 
 Their men were, on the whole, superior to 
 ours, and they had a long start of us. But 
 when it came to a pinch, the English sank 
 all mutual jealousies, and even the most 
 pushing and self-assertive of men felt that 
 there was something at stake greater even 
 than his important self: it was the cause of 
 his country. On the other hand, a crisis was 
 not the moment to choose for inquiring 
 whether Clive's commission came from the 
 Horse-Guards or not. The course of duty 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 257 
 
 was plain to beat the French ; and if Clive 
 could help him, Lawrence was not the man to 
 be jealous of the glory that must of necessity 
 accrue to his subordinate rather than to 
 himself. All this was done without fine 
 phrases, and as a matter of duty, or even as 
 a matter of course. 
 
 We have seen how woefully below this 
 standard Dupleix fell. The story of the 
 second great crisis, when for the second time 
 the French Empire was built up, and then 
 torn down by French hands, points the same 
 moral, but points it even more strongly than 
 the story of Dupleix and Labourdonnais. In 
 this epoch we have two great names 
 
 BUSSY LALLY. 
 
 There was a third figure D'Ache ; but 
 although his position as naval commander 
 threw a great deal of power into his hands, 
 and enabled him to do France a vast amount 
 of damage, he was a minor figure altogether, 
 and the story centres round the quarrel 
 between Bussy and Lally. 
 
 The Marquis de Bussy perhaps because 
 
258 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 he was a soberer person has not dazzled 
 the eyes of his countrymen or of the world 
 like the brilliant Dupleix. Nevertheless it 
 may well be argued that he was the greater 
 man. To begin with, he was a good soldier, 
 so his work went on without the friction that 
 everywhere comes from divided command. , 
 
 He had not Dupleix's unrivalled power of 
 developing and directing secret service, but 
 his own personal ascendancy was very great. 
 He was a much simpler character than 
 Dupleix. He did not indulge in fanfares or 
 displays, but he made up for this loss of 
 power a real loss of power in the East by 
 the solid advantage that he gained from his 
 directness of character. The native princes 
 came to lean on him and look up to him, 
 and though he never called himself a Rajd, 
 his influence was immense. 
 
 His sphere of action was the Deccan, his 
 centre the Imperial city of Aurangabad. It 
 is perhaps significant that this was a con 
 veniently long way from Dupleix. His 
 influence was at its height in the year 1754, 
 at which date he was thirty-six years of age, 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 259 
 
 and we have thus to realize that at the 
 moment when Dupleix was recalled, the 
 French Empire in India almost extended 
 over the whole of Southern India. Dupleix's 
 empire, somewhat damaged by the assault of 
 Clive, was reduced to possession ; Bussy's 
 needed only the touch of a small and com- 
 petent military force to transform it from a 
 sphere of influence into a grand dominion. 
 
 Owing either to indifference, or else (which 
 is less easy to believe) to extreme gullibility, 
 the French ministry had played our game 
 with a thoroughness and promptitude that 
 we could not have desired to see exceeded, 
 and had recalled Dupleix, leaving no suc- 
 cessor. There remained, however, Bussy. 
 The French Government appears to have 
 realized when too late that they had acted 
 with something less than wisdom, and were 
 already repenting their precipitate recall of 
 Dupleix when the Seven Years' War broke 
 out. They determined to seize the oppor- 
 tunity and to regain by vigorous military 
 action what had been taken from them by 
 able negotiation. 
 
260 LOS 2 EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 It was a very good opening. Clive was 
 in Europe ; Bussy's influence in the Deccan 
 was extending daily ; the English had just 
 been expelled from Bengal, so that nothing 
 remained of the British Empire in the East 
 but the feeble settlements on the Coromandel 
 coast. To Bussy's mind these settlements 
 did not greatly matter one way or the other. 
 If his own plan succeeded, and he formed a 
 great French inland State, it would be a State 
 of such dimensions that it would be in- 
 dependent of the command of the sea ; if the 
 English became troublesome they could 
 always be expelled without any great 
 difficulty. He looked forward eagerly to 
 the arrival of an army from Europe, hoping 
 to engage the commandant (whoever he 
 might prove to be) in his plans. 
 
 The officer selected for the command was 
 Thomas Arthur Lally, at that time one of 
 the greatest living masters of regular war- 
 fare. He had been aide-de-camp to Prince 
 Charlie in the '45. Wherever there had 
 been an opportunity of striking a blow at 
 England, Lally had been foremost he had 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 26 r 
 
 struck us hard at Fontenoy with his brigade 
 of Irish : hatred to England was the inspira- 
 tion of his career. A special regiment of 
 Irish had been raised for him, and the 
 command of it conferred on him. He was 
 created Baron of Tollendal and Count of 
 Lally, and advanced to the dignity of a 
 Grand Cross of St. Louis. When he took 
 up the Indian command, he was fifty-three 
 years of age. 
 
 The first comment that occurs to us on 
 this appointment is, that Lally was too great 
 a man for the place. It was also remarked, 
 at the time, with some misgiving, that Lally 
 had had no experience of irregular warfare, 
 and was known to be a strict disciplinarian. 
 To both of these reasonings a sufficient 
 answer was found ; Lally was no doubt a 
 man of considerable position, holding the 
 rank of a full Lieutenant-General, among 
 other distinctions ; but that only showed 
 how much importance the Government 
 attached to the conquest of India. It was 
 true that he was a stern soldier, but then he 
 was to take his own regiment of Irish, 1,080 
 
262 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 strong, with him, and they were accustomed 
 to his ways. We shall see how far this 
 reasoning was sound, and what other points 
 there were that the minister had not, perhaps, 
 sufficiently weighed, before selecting Lally. 
 It is easy to be wise after the event ; but the 
 wisest course would have been to send Bussy 
 the men. But Bussy was a company's 
 officer, and the Government was uneasy at 
 the idea of having a second Dupleix on their 
 hands. So Lally was despatched, and the 
 idea that an Irish refugee, commanding his 
 own regiment of Irishmen, was about to dash 
 in pieces the fabric of what remained of the 
 British Empire in India, naturally threw over 
 the expedition a sort of halo of retributive 
 justice. 
 
 On April 28, 1758, four years after the 
 death of Dupleix, seven years after the death 
 of Labourdonnais, Lally landed at Pondi- 
 cherry. The actors in the first great drama 
 had passed away, with the exception of 
 Bussy, who (properly supported) might yet 
 have retrieved everything. But Lally paid 
 no attention to him. Moreover, we are to 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 263 
 
 remark that Lally came a little late. When 
 the Seven Years' War broke out, the English 
 were expelled from Bengal, and if Lally had 
 reduced the settlements on the Coromandel, 
 he could have come to the assistance of the 
 enemies of England in Bengal, and crossed 
 swords with Clive there. But in 1758 we 
 had regained our old position, and greatly 
 increased our authority. Clive had fought 
 Plassy, and Coote was with him, already 
 soon to be at thirty-three a Lieutenant- 
 Colonel. Lally 's task was, at least, doubled. 
 He turned first to the easy task of reducing 
 the Madras Settlements, and it now appeared 
 that he was hopelessly out of place in his 
 Indian command. Obviously, his first duty 
 was to get the settlement into something like 
 order, to expel the English, and consolidate 
 his forces to resist the attack that was to be 
 expected from Bengal. To achieve this 
 much, the mere commencement of his work, 
 he would need the hearty co-operation of 
 all alike French and native. By way of 
 compassing this end, he denounced the 
 French as a pack of swindlers, and the 
 
^64 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 natives as black swine. It is true that his 
 instructions contained some reference to 
 peculation which Lally was to put down, 
 but he chose the most inopportune moment 
 to disclose his instructions, and abuse, which 
 is always useless, was at this juncture simply 
 disastrous. 
 
 There have always been capable men who 
 can do eminently good work if the service 
 runs on wheels, but who are disconcerted at 
 the first break-down in commissariat or 
 transport. Lally was one of these. His 
 native temper disqualified him for com- 
 promise. He was bitter and imperious. 
 The habits of a lifetime had made him a 
 master of regular warfare, but his mind was 
 stiff with age, and he became more and more 
 irritable as difficulties multiplied, and his own 
 helplessness in the face of them became daily 
 more apparent. Transport failed, so he 
 pressed all the natives, irrespective of caste, 
 into the transport service, thus ruining in a 
 week the work of half a century of intelligent 
 handling of the natives. Money ran short, 
 so he called on Bussy to supply him out of 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 265 
 
 the hoards that he at once presumed him 
 to have accumulated after the fashion of 
 Dupleix. In point of fact Bussy was not an 
 acquisitive man, and he received Lally's 
 demand with a simplicity that only an 
 innocent man, or a most accomplished rogue, 
 could assume. Lally favoured him in return 
 with so insulting a stare that Bussy was 
 mortally affronted. 
 
 Bussy was the man on whom Lally ought 
 to have leant with absolute confidence ; he 
 possessed tact, of which Lally was totally 
 destitute ; local information, which Lally 
 neither possessed nor attempted to acquire ; 
 and immense influence. He had hurried 
 down from Aurangabad to greet Lally on his 
 arrival, and to engage his interest in his 
 plans. These plans were to carry the newly- 
 landed troops inland, and away from the 
 Coromandel coast (which would be good for 
 their health) to engage them in the task of 
 converting the Deccan ' sphere of influence ' 
 into a dominion, and to allow the English (if 
 they dared which they certainly would not) 
 to attack the .French in their inland strong- 
 
266 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 hold. Lally pooh-poohed Bussy's ideas, not 
 only with contempt, but with insult. ' It is 
 already too much condescension to listen to 
 the vapourings of that madman,' he wrote. 
 
 A man must be very confident indeed of 
 his own ability before he can use such strong 
 language about a colleague's views. But 
 when we learn what Lally 's own plans 
 were, we can only conclude that if anybody 
 was mad it certainly was not Bussy. ' It is 
 in Bengal that we must strike at the English,' 
 he wrote ; ' I shall proceed to the Ganges by 
 sea or land, and it is there that I shall find 
 your talents and experience of great use to me.' 
 
 From Madras to the Ganges by land ! with 
 an army of five hundred Frenchmen and a 
 few discontented native troops, without money, 
 without transport, and without supplies ! It 
 is the dream of a lunatic or a very ignorant 
 man. Perhaps by sea then ? It seems 
 incredible, but it is nevertheless the fact that 
 when Lally talked about proceeding to Bengal 
 by sea he actually had no fleet, D'Ache 
 having sailed away, after a slight brush with 
 the English, in September, 1758. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 267 
 
 Lally had landed on the Coromandel coast 
 in April, 1757. It was not till November, 
 1759, that he met Coote in battle. During 
 that period of two years and six months, he 
 might, if he had listened to Bussy, have 
 turned the whole of the Deccan into so great 
 a military state, that he could have crushed 
 the English settlements by the dead weight 
 of the French impact, just as the English had 
 ousted the French in Canada. Instead, he 
 had gained trifling victories and undergone 
 trifling reverses ; he had destroyed the native 
 confidence in the French, and ruined Bussy's 
 schemes. With the remains of his discon- 
 tented army he had now to fight as great a 
 soldier as himself Eyre Coote. 
 
 Sir Eyre Coote was born in the year 1726; 
 he had been with Clive at Plassy, and was 
 just created Lieutenant-Colonel. His experi- 
 ence in warfare was entirely Indian, and, 
 therefore, although Lally 's junior by twenty- 
 four years, he was a more competent general 
 for campaigning on the Coromandel coast 
 than the unfortunate Frenchman. 
 
 It is not too much to say that his Sepoys 
 
 18 
 
268 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 adored him, whereas Lally's troops may have 
 feared their chief; but they also regarded 
 him with some suspicion and more dislike. 
 On November 30, 1759, Coote gained the 
 great victory of Wandewash ; on the 22nd 
 of the succeeding January he defeated Lally 
 and took Bussy prisoner. On January 5, 
 1761, he captured Pondicherry and took Lally 
 himself prisoner. For the second time the 
 French Empire in India was broken down. 
 But the second collapse was far more serious 
 than the first. Dupleix's empire had been 
 destroyed by dexterously securing his recall, 
 and when he retired the English were left 
 with no great authority in India ; in fact, 
 they were still very little respected as soldiers. 
 But Bussy's empire, so far as the natives 
 could see, had fallen in a way that they could 
 understand ; it had gone down before the 
 assault of Coote. Henceforth it is the 
 English who stand forth as the martial 
 race. Of course, that is only half the story, 
 and there is no doubt that if Lally (who was 
 quite as good a soldier as Coote) had pulled 
 with Bussy instead of ignorantly spurning his 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 269 
 
 help, the result would have been entirely 
 different. 
 
 Lally's fate is generally cited as a shocking 
 example of the ingratitude of kings. It is 
 terrible to be guillotined for an error of judg- 
 ment, but, then, what a gigantic error it was ! 
 Moreover, it was not an error committed, like 
 Byng's, in a moment of battle ; it was per- 
 sisted in for two years and a half, during all 
 of which time it must have been perfectly plain 
 to Lally himself, without consulting Bussy or 
 anybody else, that the French cause in his 
 hands was going from bad to worse. He 
 certainly deserved severe punishment ; it 
 would hardly have been too severe treatment 
 if he had been broken and dismissed the 
 service. His fate depended a good deal on the 
 attitude of Bussy. The Marquis's intentions 
 were very plainly expressed in five words 
 ' Either Lally's head or mine,' he said. 
 
