King Edward
STORY OF THE
MAKING OF THE EMPIRE.
BY THE
REV. C. S. DAWE, B.A.,
Author of "Queen Victoria, and her People," &c.
London:
THE EDUCATIONAL SUPPLY ASSOCIATION, LIMITED,
HOLBORN VIADUCT.
1902
PREFACE
As Englishmen we have been born to a great inheritance, which we hold in common with our kinsmen in all parts of the empire. It is quite time that all who share in its possession should have some knowledge of the way in which it has been founded and built up, and should learn something of the great men under whose guidance and inspiration the work has been done.
The writer has attempted to impart such knowledge in an attractive form, avoiding mere dry details, and that closely-packed synopsis of facts which may be desirable in a work intended for a student preparing for examination. But this little work is not written for the student, but as a pleasant course of reading for young or old, who desire to know something of the men who have made the empire, and of the principal events which stand out as mile-stones on the road along which our nation has travelled.
Whilst selecting the more picturesque parts of the story of the empire for special treatment, an endeavour has been made to keep up the continuity of the narrative, so as to enable the reader to trace the connection between events, their results and causes, and to help in sustaining his intelligent interest from page to page throughout the book. An endeavour has also been made to foster that imperial spirit which takes a true pride in what our forefathers have achieved, which resolves to hold what they have won, and which broadens our view of public questions by setting them in relation to the interests of the empire at large.
CONTENTS.
The Empire and its Living Link.
England Preparing for Empire
(1475-1603).
(1) Invention of Printing
(2) Invention of Fire-Arms
(3) Discovery of a Sea-Route to India
(4) Discovery of a World to the West
(5) Rise of the English Navy
(6) Queen Elizabeth at the Helm
(7) Coming Struggle with Spain
(8) An Elizabethan Mariner
(9) A Celebrated Voyage Round the World
(10) Singeing the King of Spain's Beard
(11) Arming for the Fight
(12) Defeating the "Invincible"
(13) Expansion of England into the "United Kingdom"
Early English Colonisation
(1603-1688).
(1) England's Success in Colonizing
(2) England's First Colony
(3) "Farewell, dear England"
(4) Progress in Colonizing
(5) Struggle for the Mastery at Sea
(6) Our Great "General-at-Sea"
Expansion by Conquest
(1688-1763).
(1) What we owe to William of Orange
(2) A Famous Victory and a Lucky Capture
(3) Grandmotherly Government of the French in Canada
(4) Ripening for War
(5) "The Great Commoner" and his "Mad General"
(6) Capture of a Second Gibraltar
(7) First Founder of our Indian Empire
(8) Beginning of British Rule in India
Time of Trial and Triumph
(1763-1815).
(1) Tightening our Hold on India
(2) A Great Loss to the Empire
(3) Australasia brought to Light
(4) First Settlement in Australia
(5) Pioneer Work in Australia
(6) Remarkable Industrial Progress
(7) Nelson and Napoleon
(8) Nelson's Crowning Victory
(9) India's New Masters
(10) Wellington and Napoleon
Progress of India and the Colonies
(Since 1815).
(1) Colonial Self-Government
(2) Birth of a Nation
(3) Promise of National Greatness
(4) "The Good of the Governed"
(5) Spoils of Victory
(6) Deeds of Heroism
(7) British Rule on a New Footing
(8) Bars to Progress
(9) Effect of the Discovery of Gold
(10) Exploration & its Martyrs
(11) Mutual Advantage of Motherland & Colony
(12) A Difficult British State to Build
(13) Great Extension of British Territory
Unity of the Empire.
(1) Growth of Freedom
(2) Imperial Spirit of our Race
(3) The Sovereign in Relation to the Empire
KING EDWARD'S REALM.
The Empire and its Living Link.
1. A glance at the map of the world in which the parts of the British Empire are coloured red may well fill us with astonishment that the little spot marked England has expanded into an empire that covers one-sixth of the habitable globe, and measures more than one hundred times as much as the little island that forms its heart and home.
2. The only other empire that approaches it in size is that of Russia, and we can well imagine a patriotic Russian thinking that his sovereign had a much better realm than had ours, even if it was not so large. "For see," he might say to a countryman of ours, "what a sprawling, disjointed empire yours is, whereas ours is so compact that we can pass through its length and breadth without crossing a single sea."
What reply should a Briton make to this boast?
3. "True," he might say, "the British Empire looks like a giant with his limbs outstretched, having his head in one sea, and his arms and legs in as many others; true it is that our king's realm is so widely spread that the sun never sets on his dominions, still it is far easier for us to go from end to end of our empire than it would be if built like yours."
4. We could not expect the Russian to agree to this, but nevertheless it is true; for the sundered portions of the British dominions are connected by the sea, and the sea offers a ready-made road to every ship that sails. No hills have to be levelled, no tunnels bored, no rails laid down, and hence it is much cheaper to travel on sea than on land, and often much easier and quicker. We may rightly regard the seas that come between our shores and the rest of the empire, not as separating but as connecting its several parts, and enabling the motherland to keep in constant touch with her daughter states in other lands.
5. Steam and electricity have worked wonders in bringing all the members of the English family of nations into close connection with each other in spite of the many thousands of miles that separate them. By means of our great ocean-liners we can cross a wide ocean in a few days, and by means of electric cables beneath the sea each part of the empire can converse with any other part in the course of a few hours, or even in a few minutes.
6. This ready means of communicating with each other, draws us all more closely together in thought and feeling. The same incidents and events, to a great extent, occupy the minds of all our race at the same time, and send a thrill of joy or sorrow throughout the empire. Whether living in London, Sydney, or Montreal, the Briton finds in his daily paper a great deal of the same news, showing how much of common interest there is between ourselves and our brothers beyond the seas.
7. Away then with the idea that seas act as barriers. They serve rather to unite. Has not steam bridged the ocean, and electricity brought its shores within speaking distance? For trading purposes, especially, the sea is much more a uniter than a divider, since goods may be carried so much more cheaply by water than by land. It costs less to bring wheat by sea from Montreal or New York to London, a distance of 3500 miles, than to bring the same by rail from Liverpool to London.
8. The British Empire, it is true, is scattered over the face of the globe, but in some respects this is an advantage. Being so widely sundered its different portions differ much in climate and productions, and thus can the better supply each others' wants. England, for instance, serves as the great manufacturing shop for her colonies, whilst they in return send her the raw material for her factories and food for her children. England, indeed, would soon suffer from famine if a constant supply of food did not come from other lands. To insure this supply without interruption to our traffic, we must be able to keep the seas open to our merchant-ships, whether in peace or war, and for this purpose our navy must be supreme.
9. Nothing is more interesting in the story we have to tell than the daring exploits of our seamen, by which we have risen to the command of the seas, and are able to sing Rule Britannia with the proud happy feeling that Britannia does indeed still rule the waves, and that as far as in us lies it shall never cease to do so, since it is only by thus "ruling the waves" that we can look to the sea as a friend that unites the whole family of English-speaking peoples, and enables them to aid one another.
10. But we need something warmer than sea-water to unite us all, and make us in heart and mind one people, in whatever quarter of the globe we live, and that is the spirit and sentiment that spring from the fact that we are of kindred race, that we all speak the same language, read the same books, enjoy the same freedom, make our own laws, and passionately love justice and fair-play. We have recently had striking evidence of the warm feeling that pervades the whole empire, and welds its several parts into one. When the Boer war broke out and the British arms met with reverses, the whole empire throbbed with one heart and kindled with one spirit, revealing to ourselves and the whole world that though the British Empire is widely scattered, it is in heart and mind closely united.
11. As a symbol of that unity we have one king, one flag. The king, indeed, is more than a symbol of unity, he is a link, a living link, that actually binds the parts together. Every true Briton, throughout the empire, looks to the sovereign as the head and centre of the national life, from whom all who administer the laws, or exercise command in the army or navy, derive their authority. Whilst the king takes a personal share in the government in the homeland only, he has his representatives who act as governors, in his name, in every province of the empire. The king, therefore, may be regarded as the living link which unites the sundry and sundered parts of his mighty empire.
12. The relation of King Edward to the different portions of his realm is thus expressed in the title which he has assumed: Edward the Seventh, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King; Defender of the Faith; Emperor of India.
England Preparing for Empire
(1475-1603).
1. We will begin our "Story of the Making of the Empire" with that of the Making of England, the centre around which the whole empire has grown, and try to show how she was shaped and prepared to be the mother of nations. To become fit for her high calling, it was essential for her to become wise and powerful. And as nothing has contributed more to this end than the spread of knowledge, we will start with the brighter day that dawned upon our land when printing was invented.
2. The first printing-press was brought to our country by William Caxton, about 1475, that is ten years before Henry VII., the first Tudor, began his reign. He set it up near Westminster Abbey, and astonished all the great men of the land who came to see his wonderful machine.
3. Formerly all books were written by hand, and consequently were so scarce and expensive that only few could get them to read. Much knowledge was hidden away in Greek and Latin manuscripts, but it had been hard to get at it. The invention of printing altered all this. It brought books within easier reach, and men who were athirst for knowledge could satisfy their craving.
4. Caxton was a great worker. More than fifty years old when he began his new labours, he printed ninety-nine books before his death. Though busy as a printer, he was even busier as a translator. The first book he printed was The Tales of Troy, which he translated from the French. In the preface to this book Caxton tells us how tired he had become of writing books with pen and ink, how his eyes had become dim "with overmuch looking on the white paper," and how gladly he had learned the new art of printing. Having finished the printing of his first book, he said proudly to his visitors: "It is not written with pen and ink as other books be, but all the books of this story here imprinted as ye see were begun and finished in one day."
5. The printing-press worked wonders in the world. Many books which had been left to moulder in the dust for more than a thousand years now saw the light of day. Printed copies of these works were soon in circulation. The great thoughts of famous writers who had lived in ages past once more stirred the human heart. Men seemed to awake from the sleep of centuries, to open their eyes to the light of knowledge, and to begin to think for themselves.
6. Within fifty years from the introduction of the printing-press nearly all the great works of Greek and Latin authors were in print. Greek scholars were everywhere in great request as teachers. By many earnest students in our land the knowledge of Greek was chiefly sought because it was as a key to unlock the meaning of the New Testament, the books of which were originally written in that language. This study of Greek and the new learning that shed its light around, led in England to considerable changes in men's religious opinions.
7. The new art of printing had also a considerable effect on the Englishman's mother tongue. Caxton tells us that he found great difficulty in choosing his words when translating because "the common language of one shire differs from that of another so much that travellers from one part of England have much ado to make themselves understood in another part." When a language only lives on men's lips it soon becomes altered in various ways; but when it is not only spoken but printed it is wont to become fixed, and all who read become accustomed to the same form of speech.
8. In the course of the century that followed Caxton's labours, some years before any emigrants left our shores, the English language assumed its final form. When at length Englishmen began to emigrate, they carried with them the same tongue that continued to be spoken at home. This is a matter of no small importance; for a common language is a strong bond of union. Happily, all who have left the old country to form colonies in other parts, however distant or widely separated, still speak the same language as ourselves. We all read the same books, and clothe our thoughts and feelings in almost the same words. This tends to keep us in heart and mind one people, however wide the seas between us.
9. When now-a-days an Englishman lands in the United States, or in any British Colony, he hears men speaking his own tongue. The people of other nations rarely enjoy this privilege. The German emigrant, for example, seldom desires to settle in a German Colony. He usually makes his new home in the United States or in some British Colony, and there he finds himself in the midst of an English-speaking people, and forced to learn their language in order to get on. An Englishman it is said, is always ready to grumble, but no nation has less cause than our own to be discontented with its lot.
10. Lastly, printing had a great effect in giving a lift to men of the humbler classes. Thousands of people who never before had a chance of learning were now able to buy and read books, and gain valuable knowledge. Of course, in our own day, books are so cheap, and free libraries so common, that all who have the will can read and learn. But even in Tudor times—in the century that followed the introduction of printing into England—the wider spread of knowledge, due to the new invention, made people more equal than before, and gave a clever boy in humble life a better chance of turning his talents to good account, both for himself and his fatherland.
1. Gunpowder had been invented long before printing, but it was much longer in making its influence felt. Cannon had been used as early as the battle of Crecy, 1346, but they were of little use, being rudely constructed of wood, hooped with iron, and almost as dangerous to the gunners who fired them as to the enemy they were intended to kill. In time, however much better cannon were turned out, and before the end of the War of the Roses great guns were used with much success both on board ship and in the siege of castles and walled-towns.
2. Hand-guns came into use somewhat later than cannon, but in the times of the Tudors they gradually superseded the bow and arrow. Henry VIII. was much opposed to the change, for the English archer excelled all others in his art. Excellence is never a mere accident. It was due, in this case, to a long and careful training begun in boyhood and enforced by law. Fathers and masters of apprentices were obliged to teach the lads under their care the use of the bow, to provide them with weapons suited to their strength, and to compel them to practise at stated times. Our forefathers have set us an excellent example. If Old England is to ward off all danger from her shores, and to hold her proud place among the nations, she must see that her lads are in like manner provided with rifles suited to their strength, and encouraged to practise regularly at the target. Lads' Brigades and Cadet Corps must become the order of the day.
3. The use of gunpowder made sweeping changes in the art of warfare, just as smokeless powder and quick-firing rifles and guns are doing to-day. Both the archer and the mailed knight disappeared. The old castles became quite useless as fortresses, and the barons in consequence lost much of their old power. In the reign of Henry VII. we find them, for the first time, quite unable to stand up against the king, who took care to keep in his own possession the only great guns in the kingdom, much in the same way as in India, at the present day, we are careful to keep the artillery wholly in the hands of British soldiers.
4. Gunpowder is a great leveller. It puts the weak and strong, the short and tall more nearly on a level. It is the men, small or large, who can shoot straight that are likely to win the battle. As soon as fire-arms displaced the bow and arrow, success in battle no longer turned mainly upon the valour of the gentlemen in armour, but upon the right handling and steady discipline of the rank and file. A volley of shots from a line of common soldiers could scatter death and disorder among the ranks of the bravest knights in armour. The gentlemen-at-arms soon found that their armour was only an encumbrance, and that its proper place was on the walls of their grand old halls, or, for people to look at, in some public gallery, like that in the Tower of London. The sword and the lance still hold their ground, but there are many signs that the rifle will soon supplant them in actual warfare.
5. In the last chapter we have spoken of the beneficial effects of the invention of printing. Can we speak in the same way of gunpowder? It may seem strange to talk about gunpowder as if anything good could result from its use, but it would be a mistake to think that the work it has done in the world has been wholly bad, for there are times when force is the only argument that can convince, when force is the only way of putting down evil. In reality it has played a large part in the making of our empire, and, therefore, in establishing the reign of justice and order.
6. It was by means of fire-arms that our forefathers were able to gain a secure footing in the countries of uncivilized races, to make new homes among them, and to establish law and order in their midst. It was by the superior weapons of the white man—a superiority due mainly to the use of gunpowder—that he was able to prevail over the Red Indians of America, the Negroes and Kaffirs of Africa, and the Cannibals of New Zealand. To the simple savage there is something magical in the effect of fire-arms. He sees a distant object struck down, and perhaps killed, but his eye cannot follow the flight of the bullet that has dealt the blow. He sees the flash, he trembles at the thunder, and in a moment the messenger of death unseen has sped.
7. Of course the natives in time learn that there is no magic in all this, but a knowledge of the reality brings them no comfort. They are obliged to admit that their own weapons, such as rude spears or feeble bows and arrows, are no match for the arms of thunder and lightning in the hands of the white man. And so they sullenly submit to their fate, and leave the white strangers to settle in their country.
8. The effect of superior weapons is equally striking in our own day, whenever Europeans come in contact with half-civilized people, like the blacks of West Africa. It is true these men are often armed with muskets, but they are of such an out-of-date pattern, that they do little damage compared with ours. Consequently, a few hundred well-armed and well-drilled natives, under British officers, can go to battle with as many thousands of the enemy and carry off the victory.
9. Even when the natives are brave and well-armed, like the Zulus, with their terrible assegais, they cannot stand against one-tenth as many Englishmen armed with repeating rifles, and supported by maxim guns, grinding out bullets by the score. It was never more evident than it is to-day that "Knowledge is Power," and that the greatness of a nation is based on knowledge and character. Of this we shall have repeated evidence in the course of this story.
(3) DISCOVERY OF A SEA-ROUTE TO INDIA.
1. Let me again carry your minds back to the time when Caxton set up his printing-press in England, about 1475; for that date we may take as a convenient starting-point in telling our tale. At that time the larger portion of the earth was unknown to even the best geographers. A glance at the map will enable you to see how limited was their knowledge of the size and surface of the earth. You will look there in vain for the larger portion of the British Empire as we know it to-day. You will find there no Canada, no Australasia, no South Africa.
2. It was known indeed that the earth was round like a globe, but no one had ever gone round it. Mariners in their voyages had always kept near the coasts, and never ventured very far from home. But when men awoke, with the rattle of the printing-press, from the sleep of centuries, a new spirit of enquiry took hold of them. The same spirit that led some men to search out old truths hidden away in musty manuscripts, urged others of a more daring turn of mind to go in search of new lands.
3. It was not, I regret to say, our own countrymen that took the lead in the discovery of new lands. That honour belongs to the Portuguese. By the middle of the fifteenth century they had sailed along the coast of Africa as far as Cape Verde, and seen men with skins as black as ebony. At the sight, some of the sailors, it is said, began to fear that if they proceeded still further south, their skins would turn black under the scorching rays of the tropical sun, and their hair become frizzled as the negro's. Before turning back, however, they explored the coast of Guinea, and found the natives ready to traffic in ivory and gold.
4. The wonders that the sailors had to tell on their return, and the sight of the gold and ivory, the monkeys and curiosities they brought with them, kindled an eager spirit of adventure among their countrymen. Lisbon became the headquarters of bold mariners bent on exploring new lands, with the King of Portugal as patron. It was his ardent wish to find a sea-route to India and the East, whence came the rich carpets and shawls, the silks and gems, the drugs and spices so highly valued in Europe.
5. The King of Portugal, accordingly, fitted out a small fleet, and directed Diaz, its commander, to follow the coasts of Africa and try to make his way to India. But the distance was much greater than the king supposed. Diaz sailed a thousand miles further along the African coast than any yet had dared to go, and reached the southern end of that continent. But he could go no further. Stormy weather and the crazy condition of his ships compelled him to turn their prows homeward.
6. The king named the "lands-end" Diaz had reached the Cape of Good Hope, for he believed that by rounding that Cape the sea-route to India would be gained. And he was right. This, however, was not actually proved until 1498, when Vasco da Gama, another Portuguese mariner, rounded the Cape, crossed the Indian Ocean, and anchored in the harbour of Calicut, on the west coast of India.
7. The discovery of a sea-route to India had important results, and in time proved a great advantage to English commerce. Hitherto the merchandise of India and the East had been carried overland on the backs of camels to the ports of Syria and Asia Minor, and thence shipped chiefly to Venice. When once the treasures of the East reached that port they were safe from plunder; for Venice with its sea-girt walls was perfectly secure. But in the course of their long passage from India and the East, the goods were always exposed to plunder. The caravans, with their long string of loaded camels, were often attacked by bands of Arab robbers; and the merchant-ships, though armed, were often boarded by Turkish pirates.
8. The sea-route, via the Cape, offered great advantages. It was both cheaper and safer; cheaper, because the goods could be brought the whole way in ships; and safer, because the voyage was made across the open ocean, where the risk from pirates was not nearly so great. The Portuguese were the first to take advantage of the new route, and for many years kept the whole trade to themselves; for in those days it was generally thought that the discoverer of new lands had the sole right to trade with them.
9. The Venetians soon found themselves unable to compete with the Portuguese. Lisbon, accordingly, became the centre of trade for the spices, silks, calicoes, gums and drugs of the East, and the glory of Venice departed. The Dutch were not slow to avail themselves of this new opening for trade. They freighted their ships at Lisbon, and made Antwerp the chief entrepôt of trade for the countries round. London dates its rise as the great centre of the world's commerce from the capture and sack of Antwerp by the Duke of Parma about a hundred years later (1585). It was not till the year 1600, near the end of Elizabeth's reign, that our English merchants ventured on trade with India direct, and then the East India Company was chartered by the queen for that purpose. It was destined to take a large share, not only in trade with the East, but in the great work of making the empire.
(4) DISCOVERY OF A WORLD TO THE WEST.
1. Across the Atlantic lay a double continent unknown to the rest of the world until discovered by Christopher Columbus (1492). This extraordinary man was born at Genoa, and in the early years of his manhood "sailed," as he tells us, "wherever ship had sailed." He came to the conclusion that, as the world was round, India might be reached by sailing westward across the Atlantic. But he knew not, of course, how far it was in that direction, or what lay between his goal and his starting-point.
2. Columbus having prevailed on Isabella of Spain to put three small ships under his command, began his voyage of discovery on setting out from the Canary Islands. He soon reached the part where the trade-wind blows, and was carried by it steadily along to the westward, day after day, without the necessity of shifting a sail. But the greater the progress of the ships, the greater became the alarm of the sailors.
3. There arose murmurs among the terrified crews, and some of them talked of throwing the admiral overboard and returning to Spain. At length, when more than thirty days had passed, and still nothing could be seen but sea and sky, Columbus promised that, if in three days longer no land was discovered, he would tack about and make for home. Before the three days had passed, there arose from the foremost ship the joyful cry of "Land! Land!"