 It was almost too much to expect that 
 Bussy should show himself a generous 
 enemy. His noble ambitions were ruined in 
 the moment of fruition, his glorious dreams 
 dissipated, himself defeated and a prisoner of 
 
 1 8 2 
 
2;o LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 war. From the moment that the French 
 cause was ruined he set himself to work to 
 glut his revenge on Lally. The unhappy 
 General came to England and was warmly 
 received. He was our determined foe, and had 
 been so all his life ; but he had always been 
 a gallant foe, and he was now, in the autumn 
 of his days, a most unfortunate man. Bussy 
 went straight to Paris. He was connected 
 by marriage with Choiseul the Minister, and 
 Choiseul gave Lally a friendly hint that he 
 would do well to stay out of France for a 
 time. Lally 's English friends did their best 
 to keep him in London, but he brushed all 
 remonstrances aside, and betook himself to 
 Paris to demand a trial. His prosecution 
 was commenced on July 6, 1763, and was 
 fiercely pushed on. On May 5, 1766, he was 
 condemned to death, and on May 9, Thomas 
 Arthur, Baron of Tollendal, Count of Lally, a 
 Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. 
 Louis, and Lieutenant-General, being now 
 sixty-four years of age, was dragged through 
 Paris on a hurdle, with a gag in his mouth, 
 and guillotined. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 271 
 
 Bussy's revenge was now glutted ; per- 
 haps we may not blame him ; perhaps 
 Lally deserved his fate or very nearly 
 deserved it. Nevertheless, these fierce per- 
 sonal animosities have much to answer for 
 in the ruin of the cause of the French Indian 
 Empire. The first of these gorgeous fabrics 
 was built up by Dupleix, and by Dupleix it 
 was ruined out of jealousy of Labourdonnais. 
 The second was built up by Bussy, and 
 ruined by Lally out of jealousy of Bussy. 
 The third never got further than the founda- 
 tions, its erection being suddenly arrested by 
 the conclusion of peace. The year 1 763 
 saw the conclusion of the Treaty of Paris. 
 By that Treaty France lost Canada, and 
 prior to its conclusion she had suffered very 
 heavy losses in India; concurrently with 
 these losses by France immense additional 
 territories had been acquired by England in 
 Bengal. 
 
 It is not to be expected that a great nation, 
 proud and mighty, like France, should tamely 
 endure such intolerable humiliation. Peace 
 was no sooner concluded than her Ministers 
 
272 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 were at work in every direction for a new 
 attack on England. Although by a strange 
 contrast the English Ministries remained 
 for long after the Treaty of Paris feeble and 
 frivolous, in one direction we were active 
 secret service. Very curious it is to read 
 the record of mining and counter-mining 
 that went on about that period, our agents 
 working hard to discover Choiseul's plans, 
 while Choiseul carefully put forward mis- 
 leading plans, which were eagerly trans- 
 mitted to London as proof of the zeal and 
 acumen of our agents. 
 
 The French had learnt one great lesson 
 from the Seven Years' War : they must not 
 engage at one and the same time in hostilities 
 on the Continent and in a naval campaign 
 with Great Britain. Accordingly, their con- 
 tinental relations were kept peaceable, while 
 their navy was steadily increased in strength 
 and improved in quality. 
 
 In England, as the French saw with 
 pleasure, each Government was feebler and 
 more incompetent than its predecessor. 
 France was watchfully biding her time. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 273 
 
 The rebellion of the American colonies gave 
 her her chance, and we have seen how she 
 availed herself of it. When things were 
 going sufficiently ill for England in the 
 West, when it seemed as if the sun of 
 England's glory was really setting, France 
 planned a grand attack on the British Empire 
 in the East. 
 
 Her diplomatic activity there had never 
 ceased, and in Haidar she found a lever 
 for overthrowing the English ready to her 
 hand. Her plan now was to stir up this 
 mighty soldier to overthrow the English, 
 and, without attempting land operations on 
 a grand scale on her own account, to cut 
 the English off from obtaining succour by 
 sea by means of a powerful French squadron 
 in the Indian Ocean. An admirable plan, 
 and it was admirably carried out, and had 
 actually succeeded, when the Treaty of Ver- 
 sailles snatched away the third and last 
 chance that fell to France of founding a 
 great Indian Empire. The man selected 
 for the naval part of the work was the 
 greatest sailor of France, and perhaps the 
 
274 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 second greatest sailor that ever lived 
 Bailli Suffren. 
 
 The parallel between Suffren and Nelson 
 is inevitable. Both were extremely nervous^ 
 irritable, excitable, and anxious men, but the 
 ways in which their tempers manifested them- 
 selves were very different, and were derived 
 from the training of their lives. Nelson was 
 of humble extraction, and raised himself to 
 great eminence. In the course of his rise 
 he had to practise, as a chief element of his 
 success, the greatest self-command and even 
 self-repression. Suffren was a great French 
 noble, accustomed all his life to deference as. 
 his due and obedience as his right. One 
 consequence of Nelson's training was that he 
 suffered from fits of profound depression ; his 
 anxiety ran to melancholy and even hysteria.. 
 Suffren's anxiety exploded in outbursts of 
 fury, or boiled over in torrents of scalding 
 invective. 
 
 These contrary results reacted on their 
 subordinates, and on the crews under their 
 command, which were from the outset crews, 
 and officers of a very different stamp. Nelson's 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 275 
 
 crews had been moulded by the iron will of 
 St. Vincent and Howe into a state of perfect 
 discipline ; his officers were mostly men like 
 himself. The consequence was that when 
 Nelson took command they followed him 
 to battle not only with readiness, but with 
 rapture. Suffren's captains were also men 
 like unto himself indolent, haughty nobles, 
 and their Admiral's temper did not tend to 
 weld them together. 
 
 Nelson was lean to emaciation, but of an 
 infinitely kind and winning temper, and not 
 so careful of his dignity that he minded 
 ' shinning ' up the rigging to show a tremb- 
 ling middy, newly come aboard, that there 
 was nothing to be frightened of in going 
 aloft. 
 
 Suffren was enormously fat and choleric, 
 and as much of a grand seigneur on his 
 quarter-deck as on his terres. Nelson's 
 sphere of action was much grander than 
 Suffren's, and the consequence of all these 
 contrary conditions is that, while Nelson 
 appears in history as a ruler of the battle 
 and the tempest, a very god of war, who, 
 
276 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 when he smote his enemies, not only defeated 
 but destroyed them, Suffren is to most of us 
 a name only. Nelson was dead at forty- 
 seven ; Suffren was ten years older before 
 he fought his great battles. 
 
 There may be a question which of the 
 two was the greater sailor, the greater master 
 of tactics and resource ; but when we read 
 how Suffren's laggard captains betrayed him 
 over and over again, there can be no doubt 
 which was the greater man. 
 
 The English Admiral opposed to Suffren 
 was Sir Edward Hughes, a good specimen 
 of an English sailor, who generally gets less 
 credit than his due, because in his last en- 
 counter with Suffren, having eighteen sail 
 to Suffren's fifteen, he declined a decisive 
 battle. He is supposed to have lost his 
 nerve. But seeing that this was his fifth 
 fleet action with Suffren in the course of two 
 years, the wonder is not so much that he lost 
 his nerve, but that he had not lost it earlier. 
 To have fought four fleet actions with Suffren, 
 and not to be utterly defeated, is enough 
 glory for one man. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 277 
 
 Suffren arrived off the coast of Coromandel 
 with an inferior fleet, and, although not uni- 
 formly victorious, he yet continually improved 
 his position. He had no base originally ; he 
 supplied his want by conquering one Trin- 
 comalee. He had no spare yards or rigging ; 
 he got them partly from captured prizes, 
 partly by improvising them from material 
 obtained ashore. He was a complete master 
 of the art of developing resources out of 
 nothing. He was granted only a small 
 fraction of the military support that had 
 been promised by France to Haidar ; never- 
 theless, by diplomatic treatment he contrived 
 to keep that chieftain in fighting mood. 
 
 As regards the land operations, he had but 
 little responsibility ; they were entrusted to 
 Bussy, now a gouty invalid of sixty-four. 
 But Bussy was no match for Coote, who 
 was now fifty-three years of age, and a K.B. 
 He had been appointed Commander-in-Chief 
 in India in 1777, and took up his command 
 on March 25, 1779. He took the field in 
 Madras very unwillingly, being in feeble 
 health ; but in July, 1781, he gained the 
 
278 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 great victory of Porto Novo, and continued 
 victorious throughout the years 1781 and 
 1782. In the next year he died. Bussy 
 survived him till 1785, when he died at 
 Pondicherry. 
 
 But after Porto Novo there was little 
 chance of making great progress on land. 
 Everything depended on Suffren. If Hughes' 
 fleet could be destroyed, the English settle- 
 ments would be cut off and compelled to 
 surrender. Suffren, like all the great French 
 Imperial pioneers, was badly served by the 
 Home Government. Instead of sending him 
 reinforcements of sufficient strength to reach 
 the East, ships were forwarded by twos and 
 threes. These little companies were not 
 strong enough to force their way unharmed 
 through the narrow seas ; often they were 
 cut off; often when they reached Suffren 
 they did so with forces impaired by conflict. 
 But Suffren's genius supplied all defects. 
 Hughes seems to have fought with him 
 in something of Wellington's spirit : 'It 
 was not for me to bandy manoeuvres with 
 the greatest captain of the age ; all that 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 279 
 
 I had to do was to stand still and resist 
 him.' 
 
 ' What am I to do with the ship, sir ?' 
 said the sailing master of one of Hughes' 
 captains, when he had an overwhelming 
 strength bearing down on the ship. * There 
 is nothing to be done with her,' said 
 the captain, 'except to fight her till she 
 sinks.' 
 
 It was in this temper that the English 
 fought ; they were in the grip of a com- 
 manding genius, but they prolonged, the 
 struggle for years. At last Suffren had 
 achieved his end. He was blockading 
 Madras, where our feeble forces were 
 surrounded on the land side. Hughes was 
 cruising outside Suffren's fleet, but he dared 
 not close with that terrible foe. His nerve 
 failed him, and he sailed away. The fall of 
 Madras was imminent, and with Madras 
 would have gone the ascendancy over the 
 whole of Southern India. On June 29 there 
 came a messenger with a white flag, bearing 
 the news that the Treaty of Versailles had 
 been signed on February 9 preceding. So 
 
280 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 passed away the last great danger to India 
 from the French. 
 
 Suffren was neither guillotined for his 
 services nor banished to his estates ; he was 
 received with the most distinguished honour 
 at Versailles. But what gratified him even 
 more than his honour in France was the 
 attention that he received from the English. 
 His own captains did not appreciate him. 
 The long campaign had irritated and fatigued 
 them. They had little interest in the object 
 of their labours, and they -were exhausted by 
 Suffren's endless activity, and had no eye for 
 his genius. 
 
 But the English captains crowded to see 
 him, to have the honour of shaking hands 
 with so great a master of their craft, to be 
 face to face with the great sailor before 
 whose mighty assault even their stout hearts 
 had so often stood still. With the roar of 
 Suffren's broadsides yet in their ears, our 
 captains pressed on board his flagship, to pay 
 homage to the greatest Admiral of history 
 the man who was greater than De Ruyter, 
 than Rooke, or Hawke himself. His own 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 281 
 
 captains had no homage to offer except the 
 homage of a grudging obedience. 
 
 The interposition of the Treaty of 
 Versailles was a piece of sheer good luck. 
 We had fought stoutly, but we must needs 
 have gone under if war had continued. 
 Haidar was dead, it is true ; but then so was 
 Coote. The navy dominated the situation, 
 and Suffren had won his campaign. 
 
 It is hard to say whether we ought to 
 include in the Lost Empire of France those 
 territories that she gained by the annexation 
 of Holland. When the Emperor Napoleon 
 raised his brother Louis to the throne of 
 Holland the latter country became a 
 tributary of France, and the Dutch colonial 
 possessions were engulfed in the huge 
 extent of the Empire. They included the 
 Cape of Good Hope and Java. Both were 
 captured by English troops : the first by an 
 expedition under Sir David Bain, sent out 
 from England ; the second by an expedition 
 under Sir Samuel Auchmuty, sent out from 
 India. Java was restored and the Cape of 
 Good Hope retained. 
 
282 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Of course, immense and sudden accretions 
 of strength like these will always follow in 
 the wake of a prodigious military force, 
 wielded by a genius like Napoleon. Even 
 these triumphs are nothing to what he 
 effected in Europe itself ; but there is no 
 lesson to be drawn from these events, except 
 the very primitive one that the strong will 
 always conquer the weak. Spain once 
 enjoyed an empire in Europe of the same 
 kind, an empire founded partly on superior 
 military forces ; but also owing its immense 
 extent, very largely, to a long series of lucky 
 marriages of her princes to heiresses of great 
 territories. But this also is not the kind of 
 empire that is valuable as a study for 
 Englishmen, seeking light from history on 
 their own performances. 
 
 The Lost Empire of France, in so far as it 
 was an empire, such as England at present 
 holds, was lost to France for reasons which 
 have been examined as shortly as possible in 
 these pages. France possessed a very large 
 number of those valuable and, indeed, in- 
 dispensable pioneers adventurers. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 283 
 
 One colony, Canada, was strong and 
 flourishing, even although very few settlers 
 followed in the wake of the great Canadian 
 adventurers. The colony founded by ad- 
 venture, and strengthened by a very small 
 infusion of colonizing blood, was more than a 
 match for the English settlements, -thickly 
 populated in comparison though they were. 
 
 It went down, not before the New England 
 settlers, but before the sheer dead weight of 
 the English assault. It was a colony with 
 its roots already struck deep into the ground ; 
 adequately supported from France, it would 
 have grown to dominate the continent. In 
 India the adventurers had full play. There 
 it was the personal rivalry that ruined 
 the French cause. Dupleix quarrelled 
 with Labourdonnais ; Lally quarrelled with 
 Bussy. 
 
 On the whole, we must conclude that 
 adventure was the driving force, East and 
 West, of France : in the West adventure 
 was not supported by the Home Govern- 
 ment ; in the East adventure did brilliantly ; 
 it was not so much from lack of support that 
 
 19 
 
284 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 its achievements melted away, it was on 
 account of the mutual jealousies of the 
 adventurers. 
 
 We must note, however, that on the one 
 occasion when there was nobody to be 
 jealous of, France got the upper hand 
 completely, thanks to the genius of Suffren ; 
 and here, too, as in Canada, a little help from 
 France would have turned the scale before 
 the Treaty of Versailles robbed France of 
 the fruits of her efforts. 
 
 In the West Indies it is now, as then and 
 always, simply the superior naval power that 
 dominates. In Africa France has not only 
 lost nothing, she has very largely increased 
 the area of her influence and authority. It 
 is there that (as we saw from the passage of 
 M. Leroy Beaulieu quoted at the head of 
 this chapter) France hopes yet to redeem the 
 losses of the past by founding a great African 
 Empire. 
 
 Whether she will do so or not depends 
 simply on the two questions : firstly, Can she 
 induce her people to multiply and colonize, 
 wherever colonization is possible ? and, 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF FRANCE 285 
 
 secondly, Will she make up her mind to 
 adequately support her adventurers, and to 
 prevent them from quarrelling with each 
 other ? 
 
 19- 
 
V. 
 
 THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND. 
 
[289] 
 
 V. 
 
 THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND. 
 
 THE Dutch Empire holds our attention (not 
 always our admiring attention) from the 
 moment of its rise down to the present day. 
 Its history is a long series of surprises, 
 beginning with its origin, which seemed the 
 most unlikely thing in the world, and con- 
 tinuing for two centuries and a half down to 
 the date when, in defiance of all accepted 
 conclusions, a very small country continues to 
 occupy a very large position in the eyes of 
 the world. 
 
 It is also fairly open to argument that the 
 Dutch Empire should have no place in this 
 volume because it is not lost. It still includes 
 the island of Java, a great part of Borneo, 
 New Guinea, practically the whole of Sumatra, 
 
ago LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 the Celebes, and the Moluccas all of which, 
 taken together, imply the dominion of the 
 East Indian Archipelago. It also includes, 
 in the West Indies, the island of Cura9ao, 
 and some dependencies. Great and even 
 grandiose as these present possessions are for 
 so small a State, the Lost Empire of Holland 
 is yet of sufficient magnitude to justify the 
 inclusion in this volume of an examination of 
 the whole. It includes chiefly ' possibilities ' 
 the possibility of a great North American 
 State, expanding from the very early settle- 
 ment of New Amsterdam ; the possibility of 
 a great South African State, expanding from 
 the settlement of the Cape of Good Hope ; 
 the possibility of a great Indian Empire, 
 arising from the Dutch settlements on the 
 Ganges and the island of Ceylon. It includes 
 also a few important posts, and much ill- 
 defined but once lucrative ' influence ' on 
 the West Coast of Africa, where Holland, 
 like most of the European nations, has 
 scrambled for a trade which was variously 
 described as ivory, gum, or gold, but which 
 was always and substantially slaves. 
 
29 1 
 
 The Dutch are not a decadent nation ; on 
 the contrary, they are probably as vigorous 
 at the present moment as they ever were. 
 But they do not owe the retention of their 
 imperial position to their superior vitality : 
 they owe it to the unexampled condescension 
 of Great Britain ; for the entire area of the 
 present Dutch Empire has been twice con- 
 quered by England, and twice handed back 
 to Holland. The reasons for this self-denial 
 on our part will be given later. 
 
 If the empire of Portugal was a triumph of 
 thought, that of Spain an empire of plunder 
 and slaughter after the Oriental model, that 
 of France a triumph of brilliant adventure, 
 the empire of Holland has also its distin- 
 guishing characteristic it is a miracle of 
 shopkeeping. In its history we find no 
 principles appealed to or applied that are 
 beyond the range of the humblest linen- 
 draper's intelligence. There are no striking 
 figures in Dutch colonial history ; the whole 
 nation went as one firm into the business of 
 empire as they might have gone into any 
 other trade. They succeeded, and amassed 
 
292 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 in that important trade immense wealth. But 
 it is chiefly in their exclusive addiction to 
 earning large returns on the capital embarked, 
 and to their consequent neglect of the natives 
 whom they exploited to their profit, that we 
 shall find whatever grounds for reprehension 
 there may be in the history of the empire of 
 Holland. 
 
 First, of its rise. The sixteenth century 
 found the Dutch a thrifty and thriving folk, 
 living well among tt).eir dykes, in spite of all 
 the hardships of their climate. They prose- 
 cuted a busy trade and cultivated the domestic 
 virtues. They were not a very adventurous 
 race, and not at all an imaginative. In com- 
 merce they delighted in quick returns and 
 large profits ; they were content, under protest, 
 with small profits, but the returns must be 
 quick. They were very good traders on 
 commission, and quickly absorbed almost the 
 whole of the distributing business of the 
 wealthy empire of Portugal. They had not 
 the distinct national existence that they have 
 now, and have had for some centuries past, 
 their mother-country being only a part of the 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 293, 
 
 Low Countries, and each State semi-indepen- 
 dent, like those of the Swiss. The basis of 
 their character was a steady, not to say 
 stubborn, conservatism, and a loyalty to their 
 rulers that ranked next only after religious 
 conviction. 
 
 No race more unlikely to embark on the 
 dangerous, the exciting, but eminently gam- 
 bling, business of empire - making could 
 possibly be imagined. What force, one might 
 well ask, could possibly stimulate such a 
 people to embark on the race in which 
 Portugal and Spain (such very different 
 countries from Holland) had up to the rise of 
 the Dutch Empire won all the prizes ? 
 
 We know from Mr. Motley's works how 
 tremendous was the force applied to mould 
 the Dutch into a nation a nation not only 
 separate, but adventurous and belligerent. 
 It required nothing less than the scourge of 
 Philip's tyranny to move them. This solid 
 and stolid people, who asked nothing better 
 than to remain for ever the most loyal and 
 devoted of Philip's subjects, found them- 
 selves under the necessity of choosing 
 
294 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 between submission (which meant extinction) 
 and conquest (which implied empire, if they 
 chose to snatch the prize). 
 
 The quarrel of course was religious. These 
 heretics (or assertors of the rights of con- 
 science, whichever phrase you will), stung 
 by the scorpion lash of Alva's intolerable 
 despotism, sprang at their master's throat. 
 This ' people of butter ' as Alva in his 
 Spanish pride and Turkish ignorance had 
 called them flung off the yoke of Spain, 
 conquered her, trampled on her, and despoiled 
 her, and built up for themselves a wealthy 
 and stable empire out of her depredations. 
 Wealthy and stable : these are words to 
 conjure with, with Dutchmen. It was not 
 gorgeous, it was not imposing. It was so 
 little magnificent, that its very existence is 
 often at the present day overlooked ; but it 
 was and is, even in its shorn condition, 
 eminently remunerative. 
 
 Such, then, are, in brief, the conditions 
 under which the empire of Holland took its 
 rise. It was conceived in rebellion and 
 nourished on piracy noble rebellion and 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 295 
 
 justifiable piracy, if you will, but still 
 rebellion and piracy. That it should have 
 arisen at all is remarkable ; but the direction 
 in which Holland expanded, and the character 
 of her imperial work, are alike hardly less 
 remarkable. 
 
 The rebellion was against Spain, the piracy 
 was directed against Spain ; but it was so 
 directed, without apparent rancour or bitter- 
 ness, and in a discriminating and (so to 
 speak) methodical manner, that is in every 
 way exceptional. 
 
 When the Dutch Empire took its rise, the 
 whole known world outside Europe was in 
 Spanish hands. The original Spanish Empire 
 had been of immense extent, but had been 
 entirely confined to the Western Hemisphere 
 (with the trifling exception of the small 
 Spanish acquisitions in the South Seas). 
 Since the year 1580, however, it had been 
 doubled in extent by the absorption of the 
 whole Portuguese Empire into the empire of 
 Spain, and the Portugo-Spanish Empire thus 
 added included the whole of the known East 
 the known East added to the known West 
 
made a universal empire on which the Dutch 
 might prey at will. ' The world was all 
 before them where to choose.' 
 
 It is true that there remained over and 
 above the extent of the Spanish and the 
 Portugo-Spanish Empire the whole continent 
 of North America. In exploiting and ex- 
 ploring this immense and unknown territory, 
 France and England were at this moment 
 throwing off their first crop of adventurers. 
 Experiments were almost yearly being made 
 by both nations ; but experiments were not 
 much in the Dutchman's way, still less 
 adventure. 
 
 If he was to cross the ocean and risk his 
 life by sea and in unknown lands, it would 
 not be in search of adventure or that he 
 might make experiments. He did, indeed, 
 as we shall see, make one settlement on the 
 Atlantic coast ; but, in the modern phrase, 
 ' there was no money ' in North America. 
 The same sagacious, if not very lofty, instinct 
 that deterred him from experiments in the 
 North American continent also overcrowded 
 any natural desire that he may have had to 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 297 
 
 wreak his vengeance on Spain by directing 
 his piracies on the old Spanish Empire in 
 Central and Southern America. The Spanish 
 Empire was essentially military, and though 
 the Hollanders did not shrink from fights 
 when they were unavoidable, they preferred 
 spheres of action that were peaceful as well 
 as profitable. Moreover, the profits of the 
 Spanish Empire were precarious. Looting 
 is an affair of hours, and all the loot of Mexico 
 and Peru had long since been collected and 
 spent. There remained the mines profit- 
 able indeed, but essentially gambling securi- 
 ties. The Dutch turned aside from the 
 original Spanish Empire of the West towards 
 the Portugo-Spanish Empire of the East. 
 
 Beyond the fact that both these extensive 
 empires were now subject to the Crown of 
 Spain, there had been no attempt to amal- 
 gamate them, or to fuse interests that had 
 from the commencement been kept rigidly 
 distinct. Portugal and Spain, both religious 
 nations, had scrupulously observed the Papal 
 award which gave the East to one and the 
 West to the other. Even for purposes of 
 
298 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 convenience, Spain made no attempt (while 
 the empires were still distinct) to intrude on 
 her neighbour's territory. Slaves, for example, 
 were necessary to her for the development of 
 her American estates ; but she did not attempt 
 to acquire, either by purchase, settlement, or 
 conquest, any posts on the West Coast of 
 Africa to serve as bases for a slave supply. 
 She left the lucrative business of supplying 
 America with blacks entirely in the hands of 
 the Portuguese in obedience to the Papal 
 award. 
 
 This was just the kind of trade that 
 attracted the Dutch, and we accordingly find 
 them settled on the rock of Goree, off the 
 West Coast of Africa, between the Senegal 
 and the Gambia, as early as the year 1617. 
 Another yet more lucrative, and much less 
 dangerous, trade was that of the Spice 
 Islands, on which Holland had long cast 
 envious eyes. The goods were of small 
 bulk and very precious, owing to the limited 
 supply. Both spice trade and slave trade 
 were, of course, in the hands of the Portuguese, 
 and must be acquired by force. Moreover, 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 299 
 
 the spice trade implied the possession of 
 islands at the uttermost parts of the earth. 
 Naval superiority was, therefore, the first 
 indispensable condition for the absorption of 
 the Portuguese Empire by Holland. How 
 great that naval superiority rapidly became 
 we shall presently see ; but in the meantime 
 we may note that the Dutch Empire had 
 none of the characteristics that we should 
 have expected it to possess when we reflect 
 on the sinister circumstances attending its 
 origin. 
 
 Considering that the Dutch had only just 
 emerged from the hellish ordeal of Philip's 
 tyranny, we should expect to find them 
 burning with violent and disorderly passions. 
 If they were capable of any great con- 
 structive effort we should expect to find their 
 empire taking the shape of a series of strong 
 naval stations from which they could swoop 
 down and plunder their enemies. This was 
 not at all what happened. They emerged 
 from their great trials almost unaltered in 
 character, and they promptly and methodi- 
 cally set to work to build up a great trading 
 
 20 
 
300 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 empire, apparently almost uninfluenced by 
 considerations of revenge. 
 
 They started with many advantages. The 
 Portuguese, who could fight stoutly enough 
 for themselves, fought but languidly for a 
 foreign master, and they had recently suc- 
 cumbed to the same tyranny that Holland 
 had just thrown off. The Portuguese were 
 depressed ; the Dutch flushed with their 
 successful resistance to Spain. Moreover, 
 the Dutch were much better sailors. The 
 earlv trade to the East had been carried on 
 
 4 
 
 in very large slow-sailing ships. There were 
 good reasons for this ; the long voyage, with 
 uncertain ports of call, necessitated careful 
 provisioning, and large crews must be carried 
 to meet the accident of a fight. The 
 Portuguese had made very little progress 
 in naval architecture, and they were at the 
 mercy of the Dutch. 
 
 The Dutch have followed somewhat in 
 the wake of the Portuguese in this matter. 
 We can still on the rare occasions when 
 a Dutchman sails through the Downs study 
 the type of vessel with which Holland fought 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 301 
 
 her way to the Spice Islands two centuries 
 and more ago. It is difficult to realize that 
 these leisurely if eminently seaworthy craft, 
 whose lines have hardly changed since the 
 days of Van Tromp, were in the days of the 
 rise of the Dutch Empire the smartest ships 
 afloat. 
 