4. The men soon manned the boats and pulled to shore, whilst the natives flocked to the beach and gazed in wondering admiration. Columbus, clad in scarlet, leapt ashore, with the royal banner of Spain in his hands. In a few moments a crucifix was erected, and then "all gave thanks to God, kneeling upon the shore, and kissing the ground with tears of joy." The simple natives regarded the strangers as a superior order of beings descended from the sun. They were shy at first through fear, but soon became familiar with the Spaniards; and received with transports of joy, in exchange for their gold ornaments, hawk's bells, glass beads, and other baubles.
5. Columbus was not aware that he had hit upon a new continent, but supposed he had come upon some islands lying off India. He had really landed upon one of the Bahama Islands. In consequence of his mistake the islands he had discovered were called the Indies, and the natives were spoken of as Indians. Cruising among the islands, now called the West Indies, Columbus discovered Cuba and Hayti, and then returned to Spain in triumph, taking with him gold, cotton, parrots, and other products of the islands, and a few natives besides.
6. The famous voyage of Columbus soon became the common talk among seafaring men. At that time, in the port of Bristol, were two skilful mariners, father and son, named Cabot. John Cabot was a seaman of Venice, but his son Sebastian was born at Bristol. They were bent on finding a short way to India by sailing westward, like Columbus, only keeping in a much higher latitude. They obtained permission from King Henry VII. "to seek out, subdue and occupy any regions which before had been unknown to all Christians," and they were authorised to set up the royal banner in any such land and to take possession in the king's name.
7. On an old map drawn by the younger Cabot it is stated: "In the year of our Lord 1497, John Cabot, with his son Sebastian, discovered that country which no one before his time had ventured to approach, on the 24th of June, about five o'clock in the morning. He called the country The-land-first-seen, and the island opposite, St. John, because discovered on the festival of St. John the Baptist." "The-land-first-seen" was probably Nova Scotia or the island of Cape Breton.
8. Next year, Sebastian Cabot came upon Newfoundland and sailed along the coast of Labrador, picking his way among the icebergs, in his effort to discover an open channel to India. He then retraced his course and examined the coast of the United States as far as Virginia without finding the desired opening. He had, however, mapped out roughly 1800 miles of the North American coast, and secured for England the prior claim to the northern half of that continent. But nothing came of this adventure until the reign of Elizabeth, when steps were taken to occupy some part of the new-found territory.
1. We owe the founding of the royal navy to Henry VIII. Before his time there seems to have been no standing navy, private ships being hired and armed when a war-fleet was needed. With the accession, however, of Henry VIII. (1509), England began to take her right place as a naval power. The new king was rich and clever, bluff and hearty, a thorough "John Bull," with a proud resolute spirit that would brook no denial.
HENRY VIII. AND MODEL OF THE "GREAT HARRY."
2. Henry at once made up his mind to have a powerful navy that England and her sovereign might become "second to none." He knew well that if England was to secure her share of trade with other nations she must have a navy strong enough to enforce her claims and protect her merchantmen. Henry, therefore, lost no time in establishing dockyards at Deptford and Woolwich, and in procuring from Italy and elsewhere skilled shipbuilders and cannon founders.
3. A great change took place in Henry's reign in the kind of warship chiefly built. Before his time the warship was usually a kind of long boat, called a galley, propelled by oars. But when cannon came into use, it was found advisable to build larger vessels, and substitute sails for oars, just as in the reign of Queen Victoria sails had to give place to steam. The change, however, was gradually wrought, and oared galleys held their ground, as a secondary force, to the end of Henry's reign.
4. The early Tudor ships were, of course, far from perfect. They had towering castles both at bow and stern which made them top-heavy. Their rigging also was too unwieldy for stormy weather, and made it unsafe to keep the sea in winter. The fate of that "flower of ships," the Mary Rose, shows how easily vessels of the time were upset. Coming out of Portsmouth Harbour, on her way to join in battle with the French, her crew were tacking her, when she heeled over and rapidly sank, carrying with her some 400 soldiers and 200 sailors.
5. Some of Henry's ships were evidently of large dimensions. The Great Harry, for instance, was of 1000 tons, and carried twenty-three great guns, some of which were loaded with shot weighing at least thirty pounds. Besides his great ships, Henry built smaller ones, called pinnaces; and fast, handy sailing ships they proved. Guns also of all sizes and patterns, bronze and iron, were cast in his reign, many of them little inferior to those in Nelson's time.
6. In the early years of Henry's reign, his ships were armed principally with small guns for use as mankillers, rather than for damaging the hull or rigging of the enemy's ships. The aim in a sea-fight, at that time, was for each ship to get on the windward side of the enemy, and then sail down with the wind to ram its adversary and board her, if she did not sink with the collision. Only on getting quite close were the guns discharged, and at the moment of boarding the stones, lances, and other implements of war in the castles, "fore and aft," were brought into play. A sharp fight then ensued on the enemy's deck, the boarders being either driven back into their own ship, or left in possession of their prize.
7. The whole object in this mode of fighting was to close with the enemy as quickly as possible. But before the end of Henry's reign a great change of tactics had taken place. Henry was one of the first to perceive that a great advantage would be gained by the introduction of heavy guns. Larger ships were, accordingly, built and the lower decks furnished with port-holes, thus enabling them to carry two tiers of guns.
8. This change in the structure of the ships and the weight of the guns brought about a change in the mode of attack. The aim now was for each big ship by clever seamanship to place itself so as to deliver a "broadside," while avoiding one of the enemy, and thus to disable or sink its adversary while pounding away at a distance. Thus a complete revolution in naval warfare was made in the course of Henry's reign. That revolution was not confined to England, but the English king took the foremost place in carrying it out. While other nations on the continent were intent on establishing standing armies, Henry devoted himself to the creation of a standing navy that should be able to compete with the best on the sea.
9. At the close of his reign the navy belonging to the Crown consisted of 53 vessels, carrying 250 guns of bronze and 1850 of iron, the crews numbering about 7000 men. Henry VIII., therefore, has a good right to be considered the founder of the English navy. He had the satisfaction of knowing that some of the finest ships that sailed the seas flew the flag of St. George. We say the flag of St. George because at that time there was no union of England and Scotland, and consequently no Union Jack. It was Henry VIII. who first ordered that every king's ship should fly at the masthead and at the bowsprit, the flag of St. George, with its red cross on a white ground. This flag is still carried by every ship in the British navy when an Admiral is on board and in command.
(6) QUEEN ELIZABETH AT THE HELM.
1. Elizabeth, who came to the throne in 1558, did much for the making of England. To her reign we can trace the beginning of much that constitutes the glory and greatness of the England of to-day. Her reign, indeed, may be considered the seed-time of England's greatness. When the crown passed from the head of Queen Mary to that of her sister Elizabeth the fortunes of England were at a very low ebb. The kingdom had just been worsted in a war with France, and felt a rankling sore at the loss of Calais.
2. The one hope of England centred in Elizabeth, whose coming to the throne was as the rising of the sun. In addressing her first Parliament she struck the keynote of her reign, and thrilled the hearts of her hearers with joy. "Nothing, no worldly thing under the sun, is so dear to me as the love and goodwill of my subjects.... My greatest desire is to be the mother of my people." And so well did she study the interests of her people that they learned to call her "Good Queen Bess."
3. It was no easy task which lay before the young queen. She had to govern a people sharply divided into two parties, calling themselves Catholics and Protestants, ever ready in those days to bite and devour one another. Elizabeth endeavoured from the first to reign, not as queen of this party or that, but as queen of all her people. In her religious opinions, however, she leaned to the Protestant side. She was decidedly in favour of a National Church, in which the Pope had no power, and at her request her first Parliament restored the English Bible and Prayer-book to their former place in public worship.
4. Elizabeth was not without her faults. She was vain and fond of flattery, and sometimes mean and deceitful. But in the management of affairs of state she always sought the greatness of England. Although she had able ministers, she steered the ship of state herself. She loved to pilot her vessel in troubled waters, and to take a zigzag course, but so skilfully did she handle the helm that she avoided the shoals and rocks that lay in her course.
5. Elizabeth's great endeavour was to keep her country out of war. And so well did she succeed that she secured for England almost unbroken peace for thirty years, not peace at any price, but "peace with honour." She never yielded to threats, she never drew back a single inch when the honour of England bade her stand firm. She stood again and again on the brink of war, either with France or Spain. But so jealous were these powers of each other, and so full were their hands of their own home troubles, that the wily queen was able to play off one against the other, and get her own way without going to war. Owing to the long peace she secured, and the strict economy she practised, England constantly grew in prosperity and power.
6. Another lasting good Elizabeth wrought for her country. Before her day Scotland had always joined France when the latter went to war with England, and so close was the alliance at the time of Elizabeth's accession that Queen Mary of Scotland was married to the King of France, and French troops were quartered in Edinburgh. Elizabeth put herself at the head of the Scotch Protestants, who, with the help of her fleet and army, soon drove out the French. This action of Elizabeth put an end for ever to the alliance between France and Scotland. It created a friendly feeling between the Protestants of England and Scotland, and prepared the way for the peaceful union between the two crowns on Elizabeth's death.
7. Happily, that death was far distant, and when it occurred all England was ready to acknowledge James of Scotland as king. But had Elizabeth died young, the country would have been thrown into utter disorder, if not civil war. That danger at one time seemed imminent.
8. The queen, while staying at Hampton Court, felt herself one day faint and unwell. Never suspecting that small-pox was the cause, she went out for a ride, caught cold, and in a few hours was in a high fever. The eruption was checked. She grew rapidly and alarmingly worse. The thin cord that held England together was threatening to snap. Should the queen die no ray of hope or light could be seen for England. In the evening she sank into a stupor without speech; and with blank faces, in the ante-chamber of the room where she was believed to be dying, the Council sat into the night to consider the thorny question of the succession to the throne. At midnight the fever cooled, the skin grew moist, the spots began to appear. By the morning the eruption had come out—and the danger was over.
9. Among the queenly qualities of Elizabeth was her unfailing insight into men's character. She knew worthy men when she saw them, and showed unerring judgment in the selection of her ministers and agents. She made the interests of the kingdom her chief concern, and those who shared her counsels were of the same spirit. Her chief minister was William Cecil, and for forty years he served the queen with rare ability and loyalty. He had much to endure from the shifty and uncertain ways of his royal mistress, but he bore all with wonderful patience, and was ever at her elbow with his sage advice when the right moment had come. Elizabeth knew that she could trust him, and was never offended when he plainly showed that he disliked her crooked policy. Blunt of speech herself, she required her ministers to be plain-spoken; always ready to listen to their counsel, though not always ready to follow their advice.
10. Her great minister Elizabeth created Lord Burleigh, and gave him great wealth and power, which he always used in the interests of his country. No other minister has directed the affairs of state for so long a period, or ever directed them more wisely. Lord Burleigh, therefore, deserves a place of high honour among the makers of England. The family of Cecil has often since taken an active part in the government of the kingdom, a conspicuous example of which we have seen in the case of Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, who has held the office of Prime Minister both in the last reign and the present.
11. Every Englishman recalls the reign of Queen Elizabeth with patriotic pride. In it he can find the roots of our national life and character. Many faults the queen certainly had, but they were such as affected the few who lived at her court. To the many who looked from afar her virtues only were known. Her ministers might know the weaknesses of her character and the windings of her policy, all her other subjects saw only the good results of the guiding hand at the helm. Whatever mistakes she made, there was one she never committed. She never forgot that she was Queen of England, and that it was her duty to make England great, prosperous, and powerful.
(7) COMING STRUGGLE WITH SPAIN.
1. During the long peace of Elizabeth's reign, England was repeatedly on the brink of war with Spain. That war was bound to come. It came with the sailing of the Spanish Armada, in the thirtieth year of Elizabeth's reign. It would have come much sooner but for the long war between Philip King of Spain, and his Dutch subjects in the Netherlands, which at that time formed part of the Spanish dominions. Our business now is to unfold the causes that made war with Spain inevitable.
2. King Philip had married Mary of England, and on her death, offered his hand to Elizabeth, who declined the honour. At the time of his accession Spain was the foremost state in the world. The discovery made by Columbus had given the Spaniards possession of the West Indies and Central America, and by conquest they had gained Mexico and Peru with their rich mines of silver and gold.
3. The natives, so-called Indians, were forced to work in the mines for their new masters, and every year the harvest of the mines was collected and poured into the royal treasury of Spain. The sugar plantations were also a source of wealth. As the poor natives could not stand the hard toil in the mines and plantations, and their numbers in consequence began rapidly to dwindle, the cruel slave trade was set afoot. Negroes were purchased on the coast of West Africa and taken across the sea to work for the Spaniards.
4. We wish it could be said that England stood forth as the champion of freedom, and that the shameful traffic in slaves was the chief cause of the war with Spain. But this was not so. In enslaving their fellow-men the Spaniards were no worse than other peoples. All alike in that age seemed to think the traffic in slaves to be right and lawful.
5. No, the chief cause of the coming war was King Philip's determination to shut the door of Spanish America against our trade, and the equally strong determination of our merchants and mariners to force that door open. Nor can it be said that Philip was going beyond his rights according to the common opinion of his time; for it was then generally held that the nation which first made the discovery of new lands had the sole right to trade with the same. In the discovery of new lands the Portuguese and the Spaniards had got the start of the other nations of Europe, and both alike warned off all ships except their own from their respective domains.
6. But it soon became pretty clear that the English seamen did not intend to be frightened off. Wherever ship sailed, they would sail too. They did not wait for Queen Elizabeth to make a formal demand for the right to trade with the newly-discovered lands, but with her secret connivance set sail in armed merchantmen, some to trade with the Portugese possessions on the coast of Guinea, others to trade with the Spanish settlements in America. They were resolved to trade in an honest peaceable way, if permitted; and if not, to take the law into their own hands and do what was right in their own eyes. We shall see presently what deeds of violence and bloodshed this led to in America, many years before the war was actually declared that brought the Armada to our shores.
7. Of that war the necessities of trade were not the sole cause. Religious differences were scarcely less responsible. In those days men thought it their duty to force others, if they could, to hold the same faith as themselves. Fines, imprisonment, and even death were often thought too good for those who dared to differ from the common faith of their countrymen. Nor were all nations content to limit their interference to men of their own nationality. The chief offenders were the Spaniards. All "heretics"—that is, such as held what they considered false doctrine—who came within their reach had to pay the penalty for their supposed misbelief. Woe to the English seamen who fell into their clutches!
8. We would gladly throw a veil over the horrible scenes in the Spanish dungeons and torture-chambers, but they cannot be wholly passed over as they palliate in some measure the wild, reckless plunderings and piracies of English seamen when Elizabeth was queen. To plunder a ship or town belonging to the hated Spaniard was, in their view, to take a just revenge for his cruelties, to fight for God against misbelievers, and at the same time to fill their pockets with gold. There was certainly a strange mixture of greed, revenge and religion in the hearts of England's bold mariners in their lawless proceedings, such as we are about to relate.
1. The prince of Elizabeth's bold mariners was Francis Drake, a native of Tavistock, in the county of Devon. He spent his early days on the sea as an apprentice, and when twenty-one joined his kinsman, the celebrated mariner, John Hawkins, a man who ventured to carry on trade with the Spanish Colonies in spite of the King of Spain's prohibition.
2. In this way Drake acquired much skill in seamanship, and much knowledge of Spanish America. He ascertained, among other things, that every year the harvest of the mines of Peru was carried in ships to Panama, a town on the Pacific coast, and then taken on the backs of mules across the Isthmus, to Nombre de Dios, a town on the Gulf of Mexico. Here the precious metals brought from Peru were hoarded up until fetched by a fleet from Spain.
3. Now Drake was a man of splendid audacity, fearless, energetic, and full of resource. It occurred to his daring mind that he might capture the town, where the treasure was stored, or pounce upon the treasure itself while on its way from Panama. The means employed were, as usual in that age of wonders, ridiculously small for the end proposed. The fleet placed under the command of our hero for this great enterprise, consisted of two ships no larger than many pleasure yachts of the present day, the Pasha of seventy tons, and the Swan of twenty-five. On board these ships were taken "three dainty pinnaces made in Plymouth, taken asunder all in pieces, and stowed away to be set up as occasion served." The vessels were manned by seventy-three men all told, all under thirty except one.
4. Having crossed the Atlantic, Drake found a secluded harbour, and there set up his "dainty pinnaces." One moonlight night he fell upon the town, where the treasure was stored, and captured it, but had to retire empty-handed; for while trying to break open the strong door of the treasure-house, he was wounded in the leg and carried off by his men, who declared their captain's life was worth more than all the gold of the Indies.
5. Our hero withdrew to some retired spot on the coast where he could hide his ships and refit. And here in a clearing in the tropical forest he set up his forges, and built a leafy village in the manner of the natives. To the hard-worked seamen it must have been a paradise. The woods swarmed with game, the sea teemed with fish; archery butts and a bowling green were got ready, and while one half of the men worked, the other half played. Here they remained until the time came round for the annual transit of the treasure, across the Isthmus, from Panama; for it was their captain's purpose to seize the treasure on its way to Nombre de Dios.
6. It was in the course of this expedition that Drake first set eyes on the great Pacific, then almost an unknown ocean, called the South Sea. We are told that in a glade the natives had cleared away for one of their hamlets, there rose "a goodly and great tree, in which they had cut divers steps to ascend near the top, where they had also made a convenient bower, wherein ten or twelve men might easily sit. After our captain had ascended to this bower and had seen that sea of which he had heard such golden reports, he besought Almighty God of His goodness to give him life and leave to sail once in an English ship in that sea."
7. The march through the forest was then continued until they came in full view of Panama harbour, crowded with the treasure ships from Peru. On hearing from a native spy that the mule trains were ready to start at sunset—for they always crossed the Isthmus in the cool of the night—Drake posted his men for a night attack, every man being ordered to put his shirt on outside his clothes, that friend might be known from foe.
8. When the right moment came Drake's shrill whistle broke the stillness. In a second his men were on their feet; there was a rush through the grass in front and rear; and almost without a blow the two foremost strings of mules were in their hands. To the chagrin of the captors, among all the hundred mules not more than two carried silver. All the others were laden with victuals. The alarm was given, and the rest of the train hastened back to Panama.
9. Drake disappeared. The muleteers after some days set out again. This time they fell into an ambush near the end of their journey. Before help could arrive, the marauders were struggling back to their vessels staggering under heavy packs of the precious metals. With his two little ships ballasted with gold and silver, and his crew reduced, through sickness and wounds, to thirty men, Drake laid his course for home.
10. The story here told will serve as an example of the daring and audacity of the Elizabethan mariners, who were possessed of an adventurous spirit that seemed to laugh at difficulties and dangers. No odds made them quail. It was enough that they were Englishmen, and therefore bound to prevail. The adventure we have related is of slight importance, but it well illustrates the spirit of reckless daring and the wonderful resource and dogged perseverance of the men who had the fortunes of England in their keeping in the days of Queen Elizabeth.
(9) A CELEBRATED VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.
1. Drake's next exploit was still more extraordinary though hardly more daring. Towards the end of 1577 he started on his famous voyage round the world. He was then in the prime of life, and is described by one who saw him as "low of stature, of strong limbs, broad-breasted, round-headed, with brown hair and a full beard, his eyes round, large and clear, well-favoured, fair, and of a cheerful countenance." When at sea he wore a scarlet cap with a gold band, and about his neck a plaited cord with a ring attached to it. He exacted every mark of respect from all on board. A sentinel stood always at his cabin door, and on special occasions "he was served with sound of trumpets and other instruments at his meals."
2. Drake sailed in the Pelican—afterwards called the Golden Hind—a ship scarcely as big as a Channel schooner, and the remainder of his little squadron consisted of four vessels still smaller. They were, however, swift sailers, and carried in abundance wildfire, chainshot, guns, pistols, bows, and other weapons. The whole force on board the squadron did not exceed 164 men, a surprisingly small number for the perilous task in hand.
3. Before reaching Port Julian, in Patagonia, the two smallest of the vessels had to be abandoned. Having refitted at this port, Drake made for the Straits of Magellan, through which no Englishman had yet passed. This was the only known way from the Atlantic into the Pacific, for Tierra del Fuego was supposed, at that time, to be a great continent stretching far southwards. Being without charts, they had to grope their way by means of the lead, which was kept in constant use. To relieve the toil-worn crews, halts were made at various islands on the route, where the sailors amused themselves in procuring fresh provisions by killing seals and penguins, everything they saw being strange, wild, and wonderful. After a perilous passage of three weeks the three ships reached the open Pacific, where they were greeted with a violent storm, which swept them far to the south. The smallest vessel went to the bottom. Another losing sight of the Pelican returned to England.
4. Drake, with his one ship, and eighty men, having weathered the storm turned his prow northwards, determined to plunder the Spanish settlements along the unguarded coasts of Chile and Peru, where no hostile ship had ever been seen. Drake's task was, in consequence, much easier than he could have anticipated. The inhabitants, when they saw a sail approaching, never dreamt that it could be other than a friend. It was as when men visit some island where no human foot had ever trod, the animals come fearlessly around, and the birds perch upon their hands.
5. At Valparaiso, in Chile, there lay in the harbour a great galleon which had come from Peru. Drake sailed in, and the Spanish seamen, who had never seen a foreigner in those waters, ran up their flags, beat their drums, and prepared a banquet for their supposed countrymen. They were only undeceived when the English sailors leapt on board and rifled the ship of its wedges of gold. Off the coast of Peru, near Potosi, world-famed for its silver mines, they swept off the silver bars laid out on the pier, whilst the weary labourers who had brought them from the mines were peacefully sleeping. The last bars had scarcely been stowed away in the boats, when a train of llamas was seen descending the hills with a second freight as rich as the first. This too found its way on board the Pelican.