 When the Dutch turned their thoughts 
 eastwards it was in vessels not much heavier 
 and slower than these that they sailed. At 
 that time they were in the forefront of 
 progress in the matter of naval architecture, 
 for they had been fighting for a whole 
 generation in the narrow seas where handi- 
 ness was everything, and fighting for national 
 existence. Consequently, when little fleets 
 of vessels like this fell in with a Portuguese 
 galleon, the Portuguese had no chance ; it 
 was the Armada over again on a small scale 
 wherever Portuguese and Dutch came into 
 collision. 
 
 These, then, are the conditions under which 
 the Dutch Empire developed. They had 
 a decided naval superiority, and the enemy 
 in occupation of the wealthiest portion of the 
 
 20 2 
 
302 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 earth's surface was feeble and dispirited. 
 There was no discovery to be done ; for 
 by the time that the Dutch entered on their 
 Imperial career the road to the East, and 
 even the Far East, was almost a beaten 
 track. There is very little individual enter- 
 prise to be recorded, and the Dutch owe next 
 to nothing to that source of strength ; the 
 whole nation marched, so to speak, along 
 the road eastward to the Spice Islands. 
 
 They established themselves at Goree ; 
 they settled at the Cape of Good Hope ; 
 they ousted the Portuguese from Ceylon ; 
 they threw off side settlements in the Indian 
 Peninsula ; and they expelled the Portuguese 
 from the whole of the wealthy archipelago, 
 known as the Spice Islands. 
 
 Thus the shape that the Dutch Empire 
 takes at its height is this : there is a large 
 group of possessions Java, the Moluccas, 
 the Celebes, Malacca where the natives 
 were not formidable, where a small garrison 
 could hold each island or group with ease, 
 and where each could come to the help of 
 a neighbour when threatened. This group 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND ' 303 
 
 is strong, as well as compact. It is situated 
 at the farthest extremity of the earth's surface 
 from Europe, and can, consequently, only 
 be attacked by a powerful naval expedition. 
 Such an expedition must be prepared to fight 
 every stage of the voyage, or else be pre- 
 pared to sail the 12,000 miles without putting 
 in anywhere ; for all the ports of call are 
 in Dutch hands, and firmly held Goree, the 
 Cape, Ceylon. This is a very strongly 
 cemented chain of possessions, and its com- 
 mercial value was simply what the Dutch 
 chose to make it ; for the produce of the 
 Far East was grown nowhere else, and the 
 whole of the Far East was Dutch. 
 
 It was not a dangerous exploit, for the 
 Portuguese were not vigorous opponents. 
 It was not an adventurous exploit, for the 
 road was clear and well marked out before 
 the Dutch entered on it. It was a rich prize 
 easily won, and over the whole there hangs 
 a certain flavour of the commonplace, which 
 is hardly, perhaps, to be wondered at when 
 we come to consider the way in which the 
 Dutch looked on their newly-won dominions, 
 
304 "LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 and the manner in which they exploited them. 
 But we must not underrate it. It was, no 
 doubt, a remarkable achievement for so small 
 a people. It will appear still more worthy of 
 attention when we quit the task of narrating 
 where and how the Dutch displaced their 
 predecessors, and enter on an examination of 
 some of the circumstances that attended their 
 expansion of Holland. 
 
 There were, as we have seen, no difficulties 
 of the kind encountered by Portugal and 
 Spain ; difficulties of discovery, or the diffi- 
 culty of dealing with powerful native kingdoms 
 already established in the lands to be acquired. 
 Had the Dutch, then, no difficulties to face ? 
 
 They had difficulties and great ones ; but 
 their difficulties were quite different from any 
 experienced by the Portuguese or Spanish, 
 and arose entirely in consequence of the 
 Dutch entering so late on their career of 
 expansion. 
 
 The Portuguese and Spaniards explored 
 at their ease. They had no rivals, and so 
 they had time to make mistakes and profit 
 by them, to remedy their blunders, and to 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND - 305 
 
 begin again. But the Dutch had no sooner 
 started than France and England were close 
 on their heels. 
 
 Thus, although Holland commenced to lay 
 the foundations of a Colonial Empire at one 
 and the same time in North America, in the 
 West India Islands, on the West Coast of 
 Africa, in the continent of India, and in the 
 Far East, she was quickly compelled to give 
 up most of these enterprises by the encroach- 
 ments of her neighbours. It was not that 
 the individual Dutchman was in any way the 
 inferior of the individual Frenchman or 
 Englishman ; it was simply that there were 
 not in the aggregate enough Dutchmen to 
 hold all these posts. 
 
 Considering their numbers the Dutch 
 made a wonderful impression of universal 
 empire. This was because they had no 
 desire for conquest for conquest's sake no 
 ideal loftier than the enrichment of Dutch- 
 men. If they had wasted their strength in 
 attempting the conquest of India or Brazil 
 they would rapidly have sunk to the position 
 of an insignificant European Power, without 
 
306 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 any external relations worth mentioning. 
 But they attempted no such Quixotic enter- 
 prises, and the consequence was that they 
 made such a show of strength that France 
 and England were only too thankful to leave 
 to the Dutch the trade of the Far East, 
 provided that they could acquire some share 
 of the trade of the rest of the world. 
 
 For it so happened that the kind of trade 
 that the Dutch monopolized was just that 
 which most aroused the jealousy and cove- 
 tousness of both France and England the 
 carrying trade. 
 
 Just as, while their trade was confined to 
 Europe, the Dutch had become the great 
 distributors of the Continent, so when they 
 entered on their career of imperial expansion 
 they aimed at, and in fact conquered, the 
 carrying trade of the ocean. 
 
 But just as the prudent investor buys, in 
 times of peace, shares in a small-arms manu- 
 factory, so the Dutch, foreseeing perhaps the 
 jealousy that their predominance in the 
 carrying trade would arouse, set themselves 
 from the outset to make a second string to. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 307 
 
 their bow. This was their trade with the 
 Far East, of which they had, from the com- 
 mencement of their successful assaults on 
 the Portugo-Spanish Empire, the exclusive 
 monopoly. 
 
 This trade it was that remained longest 
 in the hands of the Dutch, this empire it 
 was that was twice conquered and twice 
 restored by England. The other posses- 
 sions of Holland, which were snatched from 
 her comparatively early, were posts estab- 
 lished by her for the sake of the convenience 
 of her carrying trade. 
 
 It was in defending these latter outposts 
 that the weakness of Holland, in point of 
 numbers, became so grievously apparent. 
 
 By far the most famous of all, the most 
 wealthy potentially and the most interesting, 
 was the settlement on the Atlantic coast 
 known as New Amsterdam. In this part 
 of the continent there were, in those days, 
 no opportunities of acquiring wealth rapidly. 
 In Africa the natives, if savages, were at any 
 rate savages with whom a profitable trade 
 could be carried on. In North America the 
 
3o8 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 case was different. Those precious goods of 
 small bulk ivory, gold, gum, spices that 
 so attracted the Dutchman were not to be 
 had. The slow processes of agriculture, and 
 (while the population remained scanty) still 
 slower processes of petty commerce, were 
 the only roads to wealth. For these reasons 
 comparatively few Dutchmen went there. 
 No very powerful military establishment 
 was kept up. There was, therefore, nothing 
 to counterbalance the very great advantages 
 that a naturally prolific and pushing race 
 would have over one more conservative and 
 of fewer numbers. The English, French 
 and Dutch were all early established on the 
 mainland of North America ; but whereas 
 the French, from their greater numbers (and 
 also from their being separated from the 
 English by a natural boundary) long dis- 
 puted the domination of the continent with 
 the English, the Dutch were, from the out- 
 set, in a much more unfavourable situa- 
 tion. 
 
 Their colony of New Amsterdam was 
 hemmed in by English settlements. After 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 309 
 
 half a century of European immigration, the 
 Dutch population was probably not one- 
 seventh of the English. Plainly so great a 
 disparity of forces could end in but one way 
 at the first outbreak of hostilities. 
 
 It was only in the forbearance of the 
 English that the Dutch could look for a 
 long continuance of their own power. 
 
 Towards the middle of the seventeenth 
 century the English, so far from feeling 
 indulgently towards the Dutch, were in- 
 tensely jealous of them on account of their 
 predominance in the carrying trade. To 
 this feeling we owe the Navigation Laws of 
 Cromwell and the Dutch Wars of Charles II. 
 It was in the year 1664 that the nascent 
 Dutch Empire in North America was de- 
 stroyed at a single blow, and the colony of 
 New Amsterdam converted into the colony 
 of New York. 
 
 A far more serious blow befell her, at 
 about the same time, in the loss of the slave 
 trade dependent on her station of Goree on 
 the West Coast of Africa. 
 
 This trade, as we have seen, was carried 
 
3io LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 on by the Portuguese, and the Spaniards 
 made no attempts to snatch at it. Even 
 when the Portuguese were ousted by the 
 Dutch, and the Spaniards found themselves, 
 in consequence, face to face with the neces- 
 sity of choosing between slaves purveyed by 
 rebels and heretics or no slaves at all, they 
 acquiesced peacefully in the transfer ; either 
 out of continued respect for the Papal award, 
 or from native sluggishness, or from the 
 tardy conviction that the Dutch were more 
 than a match for them. This trade, then, 
 passed into Dutch hands. They supplied 
 their own small settlements in Guiana and 
 the Brazils with slaves, and they also supplied 
 the Spaniards. With Goree lost first to 
 the English and recovered from them, and 
 finally lost to the French went their best 
 station for this purpose. 
 
 Thus, when the seventeenth century was 
 three-quarters past, the Dutch were over- 
 mastered in both North and South Atlantic 
 waters. What they retained Guiana and 
 Curaao in actual possession did not make 
 up for these very heavy losses. 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 311 
 
 Had the Dutch not reduced into possession 
 the whole of the Portuguese Empire in the 
 East and Far East, their position would now 
 have been a very insignificant one, for their 
 settlement at the Cape represented very 
 much what St. Helena and Ascension now 
 do for British shipping. 
 
 For a century and a quarter after the fall 
 of New Amsterdam the old order of things 
 continued, and then the French Revolution 
 broke out, bringing with it the most astound- 
 ing changes of fortune for Holland and her 
 Colonial Empire. 
 
 During all this time the Dutch were 
 undisturbed in their distant possessions in 
 the Pacific. Spain and Portugal had dropped 
 out of the running ; France and England 
 were fiercely stabbing each other wherever 
 they could chiefly in Canada and India 
 and left the Dutch alone. 
 
 As the time of the Revolution drew near, 
 however, it began to be seen that France 
 had had the worst of the long struggle. In 
 North America, indeed, she was a little 
 more than quits ; if she had been expelled 
 
312 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 from Canada, she was chiefly instrumental 
 in expelling England from the rest of the 
 Continent. But her losses in India remained 
 unavenged ; there was nothing to set off 
 against the ruin of all her gorgeous schemes 
 of Eastern Empire. 
 
 Moreover, it was plain that even in the 
 West Indies her position was most in- 
 secure. 
 
 Such was the situation of France ; she 
 was still eager, still ambitious, although 
 constantly baffled. We shall see how she 
 made two tremendous bids for a world 
 empire before the Great Peace. In the 
 meantime, we may profitably consider the 
 use that Holland made of this long period 
 of untroubled Eastern rule. I have ventured 
 the position that the Empire of Holland was 
 a miracle of shopkeeping. It is not intended 
 to imply that there is anything to be deplored 
 in an empire being conducted on sound busi- 
 ness principles. On the contrary, it is better 
 that it should be so : certainly far better for 
 the happiness of its subjects that the dominant 
 idea of empire should be that of peaceful 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 313 
 
 development rather than of rapacious war- 
 fare. 
 
 Nevertheless, there are degrees of devotion 
 to gain. The English, who are continually 
 denounced as shopkeepers men, that is, 
 who have no sense of responsibility towards 
 their Eastern fellow-subjects, and look on 
 their vast dominions as so many estates to 
 be exploited for the greatest possible ad- 
 vantage of England, and of England alone 
 may profitably study the records of 
 the largest shop ever kept the Dutch 
 Empire. It was an extensive and com- 
 plicated business. It will be impossible to 
 do more here than to glance at a single 
 incident which is typical. 
 
 The Dutch owned, as we have seen, the 
 two islands of Ceylon and Java. These 
 islands have no imaginable connection, racial 
 or geographical, and they are separated by 
 about 1,500 miles of sea. Their material 
 interests must necessarily be entirely uncon- 
 nected. Fate brought them both under the 
 yoke of Holland. Their new masters did 
 indeed study local conditions with some 
 
314 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 attention, but it was in order that they might 
 make the greatest possible profit for them- 
 selves, not in order that they might administer 
 each island to the greatest advantage of its 
 inhabitants. 
 
 The great difficulty in Ceylon was the rice 
 supply, which was always short, and some- 
 times brought the Cingalese perilously near 
 to a famine. Rice is a wet crop, and often 
 requires for its cultivation irrigation works 
 that are much beyond the power of the 
 ordinary farmer to carry out. Building tanks, 
 for instance, cutting canals and damming 
 streams. These works are throughout the 
 East regarded as proper objects for Govern- 
 ment care. The native rulers of Ceylon had 
 done, if not their duty, at any rate something 
 towards this work. We should expect to 
 find the Dutch energetically taking up the 
 work, and making up for lost time as quickly 
 as possible. 
 
 The Dutch, however, did nothing of the 
 kind. They did not construct new tanks, 
 nor repair those that the ravages of war had 
 damaged ; they allowed tanks to fall into 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 315 
 
 disuse wherever possible. We wonder at so 
 cruel a line of policy until we realize that it 
 is all simply a matter of business. The 
 sufferings of the Cingalese were nothing to 
 the Dutch ; they were not there to please 
 the Cingalese. As for rice, that was a Java 
 crop ; and an immense population of half- 
 starving Cingalese was the best possible 
 market for the Java houses ; they made vast 
 fortunes out of every scarcity. 
 
 It would certainly have served no useful 
 purpose to waste large sums of money in 
 constructive works in Ceylon, the only effect 
 of which would have been to lower the 
 profits of the Java houses ; that would not 
 have been at all good business. In Ceylon 
 itself the Dutch made money out of cin- 
 namon ; so it was clearly understood that 
 Java was to serve the rice ring, and Ceylon 
 the cinnamon ring. 
 
 It would hardly be precise to describe this 
 course of action as cynical ; for the Dutch, 
 with all their virtues, do not appear to have 
 had a glimmer of an idea that there could 
 be any higher duties connected with their 
 
 21 
 
3i6 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 position than to make as much money as 
 possible out of it. 
 
 But it is, nevertheless, a most extraordinary 
 example of heartless manipulation of the 
 interests of great populations to the ad- 
 vantage of a few capitalists. When England 
 grows conscience-stricken as to whether she 
 is really doing her duty by India, it might 
 be comforting to read for a while the records 
 of Holland's work. It is not savage cruelty 
 of the Spanish type that we encounter in 
 Dutch administration, it is only a dull and 
 sordid tyranny. Of course, every great 
 empire has its characteristic vices as well as 
 virtues. The Dutch were pacific, but in 
 revenge they were relentlessly greedy of 
 money. The time was coming when this 
 immense fabric was to be broken up from 
 its foundations. 
 
 On January 27, 1795, the Stadtholderate 
 was declared to be abolished, and the Batavian 
 Republic established. The Prince of Orange 
 fled from Holland, and was accommodated 
 with apartments in Hampton Court Palace. 
 By the middle of April the English withdrew 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLA ND 317 
 
 the forces that they opposed in Holland to 
 the advance of the Revolutionary forces. 
 
 Holland was virtually absorbed into the 
 French Republic, just as one hundred and 
 fifteen years earlier Portugal had been 
 absorbed into Spain. The immense territory 
 over-seas that was known as the Dutch East 
 Indies, together with the Cape of Good Hope 
 and Ceylon, fell into French hands, and 
 became the natural prey of those with whom 
 France was at war. 
 
 Such measure as Holland had meted out 
 to Portugal might now be expected to be 
 measured to her again by England. Ruth- 
 lessly and relentlessly had Holland despoiled 
 Portugal, and she now herself fell into the 
 clutches of a Power that is incessantly de- 
 nounced as greedy and grasping. 
 
 On September 23 the Cape fell. The 
 commander-in-chief of the expedition bore 
 a letter of recommendation from the Prince 
 of Orange desiring that there might be no 
 resistance, but it was disregarded. 
 
 Already in August the English had 
 conquered Malacca. On February 15, 1796, 
 
 21- 2 
 
318 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Ceylon was captured. In the next year the 
 wealthy prize of the Moluccas fell into our 
 hands ; three years later we reduced Dutch 
 Guiana, and in the following year Curacao. 
 There remained to Holland nothing but Java, 
 and even Java was isolated and cut off from 
 communication with Europe. 
 
 The empire of Holland was now indeed 
 in a parlous state. The mother-country, as 
 the Batavian Republic, was in dependence 
 (thinly disguised as alliance) on her powerful 
 neighbour, France. Abroad all was lost, 
 East and West, the route to the East gone, 
 and Java only remaining Dutch. Even 
 Java must soon fall in the natural course of 
 events. 
 
 At the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury an observant Dutchman must have felt 
 that there was little hope of a revival of 
 his country's greatness. There could be no 
 more rings in cinnamon, rice or coffee at 
 any rate, for Dutchmen. The days were 
 gone for ever when fat fortunes could be laid 
 up by the sweating of Javanese or Cingalese. 
 The outlook was hopeless ; for into whose 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 319 
 
 hands had the Dutch Empire fallen ? Into 
 the hands of England. 
 
 Nevertheless, at the Peace of Amiens, 
 concluded in the year 1802, the entire area 
 of the conquered Dutch Empire was restored 
 to Holland with the one exception of 
 Ceylon ; no doubt there are many who think 
 that we ought to have restored Ceylon also. 
 
 To appreciate the true bearing of this 
 course of action we must endeavour to 
 realize what was the situation of England at 
 this time. The war that closed at the Peace 
 of Amiens had been from the outset directed, 
 on the part of France, to securing the route 
 to the East. This was doubly secured by 
 France ; she held the Cape route by virtue 
 of the Dutch ' alliance,' and the Egyptian 
 expedition of Napoleon was to secure the 
 Mediterranean route. There is no doubt 
 whatever of her objective ; although in our 
 fathers' days there were many who held that 
 there was no proof of the Emperor's 
 animosity to England. Dazzled perhaps by 
 the second empire, they maintained that our 
 grandfathers' view of Napoleon was a mere 
 
320 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 craze, and that we should have done better 
 to ally ourselves with him. 
 
 What chance there would have been of 
 our alliance being accepted we can see from 
 the correspondence of the time. ' As for 
 Egypt,' the Minister for Foreign Affairs 
 wrote to Buonaparte on September 23, 1797, 
 'as a colony it would supplement the 
 products of the West Indies, and as a route 
 it would give us the commerce of India ; in 
 business, time is everything, and the time 
 saved would give us five voyages instead of 
 three only by the ordinary route.' The 
 ordinary route was the route round the Cape 
 of Good Hope. 
 
 At that time, of course, the Cape had 
 already passed away from French control ; 
 but the way in which they regarded the 
 Dutch possessions is well illustrated by these 
 lines from Buonaparte to the Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs, September 13, 1797 : ' Sup- 
 posing that at the general peace we were 
 obliged to restore the Cape of Good Hope 
 to England, we should then have to seize 
 Egypt.' Neither the Minister nor the 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 321 
 
 General makes a pretence that the Cape of 
 Good Hope is to be regarded as anything 
 but French ground. This, then, was the 
 situation : France was making two de- 
 termined attempts to get at India, stretching 
 one long arm round the south of Africa, and 
 thrusting another along the Mediterranean 
 to seize Egypt and the Red Sea. Both 
 attempts were defeated ; the first by the 
 simple capture of the Cape of Good Hope ; 
 the second in a more complicated manner. 
 The battle of the Nile shut up the French in 
 Egypt, and cut them off from France ; the 
 capture of Malta and Minorca confirmed our 
 grip on the route eastwards, and the march 
 of Baird through the desert with his Indian 
 army completed the disaster. 
 
 When the time came for making peace, 
 both routes to the East had fallen into our 
 hands, and both were surrendered. This 
 may be called ignorant, or short-sighted, or 
 cowardly, but it cannot with any show of 
 reason be called greedy. The menace to 
 India was as plainly demonstrated as any 
 policy can be ; and yet we were contented to 
 
322 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 run that terrible risk a second time. We 
 made only two reservations. The first was 
 Ceylon. The campaign of Suffren had 
 proved what havoc might be wrought to 
 India by a hostile fleet possessing a base in 
 that island. As the Dutch were plainly 
 unable to defend themselves against the 
 French, to retain Ceylon was the smallest 
 measure of self-defence that we could take. 
 Accordingly we retained Ceylon ; we simply 
 did not dare to leave so strong an outpost to 
 India in such feeble hands. All the rest of 
 the conquered Dutch Empire was restored to 
 Holland ; as to which all that can be said is 
 that it was a piece of extravagant generosity. 
 The only reservation that we made in 
 Europe was as regards Malta. Egypt we 
 evacuated ; Minorca we evacuated. As to 
 Malta, all that we asked was a material 
 guarantee that it would not be occupied by 
 the French as soon as our backs were turned. 
 The guarantee was not given, and war broke 
 out again. There are Englishmen who hold 
 that the guarantee never ought to have been 
 demanded ; and that throughout the negotia- 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 323 
 
 tions England behaved very badly to 
 Napoleon, who meekly endured our exactions 
 until he was pushed beyond endurance. 
 
 This point is a little beside our subject ; 
 but the fact remains that when the last stage 
 of the great struggle commenced, it found 
 Holland once more a world-power. Unless 
 we start with the assumption that England 
 cannot under any circumstances do a good 
 deed, and that what would be generous in 
 another power is merely selfish or crafty in 
 England, we shall have to conclude that the 
 revived Empire of Holland was a free gift 
 from England. The war broke out again 
 then, and the processes of the earlier war 
 were repeated. Surinam was captured in 
 1804, the Cape of Good Hope in 1806, 
 Curacao in 1807, the Moluccas in 1810, Java 
 in 1811. This time the conquest was 
 complete ; not an acre remained to Holland 
 outside Europe. We are to observe, further, 
 that these conquests, with the exception of 
 Surinam, were made from France direct, and 
 not from Holland. Early in the year 1806 
 Louis Buonaparte was formally proclaimed 
 
King of Holland. The entire extent of the 
 Dutch Empire became French soil, and as 
 legitimately open to English attack as the 
 Portuguese Empire had been to the attack 
 of Holland when Portugal was conquered by 
 Spain. 
 
 In the earlier war there had been at first 
 some hesitation on the part of England. 
 The situation was equivocal ; for we were 
 not at war with Holland. The Stadtholder 
 was the guest of George III., and recom- 
 mended his officers to hand over their 
 provinces to England. Later on, the situa- 
 tion cleared up, as the Dutch refused to 
 follow their Stadtholder's advice. In the 
 second war the situation was, almost from 
 the outset, clearly defined. For the second 
 time in the course of ten years, Holland 
 suffered the fate of Portugal ; her Empire 
 was engulfed in that of a powerful neighbour. 
 
 On this occasion not even Java held out ; 
 and for the second time the Dutch Empire 
 was in the grasp of England, who restored 
 the entire area to Holland with the exception 
 of the Cape of Good Hope. No doubt 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 325 
 
 there are many who will hold that we ought 
 to have restored the Cape of Good Hope 
 also.* 
 
 We did not, however, do so ; but kept in 
 our own hands the control of the route to 
 the East round the South of Africa. This 
 was the only loss suffered by Holland at the 
 Great Peace. To-day finds us also in 
 Egypt, having taken close upon a hundred 
 years to master our lesson. 
 
 We have now arrived at the last stage 
 in the history of the Dutch Empire. If its 
 rise and development were surprising, not 
 less so were the closing episodes, which left 
 it, as regards the Far East, intact after all 
 its vicissitudes. 
 
 The Colonial Empire of Holland is the 
 sole considerable Empire of the modern 
 world that has a continuous history since 
 its foundation. Batavia, founded in the 
 year 1619 as the capital of the East Indies, 
 is the capital of the Dutch East Indies 
 to-day, and the area of the Dutch Empire 
 
 * England, having conquered the Cape of Good Hope 
 from Louis Buonaparte, paid Holland six millions sterling 
 for the privilege of retaining that conquest and Guiana. 
 
326 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 there has not shrunk in the course of three 
 centuries. 
 
 The present Colonial Empire of France, 
 vast in extent though it is, is a creation of 
 this century only even of the last half 
 century. With the exception of the French 
 West Indies, it has but a very short history. 
 The Empires of Spain and Portugal are so 
 sadly shrunken the one in consequence of 
 extravagant misgovernment, the other in 
 consequence of dreadful disasters that it 
 is hardly fair to compare them with the 
 great and wealthy possessions of Holland, 
 although the Portuguese possess in Goa, 
 and the Spaniards in Santiago de Cuba, a 
 link with a more distant past even than the 
 foundation of Batavia. 
 
 That Holland should occupy to-day the 
 unique and very favourable position of a 
 small nation ruling a considerable empire, is 
 owing to the fact that she had the good luck 
 to fall into the hands of England. It was 
 not that she had an overflowing population, 
 for she remained to the end a little people. 
 It was not that her stock was more martial 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 327 
 
 than that of her rivals, for her colonies fell 
 at once and almost without a struggle over 
 and over again. 
 
 The Dutch Empire had very little resist- 
 ing power ; it was swallowed up by France 
 as easily as Portugal was swallowed up by 
 Spain. But the Portuguese Empire was 
 exposed by its misfortunes to the assault of 
 a Power flushed with successful rebellion, 
 and just entering on its course of expansion, 
 whereas when the turn of Holland came, she 
 fell into the hands of a Power that was too 
 grand and mighty to care about unsought 
 additions to her possessions. We have also 
 to note the long period of peaceful develop- 
 ment enjoyed by Holland ; this was not 
 enjoyed by her because she was stronger 
 than her foes, but because France and 
 England were perpetually at war, and unable 
 to make any great efforts outside the two 
 classic arenas of their conflict Canada and 
 India. 
 
 In the dealings of England with the Dutch 
 Empire we no doubt come across a great 
 deal of blameworthy ignorance as to its value. 
 
328 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 But even in that ignorance there is a 
 certain nobility. Besides, when we say that 
 England was ignorant of what she was 
 restoring, that is only one part of the story. 
 Our ministers may have been unaware of 
 the value of the colonies that they were 
 handing back to Holland, but they were 
 quite aware that they were being asked, and 
 pressingly asked, to hand back something. 
 They failed in their duty departmentally, by 
 not making more sure of what they were 
 doing. 
 