6. All sail was now set for Lima, the chief port of Peru. Here they learned that a ship had sailed for Panama a few days before, taking with her all the bullion that the mines had yielded for the season. Not a moment was to be lost. Every inch of canvas was spread and the chase begun. Drake promised his gold chain to the man who should first descry the golden prize. For eight hundred miles the Pelican flew on, and then the man at the mast-head claimed the promised chain.
Queen Elizabeth Knighting Sir Francis Drake
7. Not wishing to come up with his prize till dusk, Drake filled his empty wine casks with water and trailed them astern, thus slackening his pace whilst avoiding the suspicion that might have been awakened by taking in sail. On coming within ear-shot our commander hailed the Spanish captain to "strike" his flag. The next moment a cannon-ball shot his mast overboard and a volley of arrows cleared the decks. The master, who was wounded, at once yielded his ship. Besides gold, pearls, emeralds, and diamonds, the booty included twenty-six tons of silver bullion. With spoils of above half-a-million in value the daring adventurer sought the safest way home.
8. That way, he considered, lay across the Pacific, and around the Cape of Good Hope. But before starting on his journey across the fifteen thousand miles of unknown water that lay between him and the Cape, it was necessary to repair his ship and scour her keel; for before the days of copper sheathing, the ships' bottoms grew foul with sea-weed, barnacles formed in clusters, and the sea-worms bored holes in the planking. Finding a suitable harbour Drake beached his ship, and setting up forge and workshop, refitted her, with a month's labour, from stem to stern.
9. After passing across the chartless waters of the Pacific, they arrived at the end of three months at the Moluccas, or Spice Islands. The ship was again beached, scraped, and patched. The crew found refreshment in the fruits and turtles that abounded, and great delight in the countless fire-flies that lit up the tropical forests at night. At the end of their stay, the fifty-six men who survived were all as sound and hearty as the day they left England.
10. On putting to sea again, and while threading their unknown way between the numerous islands they chanced to strike on a sand-bank. All seemed lost. The crew were mustered, and to every man the chaplain administered the Sacrament. The captain then cheerily called to his men to hearten up, and having done the best they could for their souls to have a thought for their bodies. All their efforts to get the ship off failed, but the wind happily changing, "we hoisted our sails and were lifted off into the sea again, for which we gave God thanks." Without further adventures, the Pelican sailed in triumph into Plymouth harbour in October, 1580, after an absence of three years, and after completing the circuit of the globe.
(10) "SINGEING THE KING OF SPAIN'S BEARD."
1. Drake had safely returned from his voyage round the world, but how would his royal mistress receive him? He knew that the queen secretly approved of all that he had done, but would she sacrifice him in order to keep at peace with Spain? At length a message came from Elizabeth, summoning him to London, and assuring him of her protection. With a lightened heart Drake set out for London, taking with him all his most precious jewels as a present for the queen. She received him graciously, accepted his magnificent present, and made no secret of her royal favour.
2. Elizabeth ordered the Golden Hind, as Drake's ship was now called, to be anchored off Greenwich for all the world to see. And in honour of her great mariner, she went in state to dine on board his ship, wearing in her crown the rich jewels he had given her. Here in the presence of a vast concourse of people she gave open defiance to King Philip of Spain. He had demanded Drake's head. Making the culprit kneel before her, she took a sword as if to strike it off, and giving him a gentle stroke bade him rise Sir Francis Drake. And instead of restoring the plunder to the king, she ordered it into safe keeping in the Tower. Such was the response Elizabeth made, having at last thrown off all disguise, to the King of Spain's demand.
3. The Spanish ambassador thus writes to his sovereign respecting an interview he had now with the queen: "I complained that I had been able to obtain no redress, either from her Council or herself, for any wrong that had been done. 'Your Majesty, I said, 'will not hear words, so we must come to the cannon, and see if you will hear them.' Quietly, in her most natural voice, she replied, that if I used threats of that kind she would fling me into a dungeon."
4. It was now quite plain that the queen thought war with Spain inevitable. But strange to say open war did not break out till four years later, although the two peoples wanted but a word from their sovereigns to fly like bull-dogs at each other's throats. That word Philip was in no haste to speak. He was content to nurse his wrath and meditate revenge. He had but recently annexed Portugal, and was fully occupied in securing his new dominions. The possession of Lisbon gave Philip one of the finest and most powerfully-defended seaports in the world. Lisbon was also most conveniently placed for the head-quarters of the Spanish fleet in the event of war with England.
5. Philip began the war by the seizure of every English ship in his ports (1585). Sir Francis Drake was ordered to repair to the various ports and demand the release of the arrested ships. On hearing that the famous "corsair" was on the coast, all Spain became alarmed. Drake did not linger long on the coast of Spain. He suddenly disappeared, no one knew whither. When next heard of, he was on the other side of the Atlantic, playing great havoc among the Spanish towns of the Indies. This was easily done, for his name had become a terror and bore victory before it. "The daring of the attempt," wrote the king, "was even greater than the damage done."
6. The chief result of Drake's achievements was to set the world talking of the great Sea Power that England bade fair to become. It is very difficult for us now-a-days—when little England has grown into a mighty empire, and great Spain has dwindled to her natural size—to realise the wonder which opened men's eyes, at the daring exploits of the English navy. The blows dealt by Drake aroused the indignation of Spain. The English, said Philip, were running up a long score which he would call upon them to pay to the uttermost farthing. But he was in no hurry to present his bill. He was determined to make such preparations for the invasion of England as to insure success.
7. Whilst Philip was busy in his preparations Drake unexpectedly appeared, with a small squadron at Cadiz (1587), the harbour of which was then crowded with transports and store-ships. There were many scores of these vessels loaded with wine, oil, corn, dried fruits, biscuits—all going to Lisbon for the use of the great Armada. The entrance was narrow with batteries on the sides, whilst in the harbour itself was a number of galleys on guard.
8. Drake, like most great admirals, probably thought that the fewer and simpler the orders the better. He had, at any rate, but one to give his men. They were to follow him in and destroy the shipping when they got there. His little fleet glided into the harbour unhurt, and fell instantly upon the only man-of-war there. The galleys were rowed to the rescue; but in a short time the great warship sank and the galleys drew off. Meanwhile, the crews of the store-ships rowed to land, leaving their cargoes at the disposal of the English.
9. When Drake withdrew from Cadiz his own ships were crammed with good things, and the harbour was filled with ransacked vessels all on fire. Well might the bold captain boast as he retired, that he "had singed the King of Spain's beard." Drake next moved off to the Azores in the hope of capturing some rich merchant vessel from the East Indies.
10. Almost immediately hove in sight an East Indiaman, "the greatest ship in all Portugal, richly laden, to our happy joy and great gladness." No such prize had ever been seen. In her hold were hundreds of tons of spices and precious gums; chests upon chests of costly china, bales of silks and velvets, and coffers of bullion and jewels. This great merchantman, the San Philipe, was soon on its unwilling way to England. The whole fleet arrived safely with their prize at Plymouth, "to their own profit and due commendation," says one of the happy company, "and to the great admiration of the whole kingdom."
1. The fateful day was fast approaching when England and Spain would meet in deadly encounter. Both sides were straining every nerve to prepare for the great event. It seemed like a war between a dwarf and a giant. Spain at that time was mistress of the East and West Indies; she had conquered Mexico and Peru, and her dominions in Europe included Portugal, a large part of Italy, and the Netherlands. Spain could thus command the services of a vast population, her navy was the largest in the world, and she had at her disposal many thousands of brave soldiers inured to war, whilst her coffers were full to overflowing. She had, in short, ships, men, and money in abundance.
2. England, on the other hand, was then but a little kingdom. Scotland was not yet incorporated with it, and Ireland was a source of weakness rather than of strength. Her whole population did not exceed five millions. But the spirit which animated little England was indomitable. We have seen its high mettle in Drake's daring adventures. And England's queen was as high-spirited as the boldest in the kingdom. She called upon her people to stand by her, and do or die in defence of "Queen and country."
3. But how would the Catholics of England respond to her appeal? Would they throw in their lot with the Spaniards, who were of their own religion, or stand true to their flag as Englishmen, side by side with their Protestant countrymen? The fortunes of England seemed placed in their hands; and to their honour, be it remembered, they proved themselves true Englishmen. Not a word of treason or treachery was whispered. Loyal England forgot its difference of creed. It knew only that the invader was at the gate.
4. On every side volunteers came forward in thousands. There was no standing army, but some thousands had seen service in the Netherlands, in France, and in Ireland. Forts were built at the mouth of the Thames, and an army was stationed at Tilbury. The queen visited their camps and heartened the soldiers by her presence and her words. "My loving people," she said, "we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear! I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects. I know that I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England, too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm."
5. The chief command of the fleet was given to Lord Howard of Effingham, with Drake as vice-admiral. "True it is," says an old writer, "Howard was no deep seaman; but he had skill enough to know those who had more skill than himself." All the great seamen of Queen Elizabeth, such as Hawkins and Frobisher, served under him, with 9000 hardy sailors. Merchants offered their ships for the war, and offered them with powder, shot, and crews all ready on board. And so splendid was the spirit that stirred the country, that when the queen asked the Lord Mayor of London to supply fifteen ships, he requested her to accept double that number.
6. Most of these merchantmen were of small size, and would be quite unable to cope with the great Spanish galleons, although useful as auxiliaries, serving to cut off stragglers, and to capture disabled ships. In the great fight with the Armada the brunt of the fighting must fall on the Royal Navy. But there were only thirty-eight ships, of all sorts and sizes, carrying the queen's flag. They were, however, in prime condition. The celebrated Sir John Hawkins, a kinsman of Drake's, had long been in charge of the royal ships, and he had taken such good care in their construction and equipment, that they had no match in the world for speed, handiness, and soundness.
7. So well pleased was Howard with the fleet placed under his command, that he declared, "Our ships do show themselves like gallants, and I assure you it will do a man's heart good to behold them. I think there were never seen worthier ships, and as few as we are, if the King of Spain's force amount not to hundreds, we will make good sport with them." Howard tells us that he had crept into every place, in every queen's ship, wherever man could get, and there was never one of them knew what a leak meant. And when the Bonaventure ran hard on a sand bank, it was got off without a spoonful of water in her.
8. Comparing the ships of Drake with those of Nelson, we find them considerably smaller but more heavily armed for their size. Between the times of these two great admirals but little advance seems to have been made in the arming of our ships. Drake could even boast a few sixty-five pounder guns with a range of over a mile. In what were called "fireworks" the English fleet was particularly strong. They included grenades to be shot out of great mortars and to explode by means of a fuse; illuminating shells for detecting an enemy's movements by night; and shells containing "wild-fire" that would burn in water and could only be extinguished with sand or ashes.
9. Whilst England is sharpening her weapons and marshalling her forces, King Philip is assembling his squadrons. His preparations were made on such a grand scale, that he may well have thought his Armada "invincible." By the end of July, 1588, all was ready for the great task of conquering England.
10. The "Invincible Armada" was composed of 130 ships, the majority being of great size "with lofty turrets like castles." There were on board 8000 seamen, whose sole duty was to work the ships, with 20,000 soldiers to do the fighting, and it was provided with no less than 2500 cannon. The whole fleet was under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia. The duke's orders were very strict. He was to sail up the Channel till he got to Dunkirk. Nothing was to stop him. If the English attacked, he was not to delay, but merely keep up a running fight. On reaching Dunkirk, he was to escort the Duke of Parma and his army to the shores of England.
11. The Armada was expected long before it appeared. Meanwhile, the whole people from Berwick to the Land's End were waiting in anxious expectation for the first news of the enemy. Beacons were prepared along the coast, and on every high point throughout the country. As soon as the enemy were sighted, the beacons were kindled.
(12) DEFEATING THE INVINCIBLE.
1. The main English fleet awaited the arrival of the Armada at Plymouth, whilst a smaller fleet kept watch at Dover, to prevent the crossing of the Spanish army assembled at Dunkirk, a few leagues from Calais. At last, the long-expected Armada was seen off Plymouth Sound, on Saturday, July 30th, 1588. The little English fleet kept out of sight till the Armada had passed the Sound. On Sunday morning the Spaniards saw their enemy hovering about their rear just out of cannon-shot.
2. The English admirals well knew their business, and wisely planned their mode of action. They knew that the Spaniards had not only the advantage in the number and size of their ships, but that they carried on each ship some hundreds of soldiers. They judged, therefore, that it would be best for the English to avoid coming to close quarters, to hang on the rear, to cut off stragglers, and "to pluck the feathers of the Spaniard one by one."
3. Thus day after day passed without any pitched battle, but the damage wrought by the English guns was considerable. The contrast between the build and action of the ships in the two fleets was manifest to all. The English vessels sailed at much greater speed, and "with such nimble steerage," says a Spanish writer, "that they could turn and wield themselves with the wind as they listed, coming oftentimes quite close to the Spaniards, giving them one broadside and then tacking round to give them the other." Their guns also were handled with much greater rapidity, firing, gun for gun, four shots to the Spaniards' one.
4. "The enemy constantly pursue me," wrote Sidonia, off the Isle of Wight, to the Duke of Parma. "They fire upon me most days from morning till nightfall; but they will not close and grapple. I have given them every opportunity; I have purposely left ships exposed to tempt them to board; but they decline to do it, and there is no remedy, for they are swift and we are slow. If these calms last, and they continue the same tactics, as they assuredly will, I must request your Excellency to send me two shiploads of shot and powder immediately, for I am in urgent need."
5. Calms so prevailed that it took a week for the Armada to reach Calais Roads, when the Spanish admiral dropped anchor, intending to remain there until the Duke of Parma was ready to embark his troops. The English promptly let go their anchors at the same instant two miles astern. The two fleets lay watching each other all the next day. At a council of war called towards evening in Admiral Howard's cabin, it was resolved to convert eight vessels into fire-ships. The ships having been smeared with pitch, resin, and wild-fire, and filled with combustibles, they were set on fire, and sent in the dead of night, with wind and tide, straight for the Spanish fleet.
6. The galleons at once cut their anchor cables, and made all haste to escape from the threatened danger, "Happiest they who could first be gone, though few or none could tell which way to take." Some of the ships had no spare anchors, and when they got outside the harbour could not anchor again, and were carried far away from their flag-ship. When morning broke Sidonia saw his fleet widely scattered. Signals were sent up for them to collect and make back for Calais.
7. The hour for the English to close was now come. A hot attack was begun before the enemy had time to rally and reform. The battle raged with fury from dawn to sunset. By the end of the day the Armada was in a hopeless state. Three great galleons had sunk, three had drifted helplessly on to the Flemish coast, whilst those afloat were in a battered condition, with sails torn and masts shot away.
8. The Spanish admiral was in despair. He saw there was nothing left but to get away by the easiest road. Not daring to return by the Channel, he resolved on making his way home by sailing round the Orkneys. A terrible tempest pursued him, and so many vessels were dashed against the rock-bound coasts of Scotland and Ireland that only fifty-three storm-shattered ships ever reached Spain. Out of thirty thousand men who had set sail in the Armada at least twenty thousand never returned.
9. In England one voice of joy and thanksgiving rang through the land. The great victory had been won with the loss of only one vessel and very few men. Not a single hostile foot had been planted on English soil. A solemn thanksgiving service was held in St. Paul's Cathedral; and in memory of the great deliverance a medal was struck, around the edge of which was inscribed in Latin, "God blew with His breath and they were scattered."
10. The war with Spain did not come to a close with the destruction of the Great Armada, but the long-dreaded danger of invasion had passed away. The navy of the greatest power in the world had been smitten and shattered. And the only result of Spain's attempt to enslave England was to raise her to a higher place among the nations. Hence the poet sings in his song of Rule Britannia:—
Still more majestic shall thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that tears the skies
Serves but to root thy native oak.
11. The war with Spain lasted until the death of Philip (1598). It was carried on almost wholly at sea, but the only story of much interest relates to Sir Richard Grenville, who for fifteen hours resisted all the efforts of a Spanish fleet to take or sink his ship, the Revenge. The unequal contest went on right through the night. When day dawned the Revenge was riddled with shot, Grenville mortally wounded, and hardly a man still alive and unwounded.
12. The dying admiral ordered the ship to be scuttled and sent to the bottom with all on board, "Trust to God," he said, "and to none else. Lessen not your honour now by seeking to prolong your lives." But his men thought they had done enough for honour, and hauled down the flag of St. George. The Spaniards showed their admiration of the heroism they had witnessed by doing all they could for the remnant alive. They carried the hero on board the San Pablo, where lie died three days later. His last words were, "Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind having ended my life like a true soldier that has fought for his country, queen, religion, and honour."
(13) EXPANSION OF ENGLAND INTO THE "UNITED KINGDOM."
1. Elizabeth's realm was very small compared with that which King Edward reigns over. It only embraced England, Wales and Ireland, and the last-named was in a chronic state of discontent and rebellion. On the death of Elizabeth, the crowns of England and Scotland were united in the person of James I. (1603), the first king of Great Britain and Ireland. Thus the Scots had the satisfaction of feeling that they had given a king to England instead of England forcing a king on them.
2. This union of the crowns of England and Scotland was the first step towards bringing about that real union between the two countries which exists at the present day; for they now form parts of a truly "United Kingdom," having one sovereign, one parliament, one army and navy, having the same friends and the same foes among the nations. But this happy result was long in coming. The jealousy and enmity which had so long existed between the two countries did not come to an end with the union of the two crowns. Each country still cared only for its own interests, and each people regarded the other as foreigners. They were not even permitted to trade freely with each other; but duties were levied on each other's goods in crossing the Border or entering each other's ports.
3. This state of things lasted a hundred years after James of Scotland became King of England. It happily came to an end in the reign of Queen Anne (1707). By the Act of Union, then passed, each country was to keep its own laws and its own National Church; but in other respects they were made into one kingdom, with the same parliament, the same privileges in trade, the same obligations in war.
4. This happy marriage between England and Scotland has had the best results for both parties. England gained a staunch friend in war, Scotland no small share in England's wealth; both alike grew in power and prosperity. Nor has the smaller kingdom been lost in the larger. The Scots have retained their old national spirit, their love of independence, and their own religion and customs. The union has only offered the sons of Scotland a larger field on which to prove their worth and expend their energy. Her soldiers, and especially her Highland regiments, have done more than their share in building up the empire. A noble rivalry has long existed between the regiments of the two countries, which has helped to evoke deeds of valour and self-sacrifice that have raised the British army to a high position on the roll of honour.
5. Turning now to Ireland we must admit that the relations between the two countries have not been nearly so satisfactory. It is not for us to enter into the wrongs and rights of the matter, but as in most cases of continual disputes and disagreements, there have been faults on both sides. If we could only "forgive and forget," it would be a happy thing for both of us. Ireland certainly has been the exception to the marked success of England in her mode of government.
6. Though Ireland, as a whole, has seldom been a loyal friend or staunch supporter of the empire, her gifted sons, by their wit and eloquence, as speakers and writers, have played no small part in its making and moulding. As men of action too in the affairs of the nation they have gained great renown, as the annals of our military history plainly show. Have we not recently seen, for example, in the Boer war, what an heroic part Irishmen can play? Nor have we forgotten how Queen Victoria marked her high appreciation of the valour of her Irish soldiers, ordering all ranks in the Irish regiments to wear, as a distinction, on St. Patrick's Day, a sprig of shamrock in their head-dress, to commemorate the gallantry of their countrymen in South Africa.
7. Had the Irish been treated in this generous spirit in the days of our forefathers, England would not have failed, as she has, in winning Ireland to her side. Two causes, in particular, may be mentioned for this failure. England attempted to force her form of religion on the Irish, punishing them in various ways for refusing to become Protestants. And she treated Ireland unfairly in regard to trade and manufactures, selfishly making laws and regulations to suit herself at the expense of the poorer kingdom.
8. These causes of disunion and resentment have long since been removed, but the evil done in past centuries has left behind it bitter memories, and, in some cases, vengeful feelings. An endeavour was made to draw the two nations more closely together by the Act of Union, which came into force on January 1st, 1801. This Act decreed that Ireland, instead of having a parliament of its own, should send representatives straight to the Imperial Parliament at Westminster, and enjoy henceforth the right of free trade with Great Britain.
9. Thus was formed, at last, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. And as a symbol of that union a new flag was designed, combining the three crosses of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick, who had from early times been regarded as the patron saints of England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively. The flag thus composed is styled the Union Jack, and is regarded throughout the empire as the symbol of that spirit of brotherhood which should bind us altogether in feelings of loyalty and devotion to our king and country.
Early English Colonisation
(1603-1688).
(1) ENGLAND'S SUCCESS IN COLONIZING.
1. As far as we have gone in our story we have followed the fortunes of England in the times of the Tudors, and have seen her rise to a high place among the nations as one of the great Sea Powers. So far we have spoken only of the making of England and its expansion into the "United Kingdom." What we have said, as yet, relates only to the laying of the foundation-stones on which the British Empire has been built. Our next task is to show how that empire began and how it afterwards grew and became great. When James I. came to the throne of England the King's Realm was limited to the Home Countries that form the United Kingdom. The rest of the empire has been acquired in the course of the three centuries that separate the death of Queen Elizabeth from that of Queen Victoria.