 But, however we may distribute personal 
 blame, there still remains the extraordinary 
 fact (the fact so important to Holland) that 
 her empire was twice handed back to her 
 when (especially the second time) she could 
 hardly have expected to regain any portion 
 of it. 
 
 What led England into a course without 
 example in history will always be a matter of 
 dispute. Some there will be who will affirm 
 that England deserves no credit for declining 
 to despoil a defenceless neighbour, her action 
 being simply the outcome of departmental 
 
THE LOST EMPIRE OF HOLLAND 329 
 
 inadvertence. Others will maintain that it 
 was from a genuine desire not to impoverish 
 an old friend that we relinquished the Dutch 
 Indies, East and West, and that our action 
 was a very generous one. 
 
 But whether the mainspring of our action 
 towards Holland was indifference or gene- 
 rosity, it is submitted that it certainly was 
 not greed. 
 
VI. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 22 
 
[ 333 ] 
 
 VI. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 THE British Empire is not lost yet. But 
 there is no reason why it should not be if 
 it is sufficiently mismanaged. It was not 
 founded by a miracle ; and we must not 
 expect that a miracle will ever be wrought to 
 conserve it. Hence the value to English- 
 men of the study of empires that have in the 
 past been won and lost. 
 
 The situation of England at the present 
 moment is exactly analogous to that of 
 Portugal immediately before her collapse. 
 Portugal had no men ; England has no 
 food. For a whole generation before the 
 disaster of 1580 it was becoming increas- 
 ingly plain, year by year, that unless some 
 governmental measure were adopted to keep 
 
 22 2 
 
men in Portugal, the steady drain of men to 
 the East would at last bring about a crisis. 
 That crisis would be nothing more nor less 
 than this : that Portugal might be over- 
 flowingly rich, and yet completely defenceless. 
 The necessary measures were not taken, and 
 Portugal fell in a fortnight. Had time been 
 granted her she could have made a respect- 
 able defence, but Spain had no intention of 
 throwing away so valuable an opportunity, 
 and time was not granted to Portugal. 
 
 In England it has been growing increas- 
 ingly plain, for the last twenty years at least, 
 that unless some governmental measure were 
 adopted to get grain into the country and 
 keep it there, the time would come when the 
 country would be within measurable distance 
 of starvation. The time has come. It is 
 not a question of whether this or that Power 
 or combination of Powers would be malicious 
 enough to cut off our supplies. We need 
 not discuss the question as one of hostile 
 import if we do not wish to do so ; for the 
 situation would be almost the same if a 
 universal treaty of arbitration were in full 
 
CONCLUSIONS 335 
 
 operation. The point is, that by the failure 
 of two harvests there would not be food 
 enough on the planet. It would not be a 
 question of England being able to get at 
 it or not ; the food would not be there. 
 
 The obvious remedy is, since we have so 
 much good wheat country, to grow the food 
 ourselves. But for some reason England is 
 doggedly opposed to doing anything of the 
 kind. It is one of the most singular crazes 
 known to history. Future historians will 
 make infinite merriment over a nation that 
 called itself practical, and yet pursued a 
 policy that at one and the same time made 
 it the most envied nation in the world, and 
 cut off all its sources of the first indispensable 
 material of war. 
 
 For it is not that food is among the 
 necessary munitions of war : it is the first 
 and indispensable munition of war. Having 
 got our men, we must feed them before 
 they can fight ; surely that is the ABC 
 of warfare. 
 
 The cheap and easy task of describing 
 what would happen if some unfriendly Power 
 
336 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 chose a time of scarcity to declare war has 
 been so often performed that it is un- 
 necessary to perform it again here. But 
 surely writers on that subject take too roseate 
 a view of what would happen to England 
 under those circumstances. It is generally 
 assumed that by paying a sum of money- 
 one thousand millions, two thousand millions, 
 or some colossal sum we could put an end 
 to our miseries. 
 
 Such a stipulation would be a waste of 
 paper and ink ; for one thousand millions 
 could as easily be extracted from Iceland as 
 from England with her empire gone. Any 
 power that had the good luck to get her 
 fingers round England's throat in this way 
 would not be so foolish as to let the oppor- 
 tunity slip of throttling her once and for ever. 
 We saw what Philip did to Portugal when 
 the opportunity came for which he had so 
 long waited. Supposing the worst possible 
 to have happened, and England, with her 
 forty millions of starving folk, to be ringed 
 round with hostile cruisers. 
 
 The enemy would be lacking in common 
 
CONCLUSIONS 337 
 
 sense if he helped us out of our difficulties, 
 for he would not get such an opportunity 
 again. That such a course would be 
 ' inhumane ' is saying very little to the 
 purpose. ' When I go to war,' said the 
 grim old Marshal, ' I pack up my humanity, 
 and leave it behind with my wife's kit.' 
 Perhaps the enemy might go so far as to 
 relieve our distress to the extent of ' assisting 
 emigration ' to what would then have become 
 her colonies. 
 
 These are gloomy reflections. But they 
 were stern realities (substituting ' men ' for 
 ' food ') to Portugal three hundred years ago, 
 and there is, in the nature of things, no 
 reason why they should not become realities 
 for England. Our case is exactly analogous. 
 With time we could, of course, get out of 
 our difficulties ; but time is precisely that 
 which will not be allowed to us, any more 
 than it was to Portugal. 
 
 The usual reply (when these considerations 
 are urged) is that this Power or the other 
 ' would never ' take a course of action that 
 would entail a disagreeable consequence to 
 
338 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 herself temporary loss of trade for example. 
 Considering the immense value of the British 
 Empire there are surely several nations who 
 would gladly suffer not only a slight and 
 temporary, but a very substantial loss for the 
 purpose of helping to loot us, and would be 
 amply repaid if they succeeded. 
 
 No doubt the same things were said in 
 Portugal when any ' alarmist ' pointed out 
 the Spanish danger. Two such faithful sons 
 of the Church ' would never ' fall out ; neigh- 
 bours who had learnt for many centuries to 
 know and respect each other ' would never ' 
 have a difference that could not be amicably 
 adjusted ; their external interests were per- 
 fectly distinct, one to the East, the other to 
 the West, under the award of the Holy 
 Father. 
 
 Latterly, especially, since Portugal had 
 shown herself so militantly orthodox, the 
 countries had drawn much closer ; orthodox 
 Philip could not but respect and admire a 
 country that showed such praiseworthy zeal 
 for the good cause. Finally, the material 
 interest of Spain, plainly, was to keep 
 
CONCLUSIONS 339 
 
 Portugal intact. Quite apart from spiritual 
 or racial affinities, the mere promptings of 
 self-interest would deter Spain from breaking 
 up the whole fabric of the Eastern trade. 
 She ' would never ' dislocate an entire system 
 of commercial connection from which she 
 herself derived so much benefit with no 
 greater advantage in view than the acquisi- 
 tion of more territory, when she had too 
 much already. 
 
 ' Was fur Plunder !' sighed old Blucher 
 with tears of regret in his eyes as from the 
 peaceful vantage ground of S. Paul's Cathedral 
 he surveyed the City of London. ' Was fur 
 Plunder !' says the world of to-day, but with 
 more of anticipation than regret in her voice, 
 as she surveys the vast and wealthy extent 
 of the British Empire. 
 
 But we lose sight of things as they are 
 when we assume that nations only go to 
 war from nicely-balanced reasonings of self- 
 interest. It is mostly from outbreaks of 
 popular passion, unreasoned anger unreason- 
 ably insisted in, that modern nations go to 
 war. Cabinets are, in fact, a good deal 
 
340 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 hampered in resisting impulses of this kind 
 on the ground that the war is not to the 
 nation's interest ; for in declaring war they 
 always have to make out that it is with the 
 utmost reluctance that they find themselves 
 driven to advise their master to take such an 
 awful measure. The catchword varies in 
 every case the honour of the flag, the father- 
 land, the cause of orthodoxy these are some ; 
 but never self-interest. In being told that our 
 friends 'would never' do anything so contrary 
 to their own interest as to declare war against 
 England we are being told that they ' would 
 never ' do that which, as a matter of fact, 
 every nation professes to be doing when she 
 goes to war. 
 
 Portugal fell by reason of ignoring facts 
 that were glaringly obvious. The food 
 supply is one such in the case of England. 
 Another is, that there are too many people 
 in England and too few in the Colonies. 
 England could easily spare a few millions ; 
 the Colonies could as easily swallow them 
 up even more easily if they rightly under- 
 stood their interests. The statesman who 
 
CONCLUSIONS 341 
 
 should set a current of immigration flowing 
 into the vast waste-lands of the South would 
 do more to strengthen and enrich the Colonies 
 than the discovery of a gold-mine could effect. 
 
 There is one other source of strength that 
 Englishmen possess, of which, so natural 
 does it seem to her, she would never be 
 conscious unless by studying the lost empire 
 of Portugal : it is that they do not mix 
 freely with their Eastern fellow - subjects. 
 This is often made a reproach to them, with 
 the usual adjectives, haughty, unsympathetic, 
 and others more severe still. 
 
 But we have but to see how grave was 
 the diminution of force that the abounding 
 sympathy of Portugal brought to her, to 
 recognize at once what a source of strength 
 to us is our so-called haughtiness, which is 
 really nothing more than instinctive common- 
 sense. 
 
 The contemplation of the lost empire of 
 Spain ought to be one of unmixed consolation 
 to England ; for we have avoided all the 
 mistakes that Spain made. We are so 
 accustomed to our own attitude of complete 
 
342 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 toleration of all the creeds (some so strange 
 to us) of our empire, that we have come to 
 look on toleration as the rule, and intolerant 
 action as the exception. That is an entire 
 mistake. Spain was grossly intolerant ; so, 
 in her decadence, was Portugal ; France half 
 strangled her own promising colony of Canada 
 by shutting out all immigrants except those 
 of one faith. We should do well to remember, 
 now and then, how inexhaustible is the source 
 of strength to the empire implied in the word 
 toleration. 
 
 It is quite a delusion to suppose that perse- 
 cution always fails. If applied with sufficient 
 vigour and relentlessness, it is often com- 
 pletely successful. The crushed worm does 
 not turn if you tread hard enough. But it 
 is, after all, only a very narrow kind of 
 success from the point of view of this 
 world that can be attained by persecution. 
 If ' success ' is held to imply the stamping of 
 one form of religious belief on the minds of 
 the people, that measure of success can be 
 attained. In this sense Spain was completely 
 successful. But if we inquire the price of her 
 
CONCLUSIONS 343 
 
 success, we shall find that it was a price that 
 England will never be persuaded to pay ; 
 for it is the moral and intellectual ruin of the 
 people. Besides these considerations, the 
 material ruin of the people is an inconsider- 
 able incident ; but that, too, follows in most 
 cases. 
 
 With our awakened sense of the illumi- 
 nating value of history, and the great 
 importance of a knowledge of the past as 
 a guide to the present and the future, we 
 cannot help feeling that the scrupulously 
 careful conduct of England in the East is 
 a legitimate source of pride. Let us con- 
 sider what the Spaniard destroyed, and what 
 the Englishman has preserved. Temples, 
 legends, faiths, languages almost, customs, 
 creeds, all the varied and intensely pictu- 
 resque and instructive incidents of an old 
 civilization all were shrivelled up in the 
 devastating breath of the Spanish fury. All 
 have been religiously preserved and pro- 
 tected by England to the utmost of her 
 power. Cavillers will say that this is no 
 more than our duty. Granted fully granted : 
 
344 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 but the Spaniard thought that he was doing 
 his duty also. The question is, Whose sense 
 of duty is the higher ? 
 
 There is nothing that is French that may 
 not be studied with profit ; not even the 
 French Colonial Empire. We are accus- 
 tomed to remember with complacency that 
 we owe nothing, or next to nothing, to our 
 ministers, and that our own empire contrasts 
 favourably with others like it, chiefly because 
 it is almost entirely the work of the people. 
 No doubt : but we may profitably consider 
 how much the French achieved, in spite of 
 the difficulties caused by an almost complete 
 lack of popular support. For England it 
 would appear that, just at present, and in 
 several directions, the questions awaiting 
 decision are precisely those that can be 
 solved by the patient consideration of experts 
 rather than by popular impulses. Let us 
 remember, then, how nearly French intel- 
 ligence beat us out of Canada, with all our 
 numbers in our favour. There are several 
 most important policies awaiting settlement 
 that are absolutely incapable of solution 
 
CONCLUSIONS 345 
 
 except by conferences of experts, who will 
 bring trained intelligence to bear on the 
 tangled web of conflicting interests. 
 
 Impulse is invaluable while empires are 
 being made ; but in later stages intelligence 
 is indispensable. Intelligence will but rarely 
 make a country expand into an empire ; but 
 no work of consolidation can be achieved 
 without a very liberal measure of intelligent 
 and concerted effort. 
 
 The most difficult task for the conscientious 
 hesitator one sometimes fears that it is an 
 impossible task is to bring himself into that 
 state of mind in which the Commons of Eng- 
 land resolved that ' Robert, Lord Clive. hath 
 at the same time rendered great and meri- 
 torious services to his country.' If he really 
 merit the name of 'conscientious,' let him 
 in conscience' name study the Lost Empire 
 of France. Let him remember Champlain 
 perpetually kept in the background, De la 
 Salle unsupported, Bussy thwarted, Labour- 
 donnais dying of a broken heart, Dupleix 
 neglected and ruined, Lally dragged through 
 the streets of Paris on a hurdle ; and let him 
 
346 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 remember that Canada and India were lost 
 to France because of these misdeeds, wrought, 
 for the most part, in the solemn name of 
 justice. 
 
 When we have the good fortune to have a 
 great man among us, let us at least be great 
 enough ourselves to know him for what he 
 is. If we are looking for a great man who 
 is blameless, we are looking for the Messiah. 
 But we can find plenty of men among us 
 who are neither great nor blameless : they 
 are the common stuff of humanity. Although 
 there is something intensely gratifying to 
 ordinary mankind in catching a great man 
 tripping, it is not really a grand discovery 
 that we have made. All men make slips, 
 but most men are small enough to conceal 
 them. The truly grand attitude of mind is 
 reached when, having judged, men can bring 
 themselves to say that ' Robert, Lord Clive, 
 hath at the same time rendered great and 
 meritorious services to his country.' 
 
 It has not been possible, within the limits 
 of this volume, to give more than a hint of 
 the way in which Holland regarded her 
 
CONCLUSIONS 347 
 
 Colonial Empire ; the entire volume would 
 be too scanty a space to devote to that most 
 instructive study. It would show English- 
 men how far a great people a really great 
 people can misapprehend the nature of an 
 empire. As in every other way, we are 
 continually being reminded how far short we 
 fall in the task of ' doing our duty ' to our 
 fellow subjects. No doubt we do fall short : 
 but, at any rate, we acknowledge that we 
 have a duty ; and that is more than Holland 
 ever recognized. If we do not do so much 
 as we might do towards increasing their 
 happiness and prosperity, we do, at any rate, 
 admit that their happiness and prosperity is 
 our goal ; and not the enrichment of English- 
 men by every possible means, and at any 
 cost of suffering to those subjects of the 
 Empress who are not Englishmen. Base 
 though this aim may be that (as we justly pride 
 ourselves) is not ours, it was nevertheless the 
 aim of a nation that we are continually ex- 
 horted to admire and bow down to. 
 
 Those who think about the British Empire 
 at all fall roughly into four classes : 
 
 23 
 
348 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 1. The Jingoes. 
 
 2. The reasonable Imperialists. 
 
 3. The conscientious hesitator. 
 
 4. The Little Englanders. 
 
 In good times the second class outnumbers 
 all the others put together, but not very 
 largely, and in troubled times the Jingoes 
 are a dead weight, and the Little Englanders 
 a danger. The balance is decided by the 
 attitude of the conscientious hesitators, who 
 are drawn upwards or downwards by all sorts 
 of considerations, but who are constitutionally 
 open to the very able appeals that the Little 
 Englanders make to their conscience. 
 
 These determined foes of our country, 
 numerically insignificant, are powerful by 
 reason of their pertinacity and recklessness, 
 and by the influence that they exercise over 
 the hesitators. Their appeals are most adroitly 
 made, and are always covered by that most 
 attractive mask, the mask of noble and 
 unselfish aims. They are never abashed, 
 never disconcerted, never discouraged, and it 
 would not be accurate to say that they do 
 not mind what damage they cause, for their 
 
CONCLUSIONS 349 
 
 object is to cause damage. Their grand 
 source of strength is the ignorance of their 
 dupes, an ignorance which is not to be 
 wondered at, nor easily overcome, for no 
 questions are so complicated as those of 
 Imperial policy, and some are only fit to 
 be debated by experts. Nevertheless, they 
 are all thrown into the arena of party strife : 
 that is one of the drawbacks to our other- 
 wise successful method of government. 
 
 With this exception, and also with the 
 exception of the dangers noted earlier in this 
 chapter, the story of the lost empires is of 
 rather favourable omen than otherwise to the 
 British Empire of to-day. As a rule, the first 
 sign of an empire's decline is the failing 
 vitality of the parent stock. Never before 
 in our history have we been so variously 
 and so healthily active as at the present 
 moment. The vitality of England appears 
 to be not only sustained at a high level, but 
 to be exuberant, inexhaustible. The nation 
 has even undergone unscathed the severe 
 test of twenty-five years' education. There 
 are weak points, no doubt, here and there, 
 
 232 
 
350 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 but none beyond those already indicated 
 that seem likely to become malignant dangers 
 none, at any rate, at home. 
 
 Abroad there are some that may be very 
 dangerous indeed. In India there are two, 
 one affecting the Civil Service, the other the 
 Army. The army has been treated with 
 particular cruelty, but it is one of the most 
 re-assuring features of our political system 
 that abuses are not permanently overlooked. 
 It may take a long time to fix upon them the 
 requisite amount of attention to secure their 
 remedy ; but the remedy is in the end 
 secured, although, perhaps, more slowly than 
 under a more vigorous administration. 
 
 The position of the Civil Service is peculiar. 
 Next to the Army it is the chief pillar of 
 Anglo- Indian rule. Forty years ago it was 
 not supposed to be overpaid, and yet in the 
 last forty years pay has fallen sixty per cent., 
 owing to the fall in silver ; prices have risen 
 perhaps forty per cent., and the work has 
 trebled. There is no fear that Englishmen 
 will not always get through as much work 
 as they possibly can, whether their pay be 
 
CONCLUSIONS 35 T 
 
 magnificent or barely sufficient. But every 
 man has his tether, and if he has to spend 
 his time in mountains of correspondence his 
 time is gone, and it may be open to question 
 whether it has been spent to the best 
 advantage. That was a fine phrase, that 
 every Englishman should bear himself in the 
 East like an Ambassador of the Empress 
 a perfect definition indeed ; but who ever 
 heard of an Ambassador in a hurry ? and 
 when was a modern civilian in anything but 
 a hurry ? 
 
 The drift of this observation, of course, is 
 that so much of our authority in the East 
 depends on the personal contact of English 
 and Asiatic. It was this that inspired Sir 
 John Malcolm's instruction to the service 
 that they should live, in the Eastern phrase, 
 ' with four doors open ' : be of perfectly easy 
 access to every native ; for to listen to a man 
 is sometimes as good as granting him what 
 he prays for. All this invaluable personal 
 intercourse must of necessity be restricted or, 
 which is as bad, hurried over, if a man is 
 nervously anxious to finish his last report on 
 
352 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 a scheme that need never have been promul- 
 gated. That invaluable basis of our influence, 
 perfect mastery of the native tongues, must 
 needs be weakened if office work is so heavy. 
 These are not fatal weaknesses, but they are 
 weaknesses. They tend to enfeeble the grip 
 of the district officer over his district. The 
 East is the same as it always was, and the 
 Oriental does not understand the man in 
 authority being hurried like an overworked 
 telegraph clerk. He likes to see his great 
 man take his ease affably, and will not 
 approach him at all unless he can get a few 
 minutes' easy chat. 
 
 If the work has increased the pay has 
 diminished. There are only two ways of 
 paying men in money or in honour. The 
 money pay is less than half what it was, and 
 for honour, by which is here meant decora- 
 tions, and all the little points of precedence 
 and formality that are as the breath of their 
 nostrils to some men, Englishmen as a rule 
 care nothing at all. It would perhaps be 
 more accurate to say that they profess to 
 care nothing at all, whereas in reality they 
 
CONCLUSIONS 353 
 
 care a great deal. This insincere attitude of 
 mind is due partly to the grapes having so 
 long been sour English decorations until 
 quite recently having been very scarce and 
 reserved for grandees. It is partly due also 
 to the misunderstood teachings of some 
 social prophets. There remains the English- 
 man's preference for substantial reward, 
 which forms the residuum of a feeling that is 
 probably on the decrease on the whole. It 
 still persists, however, and makes one more 
 difficulty when we come to consider how to 
 get the superlatively good work of the civil 
 service for about one-half of the proper pay. 
 That illustrious service, once standing so 
 high in honour and emolument, is now 
 greatly shrunken in both. Yet it is to a 
 great extent on the efficiency of that service 
 that the British Empire in India rests. 
 
 As to foreign attacks, there is scarcely a 
 doubt that, sooner or later, it will come. Into 
 the struggle for empires all nations have now 
 entered, some of whom are quite unfitted 
 for empire even if they achieved it, and some 
 are of already demonstrated incapacity. 
 
354 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 Nevertheless, they will not be left behind 
 in the race if they can help it. The greater 
 reason for England to be, more than 
 ever, the strong man armed. The greater 
 reason for her to be of one mind, so far as 
 possible, so that when the hour of conflict 
 strikes, the trumpet shall give out no uncertain 
 sound. Then there will be, at least in our 
 days, no lost empire of England. But there 
 might have been had our foes struck twelve 
 years ago. Twelve years ago there is hardly 
 a doubt that we might have been ' rushed ' 
 successfully. It was not that the army was 
 weak, for it is always weak ; it was not that 
 the navy was lamentably below strength : it 
 was that the very soul of the nation seemed 
 sick. We seemed to have neither heart nor 
 head left to us. Every form of sentiment- 
 alism raged abroad unchecked ; the voice of 
 common-sense was drowned ; the people 
 seemed bewitched. We lived in an inverted 
 world ; duty was derided, loyalty was a 
 superstition, war a wickedness, the law of the 
 land an intolerable burden. 
 
 Then came the crash in Egypt ; the 
 
CONCLUSIONS 355 
 
 campaign of ' almost mythic grandeur ' in 
 the Soudan, and the tragedy of Khartoum ; 
 and still the people babbled on. 
 
 At the height of the brabble the voice 
 of a Cambridge professor made itself slowly 
 heard. In language of frozen impartiality 
 he bade us remember what were the issues 
 of which we talked so lightly ; what were 
 the tremendous interests that we were pre- 
 paring, as the phrase went, to ' throw into 
 the cauldron.' Under this exhortation men 
 looked eastward to the Soudan, where the 
 rule of the -Khalifa reminded them of the 
 consequences of duty forgotten and respon- 
 sibility shirked. Perhaps, after all, there 
 might be something to be said for the old 
 teaching of home and school that for English- 
 men duty comes first. 
 
 Men looked at home ; and some phrases 
 that once sounded so alluring sounded hollow 
 to their ears. Some reputations, once so 
 high, seemed overrated ; some figures that 
 once loomed so large to their eyes flickered 
 and grew dim and unsteady, as if seen 
 through a bloody mist. 
 
356 LOST EMPIRES OF THE MODERN WORLD 
 
 As the sense of individual duty towards 
 the millions who dwell under the sceptre of 
 the Empress grew stronger, the nation grew 
 less flighty. Times mended ; and, from the 
 year of Jubilee onwards, the chances of the 
 foes of the empire have grown yearly slighter 
 and more uncertain. But let us not, in our 
 revived sense of security, forget where 
 honour is due. Let us not fail to remember 
 that thousands who now give a loyal and 
 sometimes clamorous applause to the Imperial 
 ideal, owe their inspiration (although perhaps 
 unconsciously) to the genius of Sir John 
 Seeley. 
 
[ 357] 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 ABERCROMBIE, GENERAL, 226 
 Abraham, Heights of, battle, 216 
 Abyssinian Expedition, 56 
 Abyssinia, Prime Minister of, 60 
 Aden, held by Portuguese, 67 
 Affonso, King, 43 
 Africa, Portuguese in, 9 
 Africa, West Coast of, 298, 305 
 Agincourt, Henry of, 47 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, 216 
 Akbar, 98, 238 
 Albuquerque, So 
 Alexander the Great, 236 
 Algarves, 45, 49 
 Almagro, 141, 159 
 Alva, 294 
 Amherst, 227 
 Amiens, Peace of, 319 
 Anahuac, 120 
 Arcot, Defence of, 251 
 Aryan races, 36 
 Ascension Isle, 311 
 Asia, Central, 16, 42 
 Atahuallpa, Emperor, 153, 161 
 Auchmuty, Sir Samuel, 281 
 Aurangabad, 258, 265 
 Aviz, John of, 45 
 Aztecs, The, in 
 
 Baird, Sir David, 281 
 
 Baird's march through the desert, 
 
 321 
 
 Bajazet, 166 
 Barillon, 206 
 
 Bastile, Labourdonnais in, 248 
 Batavia, 325 
 Bata'vian Republic, 316 
 Bengal, English expelled from, 
 
 260 
 
 Bijapur, 74, 81, 238 
 Blucher, 339 
 Bojador, Cape, 51 
 Bonrepaux, 206 
 Borneo, 289 
 
 Braddock, General, 221 
 Bradstreet, 227 
 Brazil, Discovery of, 73 
 Brazil, Empire of, 32, 71, 305 
 Brazil, Republic of, 8, 71 
 Brazilians, Loyalty of, 83 
 Brazils, The, 310 
 Breton, Cape, 216, 222 
 Breton, Cape, Capture of, 226 
 Brissac, Marshal de, 177 
 British Empire, 2, 6, 7, 17, 26, 
 
 33, 70, 76, 236, 333, 339, 347, 
 
 353 
 
 Briton, Early, 35 
 Brooke, Rajah, 69 
 Burgundy, Henry of, 43 
 
358 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bussy, Marquis de, 240, 250, 
 
 257, 277, 345 
 Byng, Admiral, 269 
 
 Cabral, Pedro Alvares, 72 
 
 Cadamosto, 60 
 
 Cairo, 58 
 
 Calicut, Rajah of, 71 
 
 Caliphate, 39 
 
 Callao, 139 
 
 Camoens, 37 
 
 Canada, 19, 196, 202, 283, 311 
 
 Canada, First English expedition 
 
 against, 194 
 Cananore, 58 
 Canary Islands, 52 
 Cape Bojador, 51 
 Cape of Good Hope, 64, 290, 
 
 302, 311, 317, 320, 323 
 Cape of Good Hope, Capture of, 
 
 by England, 281 
 Cape of St. Vincent, 48 
 Cape Verde, Discovery of, 54 
 Carlos, King, 46 
 Carolina, South, 209 
 Cartier, Jacques, 188 
 Cataraqui Fort, Capture of, by 
 