2. The expansion of the empire has been effected in three ways: (1) by peaceful occupation, (2) by force of arms, and (3) by friendly treaty. When the territory taken possession of was thinly occupied by wandering tribes, as in North America, or by mere savages, as in Australia, we have been able to gain an easy settlement without the sacrifice of many lives. Some countries have come to us as the fruit of conquest, examples of which we have in India, Canada, and Cape Colony. And certain territories we have acquired by purchase or by friendly arrangement with the native chiefs, as in the case of New Zealand and the Straits Settlements.
3. Of these possessions only a certain number are rightly termed colonies. True British colonies are settlements where men from our own shores have been able to make a permanent home, found a family, and rear children in robust health. Men of our stock can only plant such colonies where a temperate climate prevails, where wheat and other cereals thrive, and where flocks and herds can be successfully reared; such colonies we have in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
4. But the term "colony" has a wider application than this. We speak, for instance, of our West Indian colonies, where the climate is too hot for our race to flourish. Here the British resident is usually the owner of some plantation of sugar or tobacco, and for some years he superintends his crops, but always returns "home" as soon as he has made what he considers sufficient to live upon, in comfort, for the rest of his days. In fact, the term "colony" is generally applied to any of the British possessions beyond the seas, with the exception of India. And the whole of such possessions, with the same exception, may be conveniently referred to as our Colonial Empire.
5. It is now admitted on all sides that the British have surpassed all nations in the art of colonizing. Their success is due to a variety of causes, among which we may reckon their adventurous spirit, their love of liberty, their energy and enterprise. This spirit has made the Briton often restless and discontented with what he considers his humdrum life at home. It has driven him forth to seek a more varied and fuller life in the midst of dangers and difficulties, where he hopes to find free scope for his energies, and full liberty to follow his own bent and go his own way. But the mere spirit of adventure would not have insured success. That has come to him because he is gifted with great pluck, where fighting has to be done, with good staying power under stress and storm, with self-reliance when cut off from friends, and above all with a spirit of justice and fair-play.
6. Possessing these qualities he has been able to conquer his foes and afterwards to gain their good-will. When, for instance, the brave Sikhs of India were thoroughly beaten, they readily took service under our flag and helped us to put down the Sepoy Mutiny. To make the men you have conquered follow you gladly; that is the secret of empire. England's success in colonizing and ruling the native races within the borders of her realm is also largely due to the fact that she has avoided that common fault of most other nations in dealing with their colonies—over-governing, treating them as children needing precise rules and many restrictions. England, on the other hand, has seldom kept her colonies in leading-strings longer than it was necessary.
7. Much, however, of Britain's success in the management of her colonies is the result of experience, and the outcome of repeated failure, which is always ready to yield lessons of wisdom to those who are willing to learn. We did not learn all at once to set a true value on colonies. Their worth was measured, at first, by the amount of gold or silver that could be got out of them. It took some time for the truth to be clearly seen that the richest land is that which can feed most people.
8. If we wish now-a-days to ascertain the value of any colony to the motherland, we ask ourselves one or two such questions as these: Is it a country where our surplus population may make new permanent homes and bring up healthy families? Is it a country that offers a good field of commerce for our merchants? We usually find that "trade follows the flag." Where the Union Jack flies, there, as a rule, the people trade mostly with the home-country. In New Zealand, for instance, seven-tenths of the total trade is done with the United Kingdom.
9. We have thus learned to value our colonies chiefly as places for the reception of our surplus products and population. And our success in keeping them attached to the motherland and loyal to the old flag, that has "braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze," arises from the fact, that we leave them as free as possible to manage their own affairs and to spend their own money in their own way. And this is only right, for a colony has a great deal to do for itself which has been done for us in the old country by our forefathers. A young colony, like a young householder, has to furnish and set its house in order. It has, for example, to provide roads and bridges, railways, and telegraphs; it has to bank the rivers, drain the marshes, and clear the forests. It is, therefore, only right that no attempt should be made to tax our colonies or to restrict their trade for the benefit of the mother-country.
1. Sir Walter Raleigh made strenuous efforts, in the reign of Elizabeth, to found a colony in Virginia, but the men who first consented to go as emigrants, were not true colonists, but mere adventurers on the hunt for gold. Failing in their search for gold, they returned to England, taking with them a sample of the strange herb they had learnt from the Indians to smoke. Two further attempts made by Raleigh to colonize Virginia ended in failure and disaster.
2. The first offshoot of the English race destined to take root in America, sailed from England in the third year of James I.'s reign. After a tedious voyage the expedition entered Chesapeake Bay too late in the season for the seed they had brought with them to be sown that year (1607). Ascending a stream which they called the James River, they chose for the site of their settlement a peninsula about forty miles from its mouth, where they built a village of rude huts to which they gave the name of Jamestown, and which proved the first permanent settlement of the English in the New World.
3. It cannot be said that these emigrants deserved to succeed any better than those who preceded them. We can only wonder, after the sad experience already bought at such a heavy cost, that men of the same stamp should still be sent over as colonists. Most of the present company were mere idle adventurers and worthless fellows who had never done an honest day's work at home. The new colony, consequently, was soon in danger of extinction. In six months half of the settlers were swept away by disease, wretched food, and other hardships. The remnant owed its escape to the resource and energy of one of their number, John Smith, who is entitled to the honour of being the first to plant the English race within the borders of what is now the United States.
4. Smith was a true Briton in many things besides the name, a man who would "stand no nonsense," who on being chosen leader soon made it plain that no drones should live in the hive. He soon proved himself the head and heart of the whole colony. Having provided a plenteous store of deer's flesh, wild-fowl, and maize-bread for the winter—"for he was more wakeful to gather provisions than the covetous to find gold"—he left the camp to explore the country round. Whilst thus engaged, Smith had the misfortune to fall into the hands of Indians.
5. "I was brought," he says, "to the village where the great chief Powhatan has his spacious wigwam. There they performed a war-dance around me, every one in the ring brandishing his weapons. One of my captors having been wounded, I cried out that at Jamestown I had some medicine to cure him. They would not let me fetch it; but I was permitted to send a letter, in which I asked my friends to put what I wanted under a great rock outside the town. To the astonishment of the Indian messengers who delivered my letter, the things I had promised were found by them the next day at the appointed place. On their return every one was full of wonder because of the 'talking-leaf.'"
6. "They thought it was all due to magic, and met in council to decide my fate. Some feared to put me to death, others feared to let me live. After a long and solemn talk there was a dead silence, whilst a huge stone was dragged into the centre, and I was forced to kneel down beside it, Indians standing around with their heavy clubs. At this critical moment the chief's daughter, Pocahontas, a young girl of ten or twelve, flew to my side and, spreading her arms over me pleaded for my life. Another council was held, and I was set free."
7. Meanwhile everything had fallen into confusion at Jamestown, and Smith had much ado to keep the men from sailing away in the pinnace. In the following spring another party of emigrants arrived, composed mostly of mere reckless adventurers, whose one object was to find gold. "When you send again," Smith wrote to the Council at home, "I entreat you rather send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers up of trees' roots than a thousand of such as we have.... Nothing is to be won here but by honest toil." Under Smith's rule the colony passed safely through another winter, and then an explosion of a bag of gunpowder slung around his neck, rendered him for a time useless, and he returned to England.
8. The colony went to pieces in Smith's absence, and within six months of his departure it was reduced to a miserable remnant of sixty persons, supporting themselves mainly on roots and berries. They were on the point of abandoning their settlement and had just reached the mouth of the river when they were astonished by the sight of a ship coming up to meet them. The ship was the forerunner of a small squadron, under the command of Lord de la Warr, who had been sent to the relief of the colony.
9. The turning-point had come. The new governor had brought provisions for a year and a large band of emigrants. He assembled the old settlers, sternly rebuked them for their "sluggish idleness," and entreated them to amend their ways, and so avoid the sword of justice, which he was determined to wield. It is amusing to read the old chronicler's idea of hard work. "Let not any man," says he, "be discouraged by the relation of their daily labour. It began at six and went on till ten, and again from two to four when they went to church, and after that returned home and received their rations."
10. With the coming of Lord de la Warr, the prospects of the colony began to brighten and progress to be made. The first decided step onward was taken when a few acres of land were assigned to each settler for his orchard and garden and other private uses. Hitherto all had been expected to work for the common good, and the result had been reluctant labour and waste of time, the few willing to work having no heart to do so, when the majority were idly whiling away the time. Hence we see the advantage of giving every man the right to hold private property.
11. The colonists for some little time lost much of their labour in growing grapes, but on turning their chief attention and care to the cultivation of tobacco, they found themselves on the highway to prosperity. Very soon the fields, the gardens, the public squares, even the sides of the streets of Jamestown, were planted with tobacco for the English market. Few women had as yet dared to cross the Atlantic, but the growing prosperity of the colony induced ninety women to throw in their lot with their countrymen in Virginia. They were not long in finding husbands. Thus arose new English homes in the land beyond the seas. England's first colony had taken root, and in time a new English nation sprang therefrom.
THE PILGRIM FATHERS LEAVING ENGLAND.
12. From the many blunders made in trying to found our first colony, we learned how to secure success in similar undertakings in future. Virginia served as our school of wisdom and experience in planting colonies; we had still to learn, by losing her and her sister states, how to keep colonies within the empire after planting them.
1. The second English colony in America was founded, in 1620, by a very different class of persons from those reckless adventurers who, in Elizabeth's reign, threw away their lives in Virginia. The founders of New England, as this second colony was named, were a devoted band of earnest persons, knit together by religious ties, who went out there as pilgrims in search of a land where they could enjoy religious freedom.
2. The "Pilgrim Fathers," as many love to call them, belonged to the religious body known as "Puritans." The Puritans thought that the English Church needed further reform, and many of them refused to attend divine worship in the parish churches as the law directed. For their disobedience, they had been fined and in other ways punished. When James I. came to the throne, they hoped to be left free to worship God as they thought best. In this they were, unhappily, doomed to disappointment.
3. King James was exceedingly bitter against the Puritans, and said, "I will make them conform, or harry them out of the land." And out of the land the more zealous resolved to go. They first sought an asylum in Holland; but they could not feel at home there, for the language and manners of the Dutch seemed to them harsh and uncouth. At last they were moved to make real English homes for themselves across the Atlantic.
4. They knew from the reports that had come to them that they must expect much toil and suffering. "But we are well weaned," wrote their pastor, "from the delicate milk of the mother-country, and inured to the difficulties of a strange land; the people are industrious and frugal. We are knit together as a body in a most sacred covenant of the Lord, by virtue whereof we hold ourselves strictly tied to all care of each other's good and of the whole. It is not with us as with men whom small things can discourage."
5. Accordingly, a little company of one hundred and twenty, including men, women, and children, set sail from Plymouth in the Mayflower, bound for the country round the river Hudson. But the captain of the Mayflower, either mistaking his course, or driven out of it, brought his ship to anchor in the harbour of Cape Cod, on a barren and bleak coast in Massachusetts. The country was then buried in snow, and the whole winter was before them. There were none to show them kindness or bid them welcome, but they were not disheartened.
6. The first thing was to choose a good spot for the settlement. An exploring party landed, but after several days discovered nothing of value but a heap of maize in a deserted Indian village. Many graves were scattered about the country, but no Indians were seen. They afterwards learnt that a pestilence had swept off the Indians in that part, so that no difficulty arose from the hostility of the natives.
7. Meanwhile the carpenter had been busy repairing their large boat or shallop. As soon as it was ready a party set off to explore the coast. The cold was so severe that the spray of the waves froze as it fell on them, making their clothes like coats of steel. On the third day, the pilot of the shallop, who had been in those regions before, assures them that they can reach a good harbour before nightfall. After some hours' sailing, a storm of snow and rain breaks upon them: the sea swells, the rudder breaks, the boat must now be steered with oars; the storm increases and night is at hand. To reach the harbour before dark, as much sail as possible is borne; the mast breaks into three pieces and the sail falls overboard. But the tide is favourable, and as darkness sets in, they enter a fair harbour, and step ashore wet, and cold, and weak.
8. Morning, as it dawned, showed the place to be a small island in a well-sheltered bay. Here they remained for a day to recruit, and as the next day was the "Christian Sabbath," they felt bound to rest and "keep it holy." On Monday the exploring party made their way to the mainland. The granite boulder on which they stepped on landing has ever since been treasured by their descendants. Here the "Pilgrim Fathers" resolved to settle. They called the town, which in time grew up on this spot, New Plymouth, in memory of the port from which they had last set sail.
9. No holiday-task lay before the settlers. Huts had to be built in the intervals of rain and snow. Meanwhile the Mayflower was their home, but so ill provided were they for enduring the rigours of winter that by cold or famine half the company were cut off before the spring. In April, the vessel which had sheltered them so long sailed away for England, leaving the survivors ready to bear their hard lot with a stout heart. Thrifty and industrious as they were, their progress was very slow; and at the end of ten years they numbered only three hundred souls. They had, however, struck deep root and remained steadfast. "Let it not be grievous unto you," some of their brethren in England had written to them in the midst of their sufferings, "that yours has been the task to break the ice for others. The honour shall be yours to the world's end."
10. At last the time came for a large increase of their numbers from home. In 1630 seven hundred emigrants set sail for the land of freedom in the West; for Charles I. was now on the throne and had begun his arbitrary rule. Before the assembling of the Long Parliament (1640), which carried on the struggle that ended with the execution of the king, no less than two hundred emigrant ships, carrying twenty thousand Englishmen, had crossed the Atlantic. Nor were these men the waifs and strays, the mere wreckage of society, but men of means and character, ready to risk all for the privilege of serving God according to their conscience. As the ships bore them away out of sight of their native land, they remembered it, not with feelings of bitterness for the ill treatment they had received on account of their religion, but as the home of their fathers. As its shores faded from their sight there arose from every heart the tender cry, "Farewell, dear England!"
1. We have now sketched out the circumstances attending the planting of our first two colonies—Virginia and New England. Between these two colonies was planted another, called Maryland, in honour of Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I.
2. Maryland was in most respects a highly-favoured colony. It was founded, in 1633, by Lord Baltimore, who seems to have risen above most men of his age in his readiness to tolerate men of a different faith from his own. Baltimore declared himself a Catholic, and was desirous of providing a home in America for men of his creed, since they were debarred from the free exercise of their religion in England. Neither Virginia nor New England would have suited his purpose; none but members of the Church of England were welcomed in the former, and none but Puritans of the strictest order were tolerated in the latter.
3. It was otherwise ordered in Maryland. "No person within this province," ran the earliest law of the colony, "professing to be a Christian, shall be in any way troubled or molested for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof." Due consideration also was shown to the rights of the natives. The first act of the governor was to purchase land from the Indians, and with their consent he took possession of a village, which he named St. Mary's. The settlers then went resolutely to work, learning all they could from the natives, whose goodwill it was easy to gain by presents of cloth and axes, of hoes and knives.
The Indian women taught the wives of the new comers to make bread of maize; the warriors of the tribe gave many valuable hints in hunting and fishing. Thus the foundation of Maryland was peacefully and happily laid. In six months it advanced more than Virginia had done in as many years.
4. In the course of the next hundred years such progress was made in building up a new English nation on the other side of the Atlantic, that no less than thirteen flourishing colonies, including the three already mentioned, were established in what is now the United States. But as these colonies have long ceased to form part of our empire we do not propose to give here any further details respecting them. We cannot, however, but feel proud of the fact that the great American nation has sprung mainly from our race, that it speaks our language, that its laws are based on ours, and that it inherits our love of justice and freedom.
5. Whilst the colonies that have since grown into the United States were taking root, our countrymen settled in some of the American islands, which have since become valuable possessions. An English vessel bound for Virginia, when it was an infant colony, happened to be wrecked on one of the Bermuda islands. The Bermudas form a cluster of a hundred small islands, and in one of the recesses of the inland sea, which they enclose, is a splendid harbour with an entrance so narrow as to render it beyond the reach of attack. Seeing the value of these islands as a secure refuge for our shipping in the North Atlantic, the shipwrecked mariner took possession in the name of King James, and ever since they have remained in our hands as a military post and naval station of no mean importance.
6. In the West India Islands also the English, in spite of the Spaniards, gained a footing, Barbados being their earliest settlement in that quarter. The first recorded visit of Englishmen was in the year 1605, when the crew of the "Olive Blossom" landed, and erected a cross as a memorial of the event, cutting at the same time upon the bark of a tree, "James, King of England and of this island." Barbados was the first English colony in which the sugar-cane was planted, and sugar soon became a great source of wealth to the planters. The civil war in the reign of Charles I. induced many Englishmen to cast in their lot with the settlers of this little island in the summer seas. Many of the West India Islands have changed hands more than once, but Barbados from its first settlement, in 1624, has remained in our possession.
7. Jamaica, the largest of our West India colonies, fell as easily as a ripe fruit into English hands in the days of Cromwell's rule. Cromwell took great pride in his new colony, and aided the colonists very materially by sending some thousands of Scottish prisoners of war after his victory at Worcester, to work in the sugar plantations. These men after a few years became free labourers, and many worked their way, as Scotsmen know how, to high place and fortune.
8. Newfoundland claims to be the oldest British colony. True, it was taken possession of by Gilbert in the name of Queen Elizabeth, but no regular settlement was made there until long afterwards. The island was inhabited mainly by a floating population that came and went. Some thousands of fishermen came in spring, and on the approach of winter re-embarked with the cod they had caught and cured. The English government wanted no regular settlers here. They wished to preserve the island simply as a fishing-station, and the fisheries as nurseries for the navy. In spite of all discouragement settlers constantly increased, but more than a hundred years passed, after Gilbert took possession, before the first governor was appointed.
9. The country around Hudson Bay was claimed by the English by right of discovery. Hudson Strait and Bay recall the name of Henry Hudson, who, in the service of King James, first entered and explored these seas. His fate is, perhaps, the saddest that any of the brave men, engaged in discoveries in these icy regions, have suffered. The crew mutinied, and Hudson, with his son and seven others, was turned adrift in a small boat and never afterwards heard of.
10. The Hudson Bay Company was authorised by Charles II. in 1670, to take possession of the lands around Hudson Bay. It was soon found that the country was too cold for colonists to settle in it, but that a valuable fur trade could be carried on. "Forts," or trading-stations, were accordingly set up on the shores of the Bay, and trade was opened with the Indian trappers who came once a year with their annual catch of furs.
11. Each summer a ship arrived from London, bringing all that the Indian most needed or most fancied, such as guns, knives, axes, spirits, looking-glasses, blankets, beads, and trinkets of all sorts. When these had been properly arranged in the great room of the fort, the traffic began. The Indians were first admitted to the outer room with their bundles of furs. Each skin was examined and the price decided on was paid in the form of little coloured sticks. With these counters each red man passed into the inner room and exchanged them for such articles as he wished to purchase.
12. Before concluding this short sketch of the progress made in English colonization during the reigns of the Stuarts, justice compels us to say that the "Merry Monarch"—who is supposed never to have said a foolish thing, and never to have done a wise one—acted wisely on behalf of his colonies. He established a Colonial Council to take the oversight of all the colonies and see to their welfare. They were to arrange for a common system of government and trade, to assist the right sort of people to emigrate, and to bind the mother-country and the colonies together by schemes for mutual help.
(5) STRUGGLE FOR THE MASTERY AT SEA.
1. Britain has long been acknowledged mistress of the seas, and our very existence as a nation, still more as an empire, depends on our being able to keep that position; for it is only by command of the sea that we can defend the scattered parts of our empire, and make sure of being fed at home, seeing that a large part of our food comes from abroad. England began to be a great Sea Power when the Spanish Armada was destroyed (1588), but more than a hundred years had yet to pass before she could lay undisputed claim to the foremost place upon the seas. Meanwhile, a great struggle took place between the Dutch and English for the leading place.
2. No braver or more skilful seamen ever sailed the seas than our Dutch rivals. Holland was at last obliged to yield the palm, because she had to defend her borders from attack by France on land whilst carrying on war with England at sea. We owe much to the fact that our land is encircled by the sea. Hence Shakespeare speaks of it as
"This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands."
3. Had James I. been like the great queen whom he succeeded, Holland would probably not have got the start of England, as she did, when he was king. Under his timid government our nation sank to a low place among the Powers of Europe, whilst Holland stepped forward and took our place as the rival of Spain, and in the course of a few years made herself the first maritime state in the world. The Dutch became great ship-builders, and in their ships carried on the trade of a large part of Europe. They became in fact the great ocean carriers of the day, holding the position which is now held by ourselves; or to quote the writer of Fights for the Flag—"They swept the Spanish flag from the seas. The carrying trade of the world was in their hands. They fished in all waters, traded in all ports, gathered the wealth of the world under all skies, and, as far as marine qualities were concerned, might almost have been web-footed."
4. During our Civil War, in the reign of Charles I., the Dutch profited much by our home troubles. Much of the English trade fell into their hands, their ships being largely employed in carrying goods to and from our English ports. But no sooner was King Charles executed than steps were taken to revive English shipping. In the early days of the Commonwealth a Navigation Act was passed, which struck a serious blow at the Dutch carrying trade. By this Act it was ordered that no goods should be imported into England except in English vessels, or in those belonging to the country in which the goods were produced.
5. The Dutch regarded this Act as a dagger aimed at their heart. There was another thing which rankled within them. English ships of war had for centuries claimed the right to require all foreign ships to salute them by lowering their topsails, or striking their flag, whenever they met in the narrow waters of the English Channel; and now, under the rule of Cromwell, the captains of our warships were ordered to enforce this claim. Before long "the greatest naval power of the day and the greatest naval power of the future" launched their forces against each other—the Dutch under their celebrated admiral, Van Tromp, and the English under Robert Blake, who became equally famous.
6. The English were first afloat. Blake sailed north to sweep the Dutch fishermen off the coasts of England and Scotland; for the poaching of the Hollanders had been one of the grievances which brought on the war. This was an easy task. The enemy's guard-ships were taken or sunk, the cargoes of poached herrings were thrown into the sea; but the fishermen's boats were spared by the English Admiral, since they belonged, as he said, to poor families and formed their only means of a livelihood. Dutch merchantmen returning from the Indies were snapped up in the Channel and sent as prizes up the Thames in scores. Very soon Van Tromp was on the heels of our admiral with a magnificent fleet, but a storm so battered his ships that he had to return and refit.
7. On the approach of winter the English fleet broke up for their winter quarters; for at that time the thought of a winter campaign never entered men's minds. Van Tromp, however, was daring enough to face the winter storms and take the risk. He suddenly appeared off the Downs with ninety sail. Blake could only muster half that number, but he thought it more honourable to risk a battle than seek safety in flight. The unequal contest went on doggedly till dusk, when Blake withdrew his shattered fleet into the Thames after three of his ships had been sunk and two taken.
8. Van Tromp now sailed the Channel, it is said, with a broom at the mast-head of his ship as a sign that he had "swept the English from the Channel." The English did not regard the result of the battle with dismay. On the contrary, the reports of the battle were read with pride; and the Council of State thanked Blake for his services. The real battle which should decide the question of superiority at sea had yet to be fought.
9. Van Tromp's triumph with the broom at his masthead did not last long. In less than three months the English were again on the sea with a powerful fleet, and took up their station off Portland. They had no need to go in search of Tromp, for he could not help bringing the merchant-ships that he was escorting home right past them. At length he was seen coming up the Channel with a huge convoy of at least 150 sail under his wing. His warships were between them and the English. The moment had come, and every sailor in the two ships felt it, to test their prowess. It was the first time the two great admirals had met on equal terms.
10. The close and desperate fighting that ensued told sorely on both sides. A hundred men fell on board the English admiral's flag-ship; and at the end of the day the ship itself, which had gone foremost into battle, had its masts down, its rigging gone, and its hull riddled. Some of its shattered sisters were glad enough to crawl into Portsmouth. Of the Dutch ships one was burnt, one blown up, and six taken or sunk.
11. During the night the two fleets continued working slowly along the Channel eastwards. Van Tromp had his men-of-war in the form of a crescent with the convoy between its horns. With daylight came a renewal of the fighting which lasted until sunset. Never was sterner fighting done. One Dutch captain, for instance, when grappled on each side by an English ship, set fire to his own vessel that the three might burn together. The English, however, drew off, leaving the Dutchman to its fate.
12. The dawn of the third day saw the brave old Tromp still keeping guard like a hen over her brood of chickens. His line, however, was on that day broken through, and then an exciting chase followed, which ended in the capture of some fifty merchant-ships. Two other desperate battles took place the same year, and both ended favourably for England. On the last day of the last battle, the grand old Dutch admiral was pierced to the heart with a musket-ball.
13. This war dealt a severe blow to the Dutch carrying-trade, and brought Holland to the brink of ruin. "The Zuyder Zee," it is said, "became a forest of masts; the country was full of beggars; grass grew in the streets, and in Amsterdam fifteen hundred houses were empty." Peace with England (1654) alone saved the Dutch from utter ruin. And this peace left England, for the time at least, mistress of the seas.
(6) OUR GREAT "GENERAL-AT-SEA."
1. Robert Blake, whose victories at sea are second only to those of Nelson, was not learned in the arts of seamanship. In his day it was quite usual for generals to take command at sea, leaving the navigation of the ships in the hands of the "Masters." Blake, however, did not fight the less well because he went to sea in full military uniform, including his top-boots. In the excitement of battle some of these "Admirals-in-spurs" forgot the language of the sea. It is said that General Monk, in the middle of a sea-fight, sent a shout of laughter round his own decks by giving the order, as to cavalry, "wheel to the left."
2. Blake, our great "General-at-Sea" had all the qualities of a great commander, except perhaps his outward look and mien. He was a little man, of rather a melancholy turn, and chary of his words. He had however, that magnetic influence over his men that bespeaks the true leader—the influence that made them ready to follow wherever he led the way, regardless of chances and risks. He was also beloved by them for his constant care and thought for their welfare. He set himself, with all his heart and strength, to remove all abuses from the navy and to introduce numberless reforms. None knew better that success in the day of battle depends greatly upon previous attention to what seems "little things."
3. Blake had no ends of his own to serve. In the face of any question that presented itself, his one thought was, "What do the interest and honour of England require?" The watchword of his life was that grand word DUTY, which Nelson set before the eyes of his sailors on the morning of Trafalgar. These two great admirals are well linked together by the poet Campbell in his famous sea-song:—
"The spirit of your fathers
Shall start from every wave—
For the deck it was their field of fame,
And Ocean was their grave:
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As you sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long
And the stormy winds do blow."
4. No sooner had our great admiral ended the war with the Dutch, in the way already described, than he was despatched by Cromwell with a powerful fleet to the Mediterranean, which had long been infested by pirates in league with the Governors, or Deys, of the Barbary States. These pirates not only seized the cargoes of the merchant ships, but sold their crews and passengers into slavery.
5. When Blake, in the course of his cruise, appeared before Tunis and demanded the release of all Christian prisoners and slaves, the Dey pointed defiantly to his castles at the entrance of the harbour and his nine cruisers anchored beneath their guns. Blake replied by leading in his ships and cannonading the Dey's batteries at close range. When this terrible hail of shot had dismounted the enemy's guns, the admiral lowered his long-boats, and having manned each with a picked crew sent them through the smoke straight at the pirate ships. Cutlasses, pikes, and pistols first did their deadly work and then firebrands did the rest. When the English fleet put out to sea that night every one of the Dey's ships was wrapped in flames.
6. This exploit marks a turning-point in our commercial history. Hitherto merchant vessels were expected to protect themselves and take the risks of capture. Blake's round of the Mediterranean, with his ships of war, let princes and pirates know that henceforth any wrong done to an English vessel would be avenged as a national insult, that to attack a ship flying the flag of England would be regarded as an attack upon England itself. As soon as it was seen that England's arm was long enough, and ready enough, to strike at all offenders on the seas, the English began to take the foremost place as "carriers of the sea," for foreign merchants soon came to the belief that their goods would be safest where the flag of England insured protection.
7. Blake's next great object was to sap the power of Spain with whom Cromwell had gone to war to enforce England's claim to trade with the Spanish colonies of America. Annually there came to Spain from the Western World a great fleet, known as the "plate fleet," freighted with gold and silver, quicksilver and pearls, sugar, hides, and dye-wood. To cut off these supplies was to sever the sinews of war at a stroke. For nearly two years Blake kept watch outside Cadiz for the expected plate-ships, but they had run into harbour at Santa Cruz, under the great peak of Teneriffe, and were waiting there until the way home was clear. Here, at length, Blake resolved to come and burn the ships he saw no hope of capturing.
8. Santa Cruz was then one of the strongest naval stations in the world. The harbour, shaped like a horseshoe, was defended at the entrance and sides by forts, armed with heavy guns, and well garrisoned. Armed vessels were moored in a semi-circle at the bottom of the harbour and in front of them were stationed the royal galleons that had escorted the plate-fleet across the Atlantic. Blake must have seen at once that these ships would act as a screen between his own squadron and the great Spanish batteries on the shore, that one-half of the Spanish force would get in the way of the other in resisting an attack.
9. Our great sea-general knew well the kind of place he was about to assail, but judged that his ships were equal to the task. At any rate he resolved to make the daring attempt, a solemn prayer being first of all offered on board each ship to the great Disposer of events. Wind and tide favouring, anchors were weighed, and in a brief space of time the castles at the entrance were passed, and the ships stationed for the attack.
10. For four hours the old peak of Teneriffe looked down upon a scene which might seem like an imitation of his own volcanic outbursts. The Spaniards fought with great courage, but Blake's fire, by its speed and deadly aim, was overwhelming. By two o'clock the battle was clearly won. Two of the Spanish galleons had gone down, and every other Spanish ship in the harbour was in flames. The most extraordinary thing now happened to complete the English triumph. Just at the right moment the wind veered round and enabled the whale squadron to leave the harbour without the loss of a single ship, though many of course were too much battered for further service.
11. Blake, like Nelson, was not permitted to return home alive to receive the thanks and homage of his admiring countrymen. The fleet, headed by his battered flagship, the George, had passed the Eddystone and was seen approaching Plymouth harbour. The Hoe was crowded with thousands waiting to welcome their hero home. But at that moment, all unknown to them, Blake lay dying in his cabin. Just as the George dropped her anchor, the hero drew his last breath (1657). His corpse was carried in state to Westminster Abbey and there buried. Never has England had a more devoted and unselfish servant, nor the English sailor a kinder and nobler captain.
12. The warships of England now rode triumphant on the seas. But their triumph did not long remain unchallenged. Throughout a large part of Charles II.'s reign, the English and the Dutch strove constantly for the mastery. Having to defend their homes against the French, the Dutch, at last, felt compelled to retire from the struggle with England for the sovereignty of the seas. In 1674 they finally made peace with England ceding the island of St. Helena—of some value as a place of call to ships sailing to and from the East Indies—and admitting England's claim to a salute from all foreign ships passing through the "narrow seas" around her coasts.
Expansion by Conquest
(1688-1763).
(1) WHAT WE OWE TO WILLIAM OF ORANGE.
1. We pass now to a period in our history in which our struggle for empire is chiefly with the French. That struggle began almost as soon as the Prince of Orange became William III. of England. Though a Dutchman, he is entitled to a place among the great builders of the British Empire. To him we are doubly indebted, for he defended our liberties at home against James II. of England, and our interests abroad against Louis XIV. of France. His chief pleasure in accepting the crown of England, arose from the hope that it would enable him to unite the forces of England and Holland in curbing the power of France.
2. It had been the one great object of William's life to thwart the great enemy of his native country, Louis XIV. Though often defeated, he was never conquered. In the darkest times he had never given way to despair, and after each defeat had set to work to mend his broken fortunes. And now he had England at his back, William believed that he could meet his old enemy on equal terms, and he rejoiced at the prospect. Few men have had to contend with so many difficulties, and none have grappled with them more courageously.
3. Though William did much for England, it cannot be said that he ever loved her, or was beloved by her. He was cold and reserved in manner, and seldom seen to smile, being rarely free from bodily pain. But in the field of battle, on his war charger, he seemed full of life and joy; wherever the fight was fiercest and the danger greatest, there he was sure to be. We see the kind of man he was in his reply to the Parliament that proposed to make his wife, Mary, Queen of England, and himself only Regent.
4. "My lords and gentlemen," he said, "No man can esteem a woman more than I do the princess, but I am so made that I cannot think of holding anything by my wife's apron-strings; nor can I think it reasonable to have any share in the Government unless it be put in my own person, and that for the term of my life. If you think fit to settle it otherwise, I will not oppose you, but will go back to Holland and meddle no more in your affairs." William, you see, knew his own mind. He will be king or nothing, and king, accordingly, he became.
5. William was scarcely seated on the throne, when James II. landed in Ireland, with a body of French troops, brought there under the escort of fifteen French men-of-war. As soon as news of this reached London, war was declared against King Louis, in spite of the peril in which the declaration placed England, for not only was the greater part of Ireland in the hands of James II. and his French allies, but the Highlanders of Scotland had risen in his favour. William first made peace in Scotland, and then crossed to Ireland. He had no sooner landed there with some thousands of troops than a great French fleet under Admiral Tourville appeared in the Channel.
6. The spectators standing on the summit of Beachy Head on the last day of June, 1690, must have watched the battle fought just below, with sinking hearts; for the combined English and Dutch fleets were that day completely beaten, and obliged to seek refuge in the Thames, leaving the French fleet sole master of the Channel. Luckily no French troops were ready to be landed on our shores, and the danger soon passed away; for on the very next day, William won a complete victory over James II. in Ireland, on the banks of the little river Boyne.
7. On the day before the battle, whilst inspecting his troops, a shot grazed William's shoulder, and made him reel in his saddle. "There was no need for any bullet to come nearer than that!" was his remark. And certainly not many bullets have ever come nearer to changing the history of Britain, and therefore of the British Empire. But on the fateful day itself (1st July, 1690) he escaped unhurt, though often in the thick of the fight. Seeing the battle going against him, James galloped off to Dublin and embarked for France. The brave Irish who had fought for him that day were much disgusted, and said to the victors after the battle: "Change leaders and we will fight it all over again."
8. The battle of the Boyne is a memorable one, for it decided whether the crown of England should be worn by a despot like James II. under the patronage, if not the pay, of the French king, or by a champion of popular freedom like William III., whose one aim was to diminish the power of France and to foil the designs of King Louis.
9. James II., who had fled to France after his defeat in Ireland, resolved to make one more effort, with the help of the French king, to recover his throne. French troops were assembled in Normandy for the invasion of England, and Admiral Tourville was sent with a fleet to protect their passage across the Channel. It was feared that Admiral Russell, who commanded the English fleet, would not do his duty, for it was known that he was personally in favour of the deposed monarch. But to James's friends he said, "Do not think I will let the French triumph over us in our own seas; if I meet them, I fight them, ay, though his Majesty himself should be on board."
10. Russell was as good as his word. After a determined fight for five hours, the French were obliged to make for the shelter of their ports. Fifteen ships that failed to reach St. Malo before the tide had turned, took refuge in the bays of Cherbourg and La Hogue. Their pursuers were soon upon them, and ship after ship was burnt under the eyes of the French army, waiting to be taken across the Channel—in sight too of James II. who, on beholding the daring of our sailors, could not forbear exclaiming, "My brave English tars," even though their victory was the death-blow of his hopes of ever regaining the throne. La Hogue was the last general action fought by the French fleet for a long period, and Louis's dream of supremacy at sea was, for the present, at least, seen to be hopeless.
11. William was now safely seated on the throne, but he had no intention of sitting quietly on it. He carried on the war vigorously against Louis on the continent. Much English blood was shed, but it was not shed in vain. It was necessary, in the interests of England, to keep the French from overflowing the limits of their own land. Had they succeeded in adding the Netherlands to France and the Dutch navy to their own, our country would have been outmatched. She would probably have lost her lead upon the sea, and her future greatness in America and India. Louis by the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, agreed to acknowledge William as King of England, and to give up all his conquests except Strasburg. All honour to William of Orange who foiled the ambition of the vain monarch that made war upon war for his own glorification.
(2) A FAMOUS VICTORY AND A LUCKY CAPTURE.
1. When William died, in 1702, he was preparing for a new war, with his old enemy, Louis XIV., to prevent the union of the Crowns of France and Spain. It is known as the War of the Spanish Succession, and arose from the fact that the King of Spain had willed the crown to a French prince. "There are no longer any Pyrenees," said Louis, as he contemplated the union of the two crowns. Such an union would have put the other kingdoms of Europe under the feet of France. Accordingly, an alliance was formed between England, Holland, and Austria to keep the Pyrenees in their place and the two nations apart.
2. Louis must have heard of the death of King William with deep satisfaction. A queen now sat on the throne of England, but fortunately she had in Lord Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, a general who was better qualified even than William as Commander-in-chief, and whose good fortune as a commander proved so remarkable that in the whole course of the war he suffered no defeat; he never besieged a fortress he did not take, nor fought a battle he did not win. Of his many victories the most splendid was that of Blenheim, a little village on the Danube, in Bavaria.
3. The Bavarians having joined the French as allies, the way lay open, through their country, into the very heart of Austria. The French, under Marshal Tallard, were marching on Vienna, when they were pulled up at Blenheim by the allied forces under Marlborough. The right wing of the French army was posted in this village with the river Danube on their flank. In front of the village the French had erected strong palisades; they had also barricaded the streets and loopholed the houses.
4. Marlborough first attempted to dislodge the French from this strong position. Nothing could be finer than the onset of the British, but they were bound to fail. Behind the palisades knelt long lines of French troops, as brave as their assailants, whilst a second line standing erect fired over the heads of their kneeling comrades. Some of our men tried to tear up the palisades with their hands, or clamber over them by mounting on each other's shoulders, but the task proved beyond them. Marlborough withdrew his men, but bade them keep up the feint of an attack upon Blenheim, whilst he prepared to throw his cavalry on the French centre.
5. Marshal Tallard seems to have trusted to the protection of a swamp which here separated the two armies. Across this swamp our general led his cavalry, having first made tracks by laying down faggots of wood. At the sound of the trumpet, about 8000 splendidly-mounted horsemen, who had made their way across moved up the gentle slope, and then gradually quickening their pace, fell on the French centre. So deadly was the volley of the French infantry that the foremost of our squadrons recoiled and all was wild confusion. The moment had come far the French cavalry to charge, but they let the opportunity slip by. As soon as the British cavalry had reformed, they renewed the attack with redoubled fury. The French horsemen fired their carbines, wheeled, and fled. This decided the day.
6. The French centre, flung back on the Danube, was forced to surrender; their right, cooped up in Blenheim, and cut off from retreat, also became prisoners of war. Marshal Tallard was caught before he could make his escape. The French general, in command of the troops posted in Blenheim, tried to swim his horse across the Danube, and was drowned in the attempt. Before nightfall, Marlborough wrote to his wife half-a-dozen lines in pencil, on the back of an old hotel bill, to tell her to "give his duty to the queen, and let her know that her army has won a glorious victory. M. Tallard and two other generals are in my coach, and I am following the rest."
"'It was the English,' Kaspar cried,
'Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for
I could not well make out,
But everybody said,' quoth he,
'That 'twas a famous victory.'"
And it really was "a famous victory;" for it put an end to the danger of France being able to lord it over the rest of Europe, and to replace the Stuarts on the throne of England. Our free government and our present line of sovereigns are among the results which we owe to the genius of Marlborough and to the bravery of his troops.
7. But there was one other victory won in the same year as that of Blenheim, which, though it was gained almost by accident, with little fighting and little loss, has left us a prize which half the world covets. This was the capture of Gibraltar by Admiral Sir George Rooke (1704). Gibraltar was not then the strong fortress that it is now; but it was so strong by nature that the Spaniards thought a small garrison sufficient for holding it. Rooke first seized the narrow strip of land by which the Rock of Gibraltar is joined to the mainland. The next day, while the Spanish sentries were at church, some English sailors climbed up the rock and hoisted the English flag. That flag has waved over the Rock of Gibraltar from that day to this.
8. Gibraltar owes its great importance to the fact that it is situated on the strait that forms the gateway between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. It is, in consequence, called the Key to the Mediterranean. In time of war it would be invaluable to our shipping, serving as a place of refuge to our merchantmen, a coaling-station for our men-of-war, a dockyard for their repair, and a storehouse for providing them with guns, ammunition, and provisions.
NOTE I. By the Peace of Utrecht (1713), which ended the War of the Spanish Succession, it was agreed that to Britain should belong—(1) Gibraltar and Minorca, (2) Newfoundland and Acadia (Nova Scotia), and (3) Hudson Bay Territory.
NOTE 2. It should be remembered that the union between England and Scotland was effected in 1707. Hitherto we have spoken almost entirely of England and the English; we shall now have to speak chiefly of Britain and the British, not forgetting that Ireland and the Irish are included in these terms.
(3) GRANDMOTHERLY GOVERNMENT OF THE FRENCH IN CANADA.
1. We are now on the threshold of one of the most important parts of our story. In the eighteenth century was fought out the question: Should the British or the French be the ruling race of North America? In answering that question, the British navy had much to say, although the battles which decided the contest were fought mostly on land; for it was owing to Britain's command of the seas, that we were able to send our soldiers in safety across the ocean, and to supply them with all things necessary for a fighting force, whilst depriving the enemy of all succour from their friends at home.
2. The commanding position which the British navy had reached at that time is undisputed. "Before the war of the Spanish Succession," says a distinguished naval officer of the United States, "England was one of the sea powers; after it, she was the sea power, without any second. This power also she held alone, unshared by friend, unchecked by foe."
3. The Englishman who first enters Canada by way of Quebec is surprised to find himself among a people speaking French, whilst Quebec itself looks to him like a quaint old Norman town. The fact is, the majority of the inhabitants are of French descent, although at the present day as loyal to the British flag as any could desire. The explanation of this French air about the place is, of course, the fact that Canada was at first a French colony.
4. The French began to plant a colony in Canada about the same time as did the English in Virginia, but for the first fifty years it dragged out a miserable existence. A new day dawned upon Canada, when Louis XIV. took the colony in hand (1665), with the resolution that a new France should be added to the old. Soldiers, settlers, horses, sheep, cattle, were all sent out in abundance, and the well-being of the colony became the object of the king's fatherly care. Before winter set in, about two thousand persons had landed at Quebec at Louis's expense. "Thus a sunbeam from the court of France fell for a moment on the rock of Quebec." Indeed the light of the king's favour continued to fall on the colony for some years, but it failed to insure prosperity.
5. The way in which Louis treated the French colonists in Canada is a striking illustration of the difference between the French and English methods of dealing with colonies; it is the difference between liberty and restraint, between leaving the colonists to manage their own affairs under friendly help and guidance, and hampering them by foolish meddling. The French colonists were treated as children and kept in leading-strings. The king acting for some time the part of a fond father, and coddling them most unwisely. Not only were their actual wants relieved by his bounty, but every branch of trade and industry received liberal grants. They were thus trained to dependence on their rulers to whom they were expected to pay unquestioning obedience.