 England, 227 
 Caxamalca, 154 
 Celebes, The, 290, 302 
 Central America, 297 
 Central Asia, 16, 42 
 Ceuta, 47 
 
 Ceylon, 290, 313, 317,322 
 Chamfort, M. de, 29 
 Champlain, Lake, 216 
 Champlain, marriage of, 189 
 Champlain, Samuel, 177, 203, 
 
 345 
 
 Chandanagar, 241 
 Charles I. of England, 196 
 Charles V., 148, 156 
 Chateauneuf, M. de, 195 
 Chesterfield, Lord, 255 
 China, 165, 188, 203 
 Choiseul, 270, 272 
 Cholula, 123 
 Cintra, Gonsalo de, 53 
 
 Clinton, Governor of New York, 
 
 219 
 Clive, Robert, 90, 242, 251, 
 
 345. 346 
 Cochrane, 245 
 Colbert, 200 
 
 Colonial Empire of France, 18 
 Colonial Empire of Portugal, 8 
 Columbus, Christopher, 62 
 Conde, Prince de, 180, 191 
 Constantinople, 42 
 Coote, Eyre, 263, 267, 277, 
 
 281 
 
 Coromandel Coast, 245, 277 
 Cortez, Hernando, 74, 104, 149 
 Covilham, 57 
 Cromwell's Navigation Laws, 
 
 309 
 
 Crown Point, 227 
 Cuba, 12, 107, 126, 234 
 Cura9ao, 235, 290, 310, 318, 323 
 
 D'Ache, 240, 257. 266 
 D'Aumont, Marshal, 177 
 Deccan, The, 250, 258 
 De Mont, 188 
 Diaz, Diniz, 53, 63 
 D'Iberville, 205 
 Drake, 85 
 
 Dupleix, 240, 241, 345 
 Duquesne, Fort, 219, 228 
 Dutch East Indies, 8 
 Dutch settlements in America, 
 202 
 
 Early Britons, 35 
 Ecuador, 142 
 
 Edward III. of England, 47 
 Egypt, 22, 321, 322, 354 
 Emirs of Portugal, 40 
 Empire of Brazil, 32, 71 
 Empire, British, 2, 6, 7. 17, 26, 
 33, 70, 76, 236, 333, 339, 347, 
 
 353 
 Empire, First modern European, 
 
 8 
 Empire of France, 6, 17, 21, 25, 
 
 93, I73> 236, 240, 281, 282 
 
INDEX 
 
 359 
 
 Empire, French Indian, 22 
 Empire of Holland, 6, 22. 26, 
 
 93, 289, 329 
 Empire of Portugal, 6, 8, 9, 25, 
 
 33, 34, 44, 54, 66, 70, 75, 77, 
 
 9i 99, 174, 295, 311, 324, 
 
 326 
 Empire of Spain, 6, 13, 15, 25, 
 
 97-169, 174, 295, 326, 341 
 England, Queen of, 46 
 Etruria, Kingdom of, 230 
 Europe, Turkey in, 41 
 
 Ferdinand, Prince, 53 
 Fernandes, Alvaro, 54 
 Fleece, Golden, 46 
 Florida, French in, 183 
 Fontenoy, Battle of, 261 
 France, Empire of, 6, 17, 21, 25, 
 
 93, .173, 285 
 Francis 1., 188 
 French Revolution, 311 
 Frontenac, Fort, 216, 224 
 
 Galissonniere, Comte de la, 215, 
 
 217 
 
 Gallo, Island of, 146 
 Gama, Vasco da, 64, Ji 
 Gambia, 298 
 Ganges, River, 266 
 Garter, Knight of, 45, 46, 49 
 Gaunt, John of, 45 
 George III., 324 
 George, Lake, 217 
 Georgia, Colony of, 210 
 Godolphin, Lord, 206 
 Good Hope, Cape of, 64 
 Goree, 298, 302, 309 
 Government, Representative, 
 
 10 
 
 Guadeloupe, 234 
 Guatamozin, Emperor, 132, 133 
 Guiana, 310 
 Guinea Coast, 63 
 
 Haidar, 239, 273, 277, 281 
 Halifax, Foundation of, by Eng- 
 land, 217 
 
 Hampton Court Palace, 316 
 Hastings, Warren, 242 
 Hebert, 180 
 Henry of Agincourt, 47 
 Henry of Burgundy, 43 
 Henry IV. of England, 45 
 Henry IV. of France, 177 
 Henry the Navigator, 32, 47, 
 
 69, 77, 175 
 Hispaniola, 106, 177 
 Holland, Empire of, 6, 22, 26, 
 
 93, 289, 329 
 Holmes, Robert, 207 
 Home Rule, 76 
 Howe, Viscount, 226 
 Hudson, Henry, 203 
 Hudson's Bay, English in, 202, 
 
 213 
 Hughes, Sir Edward, 276 
 
 Inca, Capture of the, 156 
 
 Inca, Death of the, 161 
 
 Inca, The, 13, 153 
 
 India, British, 235, 260, 262 
 
 India, Civil Service of, 350 
 
 India, Dutch in, 305 
 
 India, Foundation of French 
 Empire, 243 
 
 India, French, 235, 240, 256, 
 259 
 
 India, Portuguese in, 9, II 
 
 Indies, French, Dupleix, Gover- 
 nor of, 242 
 
 Inquisition, 86 
 
 Islam, 38, 41, 48, 97, 105, 
 167 
 
 James II., 39, 205 
 Jang, Sir Salar, 98, 239 
 Java, 289, 302, 313, 318, 323 
 Java, Capture of, by England, 
 
 281 
 
 Jesuits in Canada, 193 
 John III. of Portugal, 91 
 John of Aviz, 45 
 John of Gaunt, 45 
 John the Perfect, 32, 56, 60 
 Jonquiere, De la, 218 
 
360 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Khartoum, 355 
 
 Kirk, David, 194, 204 
 
 Knight of the Garter, 45, 46, 49 
 
 Labourdonnais, 240, 245, 248, 
 
 345 
 Lally, 240, 250, 257, 260, 270, 
 
 345 
 
 La Salle, 197, 206, 211, 345 
 Lawrence, Major, 254 
 Law's scheme, 210 
 Leroy-Beaulieu, M., 173, 284 
 Lesseps, M. de, 178 
 Louis the Great, 20, 199 
 Louisburg, Fall of, 226 
 Louisburg, Fort, 217 
 Louisiana, State of, 200, 206, 
 
 228, 229 
 
 Macaulay, 237 
 Madagascar, 20, 58 
 Madeira, Discovery of, 51 
 Madras, Presidency of, 240, 263 
 Madras, Capitulation of, to 
 
 France, 245 
 Magelhan, 161, 162 
 Mahdist revolt, 42 
 Mahomet, 42 
 Malacca, 302, 317 
 Malcolm, Sir John, 351 
 Malta, Capture of, by England, 
 
 321, 322 
 Manila, 163 
 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 255 
 Martinique, 234 
 Mauritius, 247 
 Mediterranean, 41, 321 
 Mexico, 103, in 
 Mexico, Gulf of, 211, 228 
 Mexico, Lake of, 1 1 1 
 Middleton, Lord, 206 
 Minorca, 218, 321, 322 
 Mississippi, Discovery of, 163, 
 
 211 
 
 Mobile, Foundation of, 209 
 Moluccas, 290, 302, 318, 323 
 Montcalm, Marquis de, 223, 227 
 Montezuma, Emperor, 119 
 
 Montmorency, Due de, 180, 192 
 Montreal, 216, 227 
 Moors, 45 
 Motley, 293 
 Murray, 228 
 
 Nadir, Shah, 99 
 Naples, Spanish influence in, 101 
 Napoleon, 20, 229,281, 282, 323 
 Napoleon's attempt to secure 
 
 the Mediterranean, 319 
 Narvaez, 128 
 Nasr-ad-Din Shah, 99 
 Navigator, Henry the, 32, 47, 
 
 69. 77. 175 
 Navigation Laws of Cromwell, 
 
 39 
 
 Nelson, Admiral, 274 
 New Amsterdam, 202, 207, 290, 
 
 307-309,311 
 
 Newcastle, Duke of, 216 
 New Orleans, Foundation of, 
 
 210 
 
 New York, 207, 216, 309 
 Niagara Fort, 216, 224 
 Nile, Battle of the, 321 
 Normandy, William of, 43, 137 
 North America, 296, 305, 311 
 North America, Dutch Empire 
 
 in, 309 
 
 North-West Passage, 203 
 Nova Scotia, 216, 221 
 
 Oglethorpe, Governor, 210 
 
 Ohio, 211, 218 
 
 Ontario, Lake, 207, 211, 224 
 
 Orange, Prince of, 316 
 
 Ormuz, 67 
 
 Oswego, 216, 223 
 
 Ovando, 105 
 
 Pacific, Dutch in the, 311 
 
 Panama, 139, 178 
 
 Panama, Vicar of, 140 
 
 Paraguay, 164 
 
 Paris, Treaty of, 271 
 
 Paton, 245 
 
 Payva, Affonso da, 57 
 
INDEX 
 
 361 
 
 Peninsular War, 13, 31, 93 
 
 Persia, 41 
 
 Peru, 103, 137, 151 
 
 Philip II., 120, 169 
 
 Philippines, 12 
 
 Phoenicia, 37 
 
 Pitt the Elder, 226, 229 
 
 Pittsburg, 227 
 
 Pizarro, Francis, 14,74, J37> M9 
 
 Plassy, Battle of, 263 
 
 Pondicherry, 241, 262, 268 
 
 Porto Novo, Battle of, 278 
 
 Portugal, Emirs of, 40 
 
 Portugal, Empire of, 6, 8, 9, 25, 
 
 29-94. 99. 1 74, 295, 3 1 1 , 324, 326 
 Portugal, Future of, 92 
 Prester John, Land of, 56 
 Provincial Assemblies, their 
 
 attitude, 214, 228 
 
 Quebec, 177, 226 
 
 Quebec, capture by Kirk, 195 
 
 Quebec, Fall of, 216, 227 
 
 Rajah Brooke, 69 
 
 Rajah of Calicut, 71 
 
 Red Sea, The, 321 
 
 Representative Government, 10 
 
 Republic, Batavian, 316 
 
 Republic of Brazil, 8, 71 
 
 Revolt, Mahdist, 42 
 
 Revolution, French, 311 
 
 Richard III., 39 
 
 Richelieu, Due de, 180, 194, 204 
 
 Rome, 36 
 
 Ryswick, Treaty of, 205 
 
 Sagres, 48 
 
 St. Germain-en-Laye, Treaty of, 
 
 196, 204 
 St. Helena, 311 
 St. Lawrence, 18, 188, 194, 206, 
 
 228 
 
 St. Vincent, Cape of, 48 
 St. Vincent, Lord, 275 
 Saracens, 38 
 Sati, Abolition of, 117 
 Sebastian, King of Portugal, 91 
 
 Seeley, Sir John, 356 
 
 Senegal, 298 
 
 Senegambia, 51 
 
 Seringapatam, Fall of, 241 
 
 Sicily, Spanish influence in, IOI 
 
 Sluys, Battle of, 77 
 
 Sofala, 58 
 
 Soissons, Comte de, 180 
 
 Solyman, 98 
 
 Soto, De, 163, 209 
 
 Soudan, The, 355 
 
 Spain, Empire of, 6, 13, 15, 25, 
 
 97-169, 174, 295, 326, 341 
 Spanish South America, 14 
 Spice Islands, 298, 302 
 Straits of Magelhan, Discovery 
 
 of, 162 
 
 Suffren, 240, 274, 322 
 Sumatra, 289 
 Sunderland, Earl of, 206 
 Surinam, Capture of, 323 
 
 Table Mountain, 64 
 Tadoussac, 185 
 Tangier, 47, 52 
 Tezcuco, King of, 120 
 Tezcuco, State of, 118 
 Themines, Marquis de, 180, 191 
 Thinker, Henry the, 47 
 Ticonderoga, 227 
 Ticonderoga, Battle of, 226 
 Timur, 166 
 Tippoo, Citoyen, 241 
 Tlascala, State of, 121, 123 
 Treaty of Paris, 271 
 Treaty of Ryswick, 205 
 Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, 
 
 196, 204 
 
 Treaty of Utrecht, 204 
 Treaty of Versailles, 273, 279, 
 
 284 
 
 Tristam, Nuno, 53 
 Tromp, Van, 301 
 Tunis, 51 
 Turkey in Europe, 41 
 
 United States of America, 165, 
 
 202 
 
362 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Utrecht, Treaty of, 204, 216, 
 
 221 
 
 Valverde, Father, 155 
 Vaudreuil, De, 220 
 Velasquez, Diego de, 107, 126 
 Ventadour, Due de, 1 80, 192 
 Vera Cruz, 118 
 
 Verde, Cape, Discovery of, 54 
 Versailles, Treaty of. 273, 279 
 
 284 
 Vignau, Nicholas, 189 
 
 Wandewash, Battle of, 268 
 War, Peninsular, 13, 31, 93 
 War, Seven Years', 259, 272 
 Wellington, Duke of, 31, 278 
 West Indian Islands, 305, 312 
 William Henry, Fort, 217 
 William of Normandy, 43, 137 
 Wolfe, General, 226, 227, 229 
 
 Zempoalla, 123 
 Zumarraga, Archbishop 
 Mexico, 117 
 
 of 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORU. 
 
 J. D. 
 
 Co. 
 

o