6. "It is God's will," wrote Louis, "that whoever is born a subject should not reason but obey." Every one of his officials seemed to be of the same opinion. "It is of very great consequence," wrote one of them, "that the people should not be left at liberty to speak their own minds." They were not free so much as to go home to France when they pleased; leave had first to be obtained. They were even told at what age to marry, and fines were imposed unless they conformed. The colonists, in fact, were in the position of a papoose, or Indian baby, bound up tight from head to foot and carried on its mother's shoulders like a pack. What was the consequence?
7. All the most active and vigorous spirits in the colony took to the woods and escaped the control of the king's officials. We hear sometimes of farms abandoned, wives and children deserted, and the greater part of the young men of a district turned into bushrangers and forest outlaws. They joined the Indians, trapped the beaver, trafficked with the natives for beaver-skins, and lived the wild life of semi-savages. This was the natural result of their not enjoying reasonable liberty in their own homes.
8. Such slow progress did New France make, notwithstanding King Louis's tender care, that on his death, in 1715, the whole colony was in the depths of poverty and numbered only 25,000 souls, whereas the English colonists in America were at that date ten times as numerous, and lived in the midst of plenty. The former depended on Government aid, the latter on themselves.
1. The treaty of Utrecht (1713) left Britain at the commencement of a long period of peace and prosperity. During that quiet period we have little that is interesting to tell. Britain was quietly growing in wealth and power, and her colonies in population and importance. By the census of 1754 it appeared that the British colonists, occupying a strip of territory about 200 miles in width along the Atlantic coasts, numbered upwards of a million souls; whereas at that date, the whole white population under the French flag in North America did not exceed 80,000.
2. Though the French settlers were so few, France laid claim to all America from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains, and from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson Bay. They claimed it by right of discovery and partial occupation. It was her explorers who first made their way down the Mississippi, her missionaries who first visited the Indian tribes of the interior, her traders who first opened a market with the natives. But the French had hardly occupied any part of that vast region south of the Great Lakes. It is true they had founded Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi and partly colonized Louisiana; but between the delta of that river and the St. Lawrence there was still a vast wilderness, the home of the bison and beaver, where the Indian trapped and hunted, with here and there a French trading post or mission station.
3. "French America," says the historian of Canada, "had two heads,—one among the snows of Canada, and one among the cane-breaks of Louisiana; one communicating with the world through the gulf of St. Lawrence, and the other through the Gulf of Mexico. These vital points were feebly connected by a chain of military posts, circling through the wilderness nearly three thousand miles. Midway between Canada and Louisiana lay the valley of the Ohio. If the English should seize it, they would sever the chain of posts and cut French America asunder." And this they seemed now (1754) on the point of doing.
4. The Governor of Canada at that time was a man of bold spirit and clear insight. He saw that the British traders were crossing the Alleghanies into the valley of the Ohio, poaching on the domains which the French claimed as their own, ruining the French fur trade, and making friends of the natives by underselling the French traders. He felt that, cost what it might, France must link Canada to Louisiana by a chain of forts strong enough to keep back the British colonists and coop them up in their old domains. The king's ministers in France were of the same mind, and ordered the governor to "send force enough to drive off the English from the Ohio, and cure them of all wish to return." The governor accordingly set to work to build forts at commanding points along the Ohio. The most important was Fort Duquesne at the forks of the Ohio, where now stands Pittsburg, with its clanging forges and flaming furnaces.
5. A young officer, who later in life became famous, George Washington, was sent with a small colonial force to expel the French, if possible, from this fort before they had time to gain a firm footing. He found however, his small force unequal to the task. Washington's failure had the effect of throwing the Indians of the Ohio into the arms of the French, for of course their one desire was to be on the winning side. And when, next year, the smouldering war burst into flame, nearly all the western tribes drew their scalping-knives for France.
6. It must be remembered that in all the fighting in America between the British and the French, the native Indians took an active share. Armed with their favourite weapon, the tomahawk, they were at close quarters dangerous foes. Their fierce aspect in full war-paint—for the warriors daubed their naked bodies with glaring colours—and their wild war-whoops were well calculated to inspire soldiers straight from England or France with considerable dread. From first to last the various tribes were always ready to join one side or the other, taking a fiendish delight in shedding blood and in crowing over their fallen foes. And both English and French were equally ready to bid for their support, and to fight side by side with them, whilst abhorring their barbarities. Some tribes were always ready to throw in their lot with the side that seemed the stronger, whilst others were permanently attached either to the English or the French.
7. The English were fortunate in having secured from the first the loyal support of the Iroquois Indians, known as the "Five Nations," the most formidable savages on the continent. But they were sorely tempted to join the French whenever they felt aggrieved at the way they were treated by the English colonists. They evidently found it difficult, at times, to choose between the two peoples. "We don't know what you Christians, English and French intend," said one of their orators, "We are so hemmed in by you both that we have hardly a hunting-place left. In a little while, if we find a bear in a tree, there will immediately appear an owner of the land to claim the property. We are so perplexed between the two that we hardly know what to think or say."
8. Being on the eve of war with the French, the colonial governors called a meeting of the chiefs of the Five Nations, at the frontier town of Albany, to try to conciliate them. At that conference one of the chiefs thus concluded his speech: "You have neglected us for these three years past." Here he took a stick and threw it behind him. "You have thus thrown us behind your back; whereas the French are always caressing us, and doing their utmost to win us over to them. You desire us to speak from the bottom of our hearts, and we shall do it. Look about your country and see; you have no fortifications, no, not even in this city. It is but a step from Canada here and the French may come and turn you out of doors. Look at the French; they are men; they are fortifying everywhere. But you are all like women, bare and open, without fortifications."
9. They were however, induced to renew the covenant with our people. A large "chain-belt" of white shells, called wampum, was provided, on which the King of England was represented, holding in his embrace the colonies and the Five Nations with their allied tribes. The chief, on accepting the belt, said in reply: "We do now solemnly renew and brighten the covenant chain. We shall take the chain-belt to Onondaga, where our council-fire always burns, and keep it so safe that neither thunder nor lightning shall break it."
10. Hearing of Washington's failure to capture Fort Duquesne, the Home Government sent out General Braddock with two regiments to take it and any other fort that prevented our colonists from spreading westwards. But both general and soldiers were ignorant of "bush-fighting," and knew little of the Indians and their mode of warfare. The French at Fort Duquesne had armed their Indian allies with firearms, and waited in ambuscade for the approach of the British who were advancing through the adjoining forest. The advanced guard had crossed a little gully and the flat beyond it, and was just crossing a second gully, when a force of about a thousand French and Indians suddenly appeared in front and flank; shots were scarcely exchanged when every enemy disappeared from view; but from behind trees on all sides, and from the two gullies, just deep enough to serve as rifle-pits, a continuous fire poured in upon the crowded British. After three hours' fighting with an invisible foe, the general, wounded and in despair, ordered a retreat.
11. News of this defeat fired the minds of all Englishmen, and all felt that nothing remained but "a fight to a finish" between the two nations for settling their respective claims in America. The "Seven Years' War," which began in 1756, was destined to decide once for all the great questions in dispute between the two rivals in that quarter of the globe. Few wars have had greater results in the history of the world, and none has brought greater triumphs to Britain, but at its opening the fortune of war, as usual, went wofully against us.
(5) "THE GREAT COMMONER" AND HIS "MAD GENERAL."
1. At the outset of the Seven Years' War the French scored a great success by the capture of Port Mahon, which was conceded to Britain by the Peace of Utrecht. It was a fortified town of Minorca, with an excellent harbour, and was of great value to our navy, as it enabled our ships to winter and refit in the Mediterranean, instead of having to come to England for that purpose.
2. Admiral Byng had been sent with a fleet to prevent its capture, but judging that the French fleet was superior to his own, both in the number of men and guns, he did not drive home the attack, but thought more of saving his ships than of saving the port. He was summoned home, tried by court-martial, and found guilty of not doing his utmost to defeat the French fleet and relieve the garrison. The unfortunate admiral was, accordingly, shot on board a man-of-war while sitting, blindfolded, in a chair on deck. The nation, by its approval, taught the lesson that an English admiral is expected to think more of destroying the enemy's fleet than of saving his own.
3. In America, also, nothing at first seemed to prosper. The men in command were old or incapable, and every attack made on the French forts failed. Thus the first year of the war ended in gloom; but with the appointment of William Pitt, as War Minister (1757), the fortunes of Britain began to brighten and went on increasing in splendour. "The Great Commoner," as Pitt was called, seemed to inspire the whole country with his own lofty spirit. "No man," said a soldier of the day, "ever entered Mr. Pitt's closet who did not feel himself braver when he came out than when he went in."
4. Pitt's greatest triumphs were gained in America. He had, of course, nothing to do with the actual fighting. It was for him to plan the campaigns, to appoint the men for carrying out his designs, and to provide them with the means of doing so successfully. His first aim was to take Louisbourg, a strong fortress of Cape Breton, which stood sentinel for the French at the entrance of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In a safe harbour, under the guns of its fortress, the French ships could bide their time, ready to strike when the right moment had come. This place, therefore, had to be captured before it would have been safe to sail up the St. Lawrence and lay siege to Quebec.
5. An army of twelve thousand men, placed under the command of General Amherst, was sent out to wrest Louisbourg, if possible, out of the hands of the French. Louisbourg, at that time, was the strongest fortress in either English or French America. At the entrance of the harbour was a rocky islet well fortified. In the harbour itself were twelve French warships with 3000 men on board. The forts of the harbour were garrisoned by 3000 troops, whilst upwards of 200 cannon were mounted on the walls. The best defence of Louisbourg was its craggy shore, with only a break here and there, commanded by the guns of one or other of the forts.
6. On examining the shores for a landing-place for his troops, the general feared that the task before him was hopeless. At length a cove was selected for the attempt and Brigadier Wolfe—who afterwards became famous—was honoured with the command of the attacking party. The place selected was more strongly defended than it seemed to be. About a thousand Frenchmen lay behind entrenchments covered in front by fir trees, felled and laid on the ground. Eight cannon were planted to sweep every part of the beach, and these pieces were masked by young evergreens stuck in the ground before them.
7. The British were allowed to come within close range unmolested. Then the batteries opened, and a deadly storm of grape and musket-shot was poured upon the boats. It was clear in an instant that to advance further would be destruction; and Wolfe gave the signal to sheer off. But three boats on the right, little exposed to the fire, made straight for the shore before them. There the men landed on a strand strewn with rocks and lashed with breakers, but sheltered from the cannon by a projecting point. Wolfe hastened to support them. Many of the boats were stove among the rocks, and others were overset, but most of the men tumbled through the surf and climbed the crags. Forming his men in compact order, Wolfe attacked and carried with the bayonet the first French battery. Thus the first footing was gained, the first move of the great game was played and won.
8. The great guns were now landed and the siege commenced. The British lines grew closer and closer, and their fire more and more destructive. On the thirteenth day of the siege the guns of the Island Battery that guarded the entrance were dismounted and silenced. The French commander, Ducour, then sank four of his large ships to block the mouth of the harbour and prevent any English ships from entering. This did not, however, prevent six hundred English sailors from rowing into the harbour on a dark night and setting fire to the remaining ships.
9. It is pleasing to find that during the siege various courtesies were exchanged between the two commanders. Ducour, hoisting a flag of truce, sent a letter to Amherst offering the services of a skilful surgeon in case any English officers required them. Amherst, on his part, sent letters and messages from wounded Frenchmen in his hands to Ducour, and begged his wife to accept a gift of pine-apples. She returned his courtesy by sending him a present of wine. After an exchange of courtesies like this the cannon spoke again. The lady herself was seen on the ramparts every morning encouraging the French soldiers by her presence, and even firing cannon with her own hand.
10. On the twenty-sixth day the last of the enemy's guns was silenced, and all was ready for the assault. Finding it impossible to hold out any longer, Ducour surrendered. It was stipulated that the garrison should be sent to England as prisoners of war, and that all artillery and arms should be given up intact.
11. Amherst proceeded to complete his task by making himself master of the adjacent possessions of France, including Cape Breton and what are now called Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Meanwhile another British force was successful in capturing Fort Duquesne, the key of the Great West. The town which rose around this fort was called Pittsburg, in honour of the minister who had planned its capture. This success opened the country west of the Alleghanies to the pushing British colonists, and deprived France of one-half of her savage allies in that region.
12. Thus ended the campaign of 1758. The Canadian winter imposed a truce on the combatants. Wolfe returned to England and, though only thirty-two years of age, was raised by Pitt, the great war minister, to the rank of general. When some one remarked to His Majesty, George II., that Pitt's new general was mad, "Mad is he?" returned the king; "then I hope he will bite some other of my generals."
(6) CAPTURE OF A SECOND GIBRALTAR.
1. The conquest of Canada hinged on the capture of Quebec the "Gibraltar of America." This task was assigned to General Wolfe—a bold, impetuous, and intrepid warrior, who had already won the admiration of the soldiers at the siege of Louisbourg, and was about to win undying fame at Quebec. No one had less the likeness of a hero. It is worth while to picture out the man as he looked, at the time of his appointment, that we may learn to distrust a hasty judgment formed from mere outside appearance.
2. The forehead and chin receded, the nose was slightly upturned, the mouth expressed no resolution, and nothing but the clear, bright, and piercing eye bespoke the spirit within. He wore a black three-cornered hat, his red hair was tied in a tail behind; his narrow shoulders, slender body, and long, thin limbs were cased in a scarlet coat, with broad cuffs and ample skirts that reached the knee; while on his left arm he wore a band of crape in mourning for his father. Wolfe's life was a constant battling with ill-health. He seems always to have been at his best in the thick of battle; most complete in his mastery over himself and others at a perilous crisis.
3. The fleet, with nine thousand troops on board, sailed out of the harbour of Louisbourg in June, 1759, the officers drinking to the toast, "British colours on every French fort, port, and garrison in America," Fifteen months later this wild wish was realised, except at New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi.
4. While the British fleet is making its way up the St. Lawrence, the French under their brave, able and humane general, Montcalm, take up a strong position east of Quebec, between two rivers, and behind earthworks which lined the shore. The British army landed on the Isle of Orleans three or four miles below Quebec. Wolfe soon saw that the task before him was a desperate one. Before him frowned the rock of Quebec, rising vertically more than 300 feet; and crowning the rock was a citadel girdled with batteries.
5. Our troops had hardly taken up their quarters, after landing, than the enemy in the hope of cutting off their retreat attempted to destroy our fleet by means of fire-ships, filled with pitch, tar, and other combustibles, mixed with bombs, grenades, and old cannon and muskets loaded to the mouth. On they came with the tide, flaming and exploding, yet doing no harm except to a few French sailors who were steering them. Some of them ran ashore before reaching the fleet; the others were caught with grappling irons by the British tars, and towed safely out of harm's way. A second attempt, later on, to burn the English fleet by means of a fire-raft met with no better success. It consisted of seventy rafts, boats, and schooners chained together. Nothing saved the fleet but the undaunted courage of the British sailors, who towed the fire-raft safe to shore, and left it at anchor, whilst sounding the well-known refrain, All's well.
GENERAL WOLFE'S ATTACK ON QUEBEC.
6. Wolfe, meanwhile, had laid Quebec in ruins, but no injury he could do could draw "the wary old fox" from his cover. The question was less how to fight the enemy than how to get at him. Montcalm persisted in doing nothing that his antagonist wished him to do. "I can't get at him," wrote Wolfe, "without spilling a torrent of blood, and that perhaps to little purpose." At last the attempt was made, and many lives were lost in vain. The troops, however, so loved and trusted their general that they were ready to do his bidding with alacrity when he resolved on a still more daring venture.
7. The time was fast approaching when the English fleet would have to leave the St. Lawrence to escape imprisonment in the ice. As a forlorn hope, it occurred to Wolfe that an attempt might be made to scale the heights under cover of night. About a mile above Quebec was a tiny bay, now called Wolfe's Cove, from which a narrow path passed up the face of the woody precipice, known as the Heights of Abraham. Close upon the brow of the hill was the post of a French captain with 150 men.
8. Whilst the main fleet made a feigned attack below Quebec, Wolfe was quietly preparing for his venture ten miles further up the river. There a squadron of ships, with 3600 troops on board, lay tranquil at anchor. Around it was collected a number of boats sufficient to take half the troops. At one o'clock two lanterns were raised to the maintop of the leading ship as a signal for the soldiers to enter the boats; and an hour later, when the tide began to ebb, the order was given to cast off and glide down with the current. The vessels, with the rest of the troops, were to follow a little later.
9. For full two hours the procession of boats floated silently down the St. Lawrence. The stars were visible but the night was moonless and sufficiently dark. The general, who was in one of the foremost boats, repeated, in a low voice to the officers sitting round, Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard. "Gentlemen," he said, as he finished his recital, "I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec."
10. The leading company disembarked on a narrow strand at the foot of the heights to be climbed, and began the ascent, each man pulling himself up by bushes, stumps of trees, and jutting rocks. On reaching the top they saw in the dim light a cluster of tents and made a dart at them. The French, taken by surprise, fled. The main body of British troops waited in their boats, near the beach, all intently listening. Soon from the top came a sound of musket shots, followed by loud hurrahs from British throats, and Wolfe knew that the position was gained. The word was given; the troops leaped from the boats and climbed the heights, clutching at trees and bushes, giving and taking hands, their muskets slung at their backs. As fast as the boats were emptied they hastened to the ships to be refilled.
11. When the day broke Wolfe's battalions were drawn up in battle array on the Plains of Abraham just behind Quebec, and there they waited for the attack, Montcalm hurried to the spot, and full in sight before him stretched the lines of Wolfe: the close ranks of the English infantry, a silent wall of red, and the wild array of the Highlanders with their bagpipes screaming defiance. The British waited until the French were within forty yards and then rang out the command, and a crash of musketry answered. Another volley quickly followed, and then came the order to charge with the bayonet. As Wolfe led on his grenadiers a shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped his handkerchief about it and kept on. Another shot struck him, but he still advanced, when a third lodged in his breast and brought him to the ground. He was carried to the rear, and there lay dying, when all at once an officer cried cut: "They run; see how they run!" "Who run?" asked the dying hero. "The enemy, sir, they give way in all directions." "Then God be praised; I shall die in peace!"
12. The brave Montcalm met with a similar fate. As, borne with the tide of fugitives, he approached the town, a shot passed through his body. He lingered until the next day, and soon afterwards Quebec opened its gates to the conquerors. In the public gardens of Quebec, there now stands an obelisk, bearing on one of its faces the word Montcalm and on the opposite face the name Wolfe; two brave men equal in honour, in devotion to duty, in patriotism.
13. The capture of Quebec was soon followed by the conquest of all Canada. All the French troops in the colony were taken back to France. Protection to person and property, and the free exercise of their religion, were promised to all the colonists who were willing to remain in the country. They had hitherto been treated as children, unable to speak and act for themselves. All this was now changed. A new spirit of freedom animated the whole colony, infusing new life and vigour into all classes. This resulted in the increase of wealth and comfort, and in the growth of a genuine loyalty to the British Crown.
(7) FIRST FOUNDER OF OUR INDIAN EMPIRE.
1. Whilst General Wolfe was fighting the French in Canada, Robert Clive was similarly engaged in India. Here, as in America, the British and French were rivals for power. Both nations had an East India Company, and until lately the two companies had confined themselves to their own proper business as merchants. The British had factories, or trading-stations, at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay; the French had their headquarters at Pondicherry. The appointment of Dupleix as governor at Pondicherry, in 1748, led to a change of policy. From that time the French began to bid for empire, and the British were not slow to follow their lead.
2. India at that time was nominally under the rule of an emperor, known as the "Great Mogul"; but the real power was in the hands of the princes who ruled, in his name, in the different provinces of the empire. Dupleix saw in this state of things a chance of making France the supreme power in India. Disputes were constantly arising between the native princes about the right of succession. Dupleix's plan was an immoral one; it was, in any dispute for a throne, to take the side of the prince who had the least right to it; for the one who gained the throne, by his help, without being entitled to it, would afterwards be only a mere puppet prince under his thumb.
3. Dupleix also perceived that the army of a native prince was merely an armed rabble, and that a small disciplined force would easily beat it, even if that force was composed of merely well-drilled natives under European officers. He perceived that the natives, though not wanting in personal courage, were as babes in the art of warfare. When, for instance, they engaged in battle, the officer in command mounted an elephant and became the standard of his army. All eyes were turned towards him; as long as he was visible the troops rallied round him; directly he fell or turned they dispersed, and the day was lost. It was thus possible for a well-directed shot to decide the fate of a battle.
4. The opportunity which Dupleix wanted was not long in presenting itself. A dispute arose between two princes for the right to rule the Carnatic, a province of Southern India. The claimant whom Dupleix favoured soon triumphed over his rival, but he was a mere tool in the hands of his French patron, who became the real ruler of the province. And to impress the natives with a sense of his greatness, he clad himself in costly native dresses, trimmed with jewels, and required his attendants to serve him on bended knee. But Dupleix was not long left in the quiet enjoyment of his honours.
5. There was a clerk in the employ of our East India Company whose adventurous spirit urged him to quit the desk and gird on the soldier's sword. That man was Robert Clive, who proved to be one of the master-makers of our empire, and the founder of British rule in India. Clive showed himself to be a born leader of men, with a genius for war, as brave as the bravest, with a presence of mind that never forsook him however great the danger. Clive proposed to make a sudden dash on Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, about a hundred miles inland from Madras. His offer was accepted, and he set out from Madras at the head of 200 English soldiers and 300 Sepoys—natives armed and drilled after the European fashion—with eight English officers.
6. Clive made the journey by forced marches through the thunder and lightning and rain of the wet season, and so astounded the garrison of Arcot that they ran without striking a blow. A force of 3000 men soon appeared to drive out the intruders. In the middle of the night on which they arrived, while all of them were fast asleep, Clive—without waiting to be besieged, as he should have done by all the rules of Indian warfare—made a sudden sally, drove them headlong from the place, and returned without losing a single man. Somewhat later a force of 8000 men encircled the city, and for fifty days the young captain foiled all their efforts to take it.
7. During this terrible time, officers and men—European and native alike—were all animated by the same undaunted spirit and by the same devotion to the young captain. When there was nothing left but rice to live and fight on, and very little of that, the Sepoys came to him of their own will to beg that the grain should be reserved for their European comrades and the water in which it was boiled for themselves.
8. At last, the enemy stormed the fort, driving before them elephants whose foreheads were armed with iron plates. It was expected that the gates would yield to the shock of these living battering-rams. But the balls from the fort sent the huge beasts flying in terror into the crowded ranks of their own masters. However, a breach had been made, and the attack went on. Clive had placed his best marksmen in front, and ordered those in the rear to load the muskets for them to fire. Three times the besiegers stormed the breach, and three times they quailed before the leaden-storm that beat upon them. During the night the enemy suddenly decamped, leaving guns and stores to the victors.
9. Clive's success at Arcot may be justly considered the first stone laid in the foundation of our Indian Empire. As the star of Clive rose so that of Dupleix sank. The prince that the latter had set up lost his throne, and Dupleix himself was recalled to France; for the French Government regarded his lofty aims and pretensions as no better than a wild dream. But the wild dream of Dupleix for France was fulfilled by Clive and his successors for Britain. To-day we see that dream realised, and an English King proclaimed Emperor of India.
10. To Clive belongs the honour of having been the first Englishman to impress the people of India with the fighting-powers of our race, the first to inspire them with the idea that Victory rode in a British war-chariot. Nothing is more essential to success in ruling the myriads of India than the conviction that our arms are sure to prevail. Fortunately, the British soldier, ever since the days of Robert Clive, has made his name famous in India; the credit he has gained for valour and victory materially aids him in battle to win the day. The name and renown gained by success and good fortune in the past is what is meant by prestige, and this heritage of ours is one of the secrets of the power that enables a few thousands of our race in India to rule its three hundred million souls.
(8) BEGINNING OF BRITISH RULE IN INDIA.
1. Who has not heard of the "Black Hole of Calcutta" and of the miscreant Surajah Dowlah, the nawab, or native governor, of Bengal? This man hated the English, and he resolved to expel them from his province. Marching to Calcutta with a large force, he seized all our countrymen within his reach, and thrust them for the night into a small stifling room. When the door was thrown open in the morning, only 23 out of 146 staggered out alive. All the rest had fallen dead from the intense heat and suffocating air.
2. When the news reached Madras there went up a cry for vengeance, and all eyes turned to Clive as the avenger. A part of the famous 39th regiment, lately arrived from England, formed the backbone of Clive's force. Admiral Watson was also at hand with a small fleet, and sailed with the avenging army to the mouth of the Hooghly (Hugli).
3. On their arrival the work of retribution began. Calcutta soon fell into their hands. The nawab's capital, Moorshedabad, was the next object of attack, Clive boldly advancing against it with his small force of 3000 men. The nawab drew up his army of 50,000 men on the plains of Plassey, a few miles in front of his capital. Whilst Clive could only muster ten light field pieces, his enemy had fifty heavy guns at his command. But there was treachery in his ranks, for Clive had won over Meer Jaffier, the principal commander of his troops, and the nawab himself was hated by his own people.
4. Clive drew up his troops in front of a grove of mangoes, and near it was a hunting-lodge from the roof of which Clive watched the nawab's army take up its position. They came on with all the pomp and panoply of war—the infantry with their banners flying, the cavalry with their drawn swords flashing back the rays of the rising sun, the elephants with their scarlet trappings, and the heavy guns with their unwieldy platforms and struggling teams of white oxen. The battle that followed lasted till noon.
5. At the right moment, Clive ordered a general advance, and after a brief struggle, disorder and dismay having spread through the ranks of his army, Surajah gave the order to retreat. Clive immediately darted forward with all his men, while the hosts of the enemy fled panic-stricken before them. The nawab mounted a swift dromedary, and was the first to reach Moorshedabad, with a bodyguard of 2000 horsemen. Plassey was not a great battle, but it was fruitful in great results. It was fought on 23rd June, 1757, a date from which is reckoned the foundation of British rule in India.
6. As an immediate result of the battle Surajah Dowlah was deposed, and Meer Jaffier made nawab. Clive was taken by the new nawab into the royal treasury of Bengal, and there, walking between heaps of gold and silver and cases filled with jewels, he was invited to help himself. He accepted about two hundred thousand pounds, and became the real ruler of Bengal. Much had yet to be done to place the power of the British in Bengal on a firm footing, but that result was achieved before Clive sailed for England (1760).
7. Whilst Clive was securing Bengal, his friend, Colonel Eyre Coote, was doing much, in southern India, to raise the British and lower the French in the eyes of the native soldiers. A decisive engagement was fought between the troops of the two rivals at Wandewash, south of Madras, in 1760. This battle is unique in the warfare of India, being fought between Europeans only. The native soldiers, on both sides, deliberately held back to let the strangers have a fair fight. The French were routed, and their prestige soon faded from the native mind. Coote's sepoys, in congratulating their general on his victory, warmly thanked him for having shown them how a battle should be fought. By the end of another year Pondicherry was surrendered to Coote, and no spot of Indian soil remained under the French flag. It is true Pondicherry was restored to France at the conclusion of the Seven Years' War (1763), but only on condition that it should be held simply for purposes of trade. Britain, on the other hand, retained possession of Bengal and bade fair to become, ere long, the ruling power in India.
8. To help England to build her Indian empire on a sound basis, our hero returned to India (1765) as governor of Bengal, with the title of Lord Clive. He soon set himself the most difficult task of his life, and that was to put an end to the corrupt practices of the officials of the Company, who were growing rapidly rich by accepting bribes to act unjustly. The whole body of officials seemed to be set, as one man, against the reforms of the new governor, but his iron will was too strong for them all.
9. By his just and honest government Clive became the friend of the Hindoo, and at the same time the true friend of his own country; for if the first establishment of British rule in India was due to British valour, its continuance is due to British truthfulness, justice and fair-dealing. All that we could have gained by being as false and subtle as the Orientals themselves were wont to be, is as nothing compared with what we have gained by being the one power in India whose word could be trusted. It is a thing of which we may be justly proud, that no oath, however binding, no hostage, however precious, inspires one tithe of the confidence which is produced by the "yea, yea" and "nay, nay" of a British envoy.
Time of Trial and Triumph
(1763-1815).
(1) TIGHTENING OUR HOLD ON INDIA.
1. The Seven Years' War, which came to a close in 1763, left Britain everywhere triumphant. But she was not left long to enjoy her triumph. Days of darkness came upon her, bringing defeat and disaster, and the loss of her principal colonies. Everywhere she had to fight to hold her own. And how well this was done for her in India by one of her ablest sons our story shall now tell.
2. If Clive was the founder of British rule in India, Warren Hastings was its preserver. Like Clive, he began his career as a clerk in the service of the East India Company. In the Bengal war he shouldered a musket and fought at Plassey; but Clive's quick eye soon perceived that there was more in his head than his arm, and he employed him as his agent at the court of the new nawab, Meer Jaffier. From this time Hastings steadily rose in the Company's service, until, in 1774, he was made Governor-General of India, the first to hold that office.
3. India at this time was a medley of nations under the nominal headship of the "Great Mogul"; but his power was very limited, and the princes who ruled in his name did much as they pleased. The most powerful of these native rulers were the Mahratta chiefs, and for many years it was a question whether the Mahrattas or the British should be the leading power in India.
4. The original seat of this fierce and cunning people was the wild range of hills that run along the western coast of India. When the Mogul empire fell to pieces, some time previously, the Mahratta chiefs made themselves masters of the central provinces, with Poona as their headquarters. They founded states which spread from sea to sea, and their sword was always at the service of the highest bidder. They were almost equally dreaded by friend and foe; the former were ruined by the heavy pay they extorted, and the latter had their country ravaged by fire and sword. Their cavalry moved in large bodies with marvellous speed, and wherever "their kettledrums were heard the peasant threw his bag of rice on his shoulder, hid his small savings in his girdle, and fled with his wife and children to the mountains or jungles, to the milder neighbourhood of the hyæna and the tiger."
5. Such were the people with whom Hastings had to contend for the safety of the British dominions in India. Hearing that France had sent an envoy to form an alliance with them, our governor-general determined to strike a decisive blow before a French force could arrive. The first general sent by Hastings bungled and failed. A new commander was appointed who spread the military renown of the British through regions where no European flag had ever been seen. Captain Popham, in particular, gained great applause by his capture of the great rock-fortress of Gwalior—a feat which all had thought impossible. At dead of night he led his forces, their feet wrapped in cotton, to the foot of the fortress. By means of ladders they silently scaled a smooth wall of rock, sixteen feet high. Above, a steep ascent of forty yards was climbed. A few of the sepoys were then drawn up a wall thirty feet high by ropes let down by some spies, and on being joined by their comrades, rushed forward and overpowered the sleeping garrison, thus gaining possession of the far-famed fortress.
6. Meanwhile our governor-general made all ready for the French. He knew that France had declared war (1778), and that a great French expedition was on the way. To Hastings' great delight there arrived from England, to take the chief command of the forces, Sir Eyre Coote, the hero of Wandewash, and the idol of the sepoys who had fought under him. An incident is mentioned by an English officer, half a century later, which shows the high honour in which Coote was held by the native soldiers. One of his veterans came to the officer who tells the story to present a memorial. Seeing a print of Coote hanging in the room, he at once recognised the face and figure which he had not seen for fifty years, and, forgetting his salute to the living, halted, drew himself up, lifted his hand, and made a solemn bow to the dead.
7. Coote's services were soon required after his arrival at Calcutta. A swift ship flying before the south-west monsoon brought the news that a great army of 90,000 men, under the direction of French officers, had poured down through the wild passes that led from the table-land of Mysore to the plains of the Carnatic. They had swept down under the command of Hyder Ali, a soldier of fortune, who had raised himself to the throne of Mysore, and who now sought, with the help of the French and the Mahrattas, to drive the British out of India. His squadrons had burst upon the Carnatic like a furious storm, spreading desolation and ruin far and wide, routing the small British force that stood in their way, and driving all before them up to the gates of Madras.
8. Such was the state of things in Southern India when Sir Eyre Coote arrived from Calcutta with all the troops that the governor-general could collect. He happily reached Madras before the expected French fleet appeared in the Indian seas. Without an hour's delay Coote sought the enemy, and brought him to battle at Porto Novo, a haven some forty miles south of Pondicherry. Though he could only muster nine thousand men to oppose a force ten times as numerous, yet after six hours of conflict the enemy fled in dismay. Every town on the coast under French rule was seized at once, so that when the French fleet arrived it found no port where it could refit. Its nearest station was in the Mauritius, two thousand miles away.
9. Many forgotten battles, with varying fortune, were fought in the five years that followed this great victory; but by 1783 the war had burnt itself out, leaving the Carnatic a scene of desolation. In Bengal, however, our governor-general had been able to maintain peace and to insure to the natives the fruits of their labours. "Under the nawabs," says Macaulay, "the hurricane of Mahratta cavalry had passed annually over the rich plain of the Ganges. But even the Mahratta shrank from a conflict with the mighty children of the sea; and the rich harvests of the Lower Ganges were safely gathered in under the protection of the English sword." One homely instance may be given of the general security felt by the poor natives under British rule. "A good rain this for the bread," said one Indian peasant to another. "Yes," was the reply, "and a good government under which one may eat bread in safety."
10. In all his schemes for the success of his rule and the honour of his country, Hastings was constantly thwarted by a member of the Supreme Council, named Francis. The quarrel between them at last, according to the custom of those days, led to a duel. In this duel, we get a glimpse of the calm courage and high spirit of the man, who was as a pillar on which rested the whole fabric of our rule in India. The seconds in the duel had taken the precaution to bake the powder for their respective friends, nevertheless, Francis' pistol missed fire. Hastings obligingly waited until he had reprimed. This time the pistol went off, but the shot flew wide of the mark. Then Hastings coolly returned the shot, and the bullet entered the right side of his foe. As soon as he was well enough to travel Francis went home to England, and poisoned men's minds against him.
11. Hastings, indeed, had laid himself open to attack in his schemes for raising money to pay his troops. The means he adopted for this purpose has left a stain on his name, and an uncomfortable feeling upon the minds of his countrymen that our empire in India has not always been built on honourable lines. On Hastings' return to England he was brought to trial for the wrongs he had committed in the course of his government. The fact was clearly brought out at his trial that, whatever his measures for obtaining money, he had taken them with the object, not of enriching self, but of promoting the interests of his country. After the trial had drawn its weary length over a period of seven years, the accused was acquitted. The nation had by this time forgotten his faults and remembered only his great services, whereby he had preserved Britain from loss in the East whilst her fortunes underwent eclipse in the West.
(2) A GREAT LOSS TO THE EMPIRE.
1. The triumphs in the Seven Years' War had not been won without great cost. A long score had been run up by the nation, and to pay the interest on the National Debt heavy taxes had to be borne. If the money spent in the last war was not to be thrown away, it was necessary to spend still more in order to defend what British arms had won. The American colonies, also, were constantly exposed to Indian raids, and the savage use of the scalping-knife. It was, accordingly resolved by the British Government to keep a standing army in America of ten thousand men. And for the maintenance of such an army it was only just that the colonists should contribute.
2. A dispute now arose between the colonists and the Home Government, not about the amount which the former should pay, but upon the way in which the demand for payment was made. The British Parliament asserted its right to tax the colonists and insisted on levying a tax on tea. The colonists urged that they should be left free to tax themselves in their own colonial parliaments. "We will not allow," said they, "the British Parliament to thrust their hands into our pockets." The dispute ended in war. The thirteen American colonies banded together, and declared themselves free and independent states (1776).
3. In the war that followed the colonists gained the day. They owed their success, in no small measure, to George Washington, their Commander-in-chief. It was only as the weary fight went on that his countrymen learnt, little by little, the greatness of their leader—his silence under difficulties, his calmness in the hour of danger or defeat, the patience with which he waited for an opportunity, the quickness and vigour with which he struck home when it came.
4. But success was due still more to the help the colonists received from France and Spain. These two powers had been brought to their knees in the Seven Years' War, and now they resolved to take advantage of the family quarrel between Britain and her colonies to pay off old scores: "to avenge," as they said, "old injuries, and to put an end to that tyrannical empire which England has usurped, and claims to maintain, upon the ocean." The main object the French had in view was not, as we might suppose, the reconquest of Canada, but the transfer to herself of the British possessions in the West Indies. Spain's heart was set on the recovery of Gibraltar. Both nations made a solemn vow to grant neither peace nor truce until Gibraltar had fallen.
5. Spain set about the siege of Gibraltar the moment she had declared war (1779). The difficulty on our side was not to keep the enemy from landing, but to keep the garrison supplied with provisions and ammunition. Our fleets, however, proved equal to the task. They were led to victory by Admiral Rodney, one of the greatest of English seamen. He not only escorted his own provision ships into the harbour of Gibraltar, but on the way captured a Spanish squadron of seven ships-of-war and sixteen supply ships, which were added to his own for the victualling of Gibraltar. A week later, when off Cape St. Vincent, Rodney espied a Spanish fleet of eleven sail-of-the-line, gave chase, and cutting in between the enemy and his port, captured the Commander-in-chief, with six of his battle-ships, whilst a seventh was blown up.
6. The siege went on for three years. At last the allies, in September, 1782, resolved to bend all their energies to finish off the work. On the isthmus, joining the rock to the mainland, they planted 300 pieces of artillery, and in front of the rock ten floating batteries, which were supposed to be both shot and fire proof. War-ships, gun-boats, and bomb-vessels were to lend their aid. Thousands of French soldiers were brought to reinforce the Spaniards, all held in readiness for a grand assault as soon as the guns had made a breach large enough for troops to enter.
7. For four days the guns on the isthmus bombarded the fortress in vain. Then the floating-batteries were brought into action. A furious cannonade raged for hours between the batteries afloat and the batteries on the rock. General Eliott, who was in command of the fortress, served his guns with red-hot balls, and at last, in spite of the enemy's frantic efforts to extinguish the fire, one of the batteries was well ablaze, and soon the same fate overtook the others. In the end, nine of the ten blew up, and about two thousand poor fellows were blown into the sea. Our commander then showed that he was as humane as he was brave. The British guns ceased firing, and boats, rowed by willing British hands, rescued four hundred from death. Thus ended the last attempt to take Gibraltar by storm.
8. A few months before her triumph at Gibraltar, Britain won a signal victory over the French in the West Indies. A French fleet, under Admiral De Grasse, consisting of thirty-six war-ships, with five thousand troops on board, was ordered to join a Spanish fleet of fourteen men-of-war, carrying eight thousand troops, off Hayti, and then clear the British out of Jamaica and all their West India possessions. Had the junction taken place, the combined armada of fifty ships might have accomplished the task. But the scheme came to nought in consequence of a splendid victory over the French fleet by Admiral Rodney.
9. The battle was fought in April, 1782, near a group of islets called the Saints, which gives its name to the battle. For four days the two fleets manoeuvred, circling round each other like two birds of prey on the wing, each admiral trying to place his antagonist at a disadvantage. At last Rodney's chance had come. The signal was given for attack. The British fleet glided on, each ship a cable's length, or about two hundred yards, from her neighbour; and so perfect was the line, we are told, "that a bucket dropped from the leading ship might have been picked up by almost any ship that followed." Rodney drew his ships within musket-shot of the enemy's, and then began a cannonade that soon wrapped the two lines in smoke and flame through their whole length. All the time the ships are in movement, the two lines sailing in opposite directions, and pouring in their shot as ship passes ship.
10. At length the crisis has come. One of the French ships is disabled and leaves a gap between itself and the next. Rodney immediately pushes his ship through the gap, thus breaking the French line. In breaking the line, says an eye-witness, "we passed so near the lame French ship that I could see the gunners throwing away their sponges and hand-spikes in order to save themselves by running below." The captains coming next to the admiral follow him through the fatal gap, thus crumpling up the French centre, and placing the French flag-ship and six others between two fires.
11. De Grasse fought his flag-ship like a gallant sailor. She was the finest ship afloat carrying 106 guns and a crew of 1300 men. In vain he signalled for help. The ships that had formed his van and his rear were flying in opposite directions. The British ships, one after another, drew round the doomed ship. When his cartridges were exhausted, De Grasse ordered powder barrels to be hoisted from the hold, and loose powder to be poured into the guns with a ladle. By sunset there were but three unwounded men on the upper deck. More slain or wounded men lay around her guns than in Rodney's whole fleet. At six o'clock, the unfortunate admiral, with his own hands, hauled down his flag.
12. Six ships fell to the British, but one caught fire and burned to the water's edge, while three were so mauled that they foundered before reaching port. The battle of Saints is famous for the skilful tactics of the victor and for the important results of the victory. Combined with the successful defence of Gibraltar, it induced the allies to bring the war to a close by the Treaty of Versailles (1783). By this treaty the independence of the United States was acknowledged. But beyond the loss of her American colonies, Britain had weathered the storm with little damage to herself.
13. The forcible separation, however, between the mother-country and her colonies bequeathed for many generations a feeling of bitterness between the two nations. But a better day has now dawned. A new bond of sympathy has arisen between them as two branches of the same Anglo-Saxon race. They are divided by a wide ocean, but at critical times it has been plainly proved that "blood is thicker than water." A voice has passed across the ocean from either side, and this is the message it tells:—
"Kinsmen, hail!
We severed have been too long:
Now let us have done with a worn-out tale,
The tale of an ancient wrong,
And our friendship last long as Love doth last,
And be stronger than death is strong."
(3) AUSTRALASIA BROUGHT TO LIGHT.
1. Britain had now lost her chief colonies in the New World, but a newer world was waiting for her to occupy. This newer world was Australia, whose existence was not known until fifty years after Columbus made his famous discovery. The first to get a glimpse of Australia were the Dutch, who called it New Holland; but they only touched on its northern and western coasts, and knew nothing of the extent and character of the interior. To a Dutchman also, named Tasman, is due the honour of having first lighted on New Zealand and Tasmania, but he did little or nothing in exploring these lands and mapping out their coasts. It was reserved for an Englishman, the famous Captain Cook, to explore the coasts and definitely fix the situation of those southern lands that now form so important a part of King Edward's Realm.
2. This celebrated explorer was the son of a day-labourer in Yorkshire, and, when a boy of six or seven, was set to work at bird-scaring on a farm. The farmer's wife, taking an interest in the lad, taught him to read and write, which few poor boys in his days were able to do. A year or two later we find him ship-boy to a collier. Whilst serving as a sailor before the mast, James Cook did what was seldom done by men in his position, he went on with his learning, and mastered the rules of navigation and the mode of making charts. For thirteen years he went on learning his business as a mariner, and training himself to take things as they came and to look on hardships and coarse or scanty fare as matters of no account in a seaman's life.
3. On the outbreak of the Seven Years' War Cook's chance came to him. He entered the royal navy, and by his talents attracted the notice of his captain and was appointed "master" of the Mercury. Whilst holding this post he was sent to the St. Lawrence to prepare for Wolfe's expedition to Quebec, by taking soundings of the river and laying down a chart. So well was this work done that not only did the fleet reach Quebec without a mishap, but the work has needed but little re-doing from that day to this. This service to his country was not forgotten; and when it was resolved to send an exploring expedition to the Southern Ocean, James Cook was placed in command.
4. Between 1768 and 1779, Captain Cook made three voyages of discovery from end to end of the great Pacific Ocean, from the impassable barrier of ice in the south to that in the north. During that time he did more to fill up the blanks on the map of the world than any man before or since. In his first voyage Captain Cook set sail in the Endeavour—a mere collier of 370 tons, but stout and strong, built for safety rather than speed, and worked by a crew of eighty-five men. The explorer made direct for Tahiti, and after refitting his ship and refreshing his men at this earthly Paradise set sail for New Zealand.
5. Though discovered long ago by Tasman, no white man had yet set foot on it. During his three voyages Cook thoroughly explored and mapped out its coasts. He often landed and made the acquaintance of some of the chiefs. The natives, who called themselves Maoris, proved to be a warlike race of cannibals, who not only ate human flesh, but boasted of the practice. The natives derived much benefit from the visits of the explorer; for he introduced many useful animals and plants, including pigs, fowls, potatoes, and turnips.
6. The captain in his Journal tells us that the Maoris paid no attention to musketry fire unless actually struck, but "great guns they did, because they threw stones further than they could comprehend. After they found that our arms were so superior to theirs, and that we took no advantage of that superiority, and a little time was given them to reflect upon it, they ever after were our good friends." He also found in them a sense of honour which kept them true to any bargain or agreement they had made.
7. The great explorer next sailed for Australia, then almost an unknown land. Cook was the first to visit the East Coast, which he explored with great care. The first point of Australia seen by his look-out man was Cape Howe, in the south-east corner of the country. A few days later the Endeavour anchored in Botany Bay, which owes its name to the great variety of new plants seen there.
8. The English made there their first acquaintance with the natives, who on seeing the strange vessel near the shore did not seem to take the slightest notice; "they were," says Cook, "to all appearance wholly unconcerned about us, though we were within half-a-mile of them." And even when the sailors threw among them little presents of beads and pieces of cloth, they regarded such things with indifference. The only thing they cared to accept was food, and this, when given them, they greedily devoured. They were neither excited to wonder by the ship nor overawed by the sound of its guns. They were evidently savages of a low order, not intelligent enough to be curious. They stood sullenly aloof, and would enter into no relation with the stranger.
Captain Cook Presenting Pigs and Fowls to the Maoris.
9. For the next three or four months the explorer proceeded northwards, making a careful survey of the coasts. At one time it seemed likely that the ship and its crew would perish. After sailing 1300 miles along the East Coast without meeting with any accident, the Endeavour suddenly struck on a part of the Barrier Reef, whose existence at that time was unknown. A great hole was knocked in the vessel. A sail, with a quantity of wool and oakum lightly stitched to it, was placed beneath the ship with ropes, and served in some measure to stop the leak. The ship was at length got off the rock, brought to land and beached for repairs, at a spot in Queensland where now stands Cooktown.
10. Cook afterwards completed the survey of the East Coast and gave the name of New South Wales to the whole country, from Cape York to Cape Howe. Already at Botany Bay, and at other landing places, Cook had hoisted the British Flag, and now, before quitting Australia on his homeward way, he once more landed and took formal possession in the name of King George. Thus he added what turned out a whole continent to the British Empire, and that without sacrificing a single life in battle; and thus in great measure he made up for our loss in the New World by opening the door of a newer world which our people might enter and occupy.
(4) FIRST SETTLEMENT IN AUSTRALIA.
1. In former times we used to get rid of our criminals by sending them across the seas to work, as forced labourers, on the farms of our colonists in America. But when the colonists rose in rebellion and fought for independence, they refused to take any longer our thieves and vagabonds. As the war went on our prisons became crowded with convicts, and by the time it came to an end (1783) every one saw that some other field for convict labour must be found.
2. An empty continent, whose whereabouts Captain Cook had made known, was waiting to receive any who came from our shores; but it was situated on the opposite side of the globe, twelve thousand miles away. At length, in spite of the distance, Australia was selected as a suitable place for our convicts. And in May, 1787, the first convoy set sail. It carried nearly 800 convicts, with a guard of 200 marines, and was placed under the command of Captain Phillip, who had been appointed governor of the new settlement.
3. The voyage lasted eight months, and in January, 1788, the fleet arrived at Port Jackson, which struck the new-comers as "the finest harbour in the world." All being landed, governor Phillip gathered his subjects around him and made them a little speech, in which he tried to inspire the convicts with new hope, and to make them feel that their future fortune was in their own keeping. He also reminded the marines that after three years' service, they would be at liberty to settle there as colonists with free gifts of land for cultivation. The ships fired three salutes, and the rest of the day was spent as a holiday.
4. This was the last cheery time for many years to come in the lives of the settlers. Hard times lay before them. The first settlement was made on the site of Sydney. The task which lay before the governor was a gigantic one; roads to make, trees to fell, houses to build, crops to plant; and the men and women to help him in the work, for the most part idle and dishonest. Indeed, many of them, as the governor said, "dread punishment less than they fear labour." To add to his troubles, for the first two years a great drought, aided by a fiery sun, baked the soil till it became hard and sterile. The settlers had brought with them seeds and cattle as well as stores of provisions; but the seeds failed to grow, and the cattle broke loose and were lost in the "bush."
5. Within a few months the danger of starvation came so near that the whole colony was put on short rations. To the credit of the governor, in this time of distress, he threw his own private stock into the common store, and shared alike with the rest. To lessen the chance of starving, the governor sent a large party by sea to Norfolk Island, where the soil was less sterile, and more food could be obtained by fishing and fowling. There also it became necessary to collect all private stores of food, and to throw them into one common stock, and deal out a certain quantity daily to each person.
6. Happily the firm government and wise measures adopted in each settlement kept the wolf from the door until fresh supplies came from England. Governor Phillip having shared the privations of his men, and borne the heavy strain of his responsible post for nearly five years, returned home in December, 1792. Few men have been placed in a more difficult position for such a length of time, and none have brought to the fulfilment of such a thankless task as his more courage, devotion, and humanity. "The consideration alone," he says, "of doing a good work for my country could make amends for being surrounded by the most infamous of mankind." The name of Arthur Phillip deserves an honoured place on the roll of the founders of the British Empire.
7. Another convict settlement was soon afterwards made in Tasmania, or Van Diemen's Land, as it was then called. And here the worst characters were sent. As early as 1804 a batch of criminals was sent there from England, and a settlement made where Hobart now stands. Through mismanagement the young colony was brought to the verge of starvation. Luckily there were large herds of kangaroo in the island. The governor, being unable to feed his prisoners, permitted them to hunt the kangaroo for their food. In fact, at one time, there was little to eat but kangaroo flesh, and little to wear but kangaroo skins. Many of the convicts became fond of this hunter's life, and preferred the wild freedom of the "bush" to the restraints of convict life under the eye of the governor.
8. Fortunately, before many years had passed, free emigrants came "to try their luck," some to Australia, others to Tasmania, being tempted by the offer of free gifts of land, and the services of well-behaved convicts to help in farm-labour. The free colonists of Tasmania soon found themselves in evil plight. Many of the convicts assigned to them fled into the "bush," where they lived in gangs, as "bushrangers," on violence and robbery. The evil grew to such an extent that, at last, every homestead became the scene of terror and dismay. Nor was "bushranging" the only evil from which Tasmania's early colonists suffered. The native blacks were naturally cruel and crafty, and they had been goaded on to take revenge on the white strangers by the barbarous way in which they had been treated by the runaway convicts.
9. From this desperate state the colony was delivered by Colonel Arthur on his appointment as governor. To him Tasmania owes the foundation of its prosperity. He spared no pains to ascertain his duty and was as rigid as rock in doing it. Under his leadership the settlers banded together against the bushrangers, and defended their homesteads as soldiers in regular warfare. They loopholed their buildings, posted men as sentinels, and held themselves in readiness to fight, both by day and night. The governor rewarded the capture of any bushranger with a grant of land, and before the end of two years the whole gang was taken and executed.
10. Arthur's next care was to relieve the colony of the blacks, between whom and the whites a deadly feud existed. His desire was to collect all the natives and confine them to one district. He assembled all the settlers to aid his troops in driving the poor savages out of their haunts. He placed his men at intervals, so as to form a line stretching across the island, with orders to advance and either catch the blacks or coop them up in a corner of the island. After two months of marching, at an expense of £30,000, the whole operation resulted in the capture of a man and a boy. But kindness succeeded where force failed. They were persuaded by George Robinson, who had proved himself their friend, to withdraw to Flinders Island in Bass Strait. There, to his grief, they rapidly dwindled, and in the course of a few years became extinct.
11. Both natives and convicts have long disappeared from Tasmania, and the colonist can now live there in peace and quietness, in a land of natural beauty with an agreeable climate. It is not a country where a fortune can be rapidly made, but where food is plentiful and labour well paid.
(5) PIONEER WORK IN AUSTRALIA.
1. The chief source of wealth in Australia is, and always has been, its excellent wool. The founder of the wool industry was Captain McArthur, whose quick eye saw from the first that the country was best adapted to sheep-farming. He also saw that the value of sheep in this far-away country, with its scanty population, would depend upon their wool rather than their flesh. He accordingly introduced some Spanish merino sheep, and succeeded in producing a breed of animals that thrived well on the grasses of the country and grew wool of the finest quality. MacArthur, therefore, is entitled to the credit of having laid the foundation of Australian prosperity. With the same stroke of business, he did a great service to the mother-country. The war then raging with France and Spain—just before their defeat at Trafalgar—had cut off from English looms the supplies of Spanish wool on which they had hitherto relied. Thus the colony that had been chiefly valued by the Home Government as a dumping-ground for criminals, rose high in their estimation as a country to which our woollen manufacturers would be able to turn for their much-needed wool.
2. Sheep-farming is an industry that demands great stretches of suitable land for sheep-runs. The sheep-farmers of New South Wales, soon found it difficult to get enough elbow-room. You may think this strange, considering the vast expanse of Australia. But in the early days of the colony, the settlers occupied merely a narrow strip between the mountains and the sea. The Blue Mountains, which rose at the back of Sydney, seemed to hem them in, and to cut them off from the unknown country beyond.
3. For the first quarter of a century, few serious efforts were made to cross the range. The early governors, indeed, discouraged all such attempts; for they were afraid of its being made too easy for the convicts to escape, since they were not kept in prison, but put out to farm-labour. But with the coming of Macquarie, as governor, in 1810, all this was changed. He made it his chief business to prepare the colony as a suitable place for free settlers from home, and for such convicts as had served out their time and became free men. He at once set to work to rebuild Sydney, to make roads and bridges, to clear the forests, and to improve the public property in various ways.
4. Seeing the importance of enlarging his domains, he encouraged the free settlers to range as far afield as possible, and induced Blaxland and two others to face the perils of the mountains, and try to find a way to the interior. All previous explorers had failed because they tried to find passes, as is usually done, by following the valleys. But in the Blue Mountains the valleys end in perpendicular cliffs, which say, as plainly as a man can speak, No road this way. Blaxland and his companions determined to try the ridges, keeping as high as possible all the time. For several days they pushed through a wild and barren land, cutting every afternoon the track along which their horses, with their packs of provisions, would travel the next morning. On the seventeenth day they stood on the last summit, and saw with great joy the grassy plains that lay beyond.
5. On their return the delighted governor sent off another party to follow the same route and to explore still farther. They reported, on coming back, that the new country was "equal to every demand which this colony may have for extension of tillage and pasture lands for a century to come." The convicts were forthwith set to work to make a road across the Blue Mountains. This difficult undertaking was finished in two years, and in 1815, two months before the Battle of Waterloo brought peace to Europe, the road was ready for traffic.
6. News of the bright prospects of the colony reached England in the nick of time, when the end of the long war with France threw thousands of soldiers, sailors, and workmen out of employment. A stream of emigrants soon began to flow into Australia and to clamour for gifts of land. From this time the colony began to prosper. The work of exploration went steadily on. Little by little it became clear that behind the mountain-range that skirts the east and south-east coasts, there stretched far into the interior vast plains capable of feeding countless flocks, where now millions of sheep furnish wool for the looms of our manufacturers.
7. Many years passed before any explorer came upon an important river. There is, in fact, but one really fine river in Australia, and that is the Murray, which was discovered, in 1830, by Captain Sturt. Sailing down the Murrumbidgee, he found the river take a sudden turn to the south. "We were carried," he writes, "at a fearful rate down between its glowing and contracted banks.... At last we found we were approaching a junction, and all of a sudden we were hurried into a broad and noble river." It was the Murray, and Sturt endeavoured to follow the river to its mouth, which proved to be a distance of a thousand miles.
8. The natives as a rule were few in number, weak, timid, and harmless; but on this occasion they gathered, to the number of six hundred, in a well-chosen position on a shallow reach of the river to dispute its passage, and made their intention clear by yelling and brandishing spears. "As we neared the sandbank," Captain Sturt relates, "I stood up and made signs to the natives to desist, but without success. I took up my gun, therefore, and cocking it, had already brought it to the level. A few seconds more would have closed the life of the nearest savage, for I was determined to take deadly aim, in the hope that the fall of one man might save the lives of many. But, at the very moment when my hand was on the trigger, my purpose was checked by my companion, who directed my attention to another party of blacks on the left bank of the river."
9. "Turning round, I observed four men running at the top of their speed. The foremost of them, as soon as he got ahead of the boat, threw himself from a considerable height into the water. He struggled across the channel to the sandbank, and in an incredibly short time, stood in front of the savage against whom my aim had been directed. Seizing him by the throat he pushed him backwards, and driving all who were in the water upon the bank, he trod its margin with a vehemence and agitation extremely striking. At one time pointing to the boat, at another, shaking his clenched hand in the faces of the most forward, and stamping with passion on the sand, his voice that was at first distinct and clear, was lost in hoarse murmurs." After a river journey of thirty-two days, from this spot, Sturt reached, without further adventure, the coast of South Australia. He observed that near the sea, it widened into a shallow lagoon, which he named Lake Alexandrina, and that its course thence to the sea, was, by shallow channels of shifting sand, difficult to navigate.
10. Colonists followed close on the heels of the explorer. As fast as the news spread of the discovery of suitable lands for crops or sheep-runs, men moved on from less favoured districts to take possession, and the lands thus left vacant, were soon occupied by immigrants from Britain. The arrival of so many free labourers made convict labour no longer necessary, and the feeling of the colonists against the reception of our rogues and scoundrels constantly grew stronger. Accordingly, in 1840, the transportation of convicts to New South Wales came to an end, and a few years later, every colony in Australia shut its gates against them.
(6) REMARKABLE INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS.
1. We must now return from following the fortunes of our kinsmen on the opposite side of the world, and see what had been going on, meanwhile, at home. There is a vital connection between what was happening here and what we have stated about events out there. If our countrymen were permitted to settle down quietly in Australia, and to take undisputed possession of the whole continent, it was not because no other nation had a desire to appropriate any part of it, but because we alone commanded the great highway that led to its shores. And this command of the seas our forefathers had with might and main to fight for while our countrymen were laying the foundations of a new British state in the Southern Seas.
2. When the Treaty of Versailles was signed (1783), by which Britain acknowledged the independence of the United States, it was widely thought that she was ruined, and that she had fallen for ever from her proud place among the nations. The real greatness of a nation is never so well seen as in her conduct after defeat and disaster. In seven years from the loss of the American Colonies, the Prime Minister was able to say, "The country at this moment is in a situation of prosperity greater than in the most flourishing period before the last war." The world was startled to find that Britain, instead of being ruined by her loss, was fast becoming stronger and greater than ever.
3. This marvellous recovery was due, partly to the enterprising character of our countrymen; partly to the vast resources of our country in its stores of coal and iron; and partly to a number of remarkable inventions that enabled us to make the most of those resources. Indeed, the ten years that followed the Treaty of Versailles saw a display of industrial activity in England such as the world had never witnessed before.
4. Owing to inventions by Arkwright and others of machines for the spinning and weaving of cotton, England began to manufacture calicoes and cotton prints for half the world. About the same time Josiah Wedgwood set his wits to work to make porcelain as good as that from China, and became the father of the potteries of Staffordshire. The iron manufacture now began its prosperous career; for the mode of smelting iron with pit-coal, instead of charcoal, had lately been discovered.
5. But the extraordinary advance in British manufactures was due more than to anything else to the improvements made in the steam-engine by James Watt. Under his clever hands the steam-engine became the most powerful and obedient servant of man; and steam became, in consequence, the great motive-power in most of our factories. It would hardly have been possible, however, to make an extensive use of this steam-power unless there had been some cheap way of conveying coal to the seats of manufacture. There were in those days, we must remember, no railways, for no locomotive engine had yet been invented. The place of railways was supplied, in respect to the carriage of coal and other heavy goods, by a network of canals.
6. The introduction of the cotton machines had, at first, a cruel effect upon the work-people. In the long run, however, it brought them vastly more work; for machine-made things being much cheaper than those made by hand, it usually happens that the demand for the cheapened article becomes so much greater as to give more employment than before in its production. But even if this were not so, it is well known now-a-days that it is useless to fight against the introduction of machines. What, for instance, would be the result, if the shoemakers of Northampton set their faces against the introduction of certain labour-saving machines commonly used in America? Unless such machines were used here, the English masters would be undersold by those in America, and the trade in consequence would fall into American hands; for, of course, people will buy where they can get most for their money.
7. But when the new machines for spinning cotton were first set a-going, the uselessness of fighting against their employment was not understood. The hungry workers only knew that the bread was taken out of their mouths by the new machines, and therefore they regarded the inventors—poor men for the most part like themselves—as the enemies of their fellow-workers. Their anger often blazed forth into open violence; machines were smashed and mills wrecked. Baulked in one place, the inventors set up their machines in another, and it was soon found that the bulk of the trade followed the machines.
8. Whatever may have been the effect that the new machines had upon the happiness and well-being of the old hand-workers, it is certain that the country at large gained immensely in wealth. And it was soon to stand in need of every penny it could get. For in 1793 began "the great French war," which ended only with the victory at Waterloo in 1815, a war lasting, with two short intervals, two and twenty years, and so costly that it left us with a National Debt amounting to £880,000,000. That England was able to raise such a huge sum was due in no small measure to the cotton-mill and steam-engine. England, indeed, might well place the statues of Arkwright and Watt side by side with those of Nelson and Wellington; for had it not been for the wealth which the former created, there would have been no well-equipped fleets and armies for the latter to command.
9. Another great source of wealth, during the war itself, was the immense share which England gained of the carrying trade of the world, owing to the security which her merchantmen enjoyed in consequence of the victories of her fleets. While her mines, her looms, her steam-engines were giving her the principal share in the manufacture of goods, ships flying the British flag spread her own products through the world and carried to every part of it the products of other countries. England, in fact, was at once the workshop of European manufactures and the ocean-carrier of its commerce.
1. "The great French War," which began, as we have said, in 1793 and lasted almost two and twenty years, ended triumphantly for the British at Waterloo; but whilst the war continued, it was a great drain on England's resources, and a great strain on her powers of endurance. The war had not long gone on, when it became evident that a great military genius had arisen among the French in the person of Napoleon Bonaparte, and that in Horatio Nelson the British had an equally great leader in fighting on the seas.
2. Nelson seems to have been sent into the world to frustrate the proud schemes of Napoleon, though one fought only on land and the other at sea. Nelson's name only appears in our annals between 1793 and 1805, but his career lasted long enough for the fulfilment of his mission, which was to sweep the French war-ships from the sea, and thus save his country from invasion, and its colonies from capture. Such horror and alarm had the French caused by the torrent of blood they had shed in shearing off the heads of their sovereigns and nobles, and by the triumphant tramp of their armies over the neighbouring states, that Nelson only expressed the general feeling of Europe when he said, "Down, down with the French, ought to be posted up in the council-room of every country in the world."
3. Nelson first drew the eyes of the whole world upon himself, in 1798, by his famous victory of the Nile. Napoleon Bonaparte had sailed from Toulon with 30,000 troops on board 400 transports, escorted by a fleet of thirteen men-of-war. Nelson who was sent in pursuit with a squadron, also numbering thirteen ships-of-the-line, found the transports empty in the harbour of Alexandria, and the French fleet anchored in the Bay of Aboukir.
4. Imagine thirteen great battle-ships drawn up in a single line parallel with the shore, but on account of the shallow water three miles from it, with the Orient, the French flag-ship, in the centre. The ship in the van, at one end of the line, was anchored so close to an island, which stands at the western entrance to the Bay, that no one in the French fleet imagined that there was room for a ship to pass in between them. But as Nelson said, "Where a French ship can swing, an English ship can either sail or anchor."
5. Ship for ship, the French had a decided advantage in the number and size of their guns. Nelson, however, took care not to engage the whole line, but brought the whole weight of his guns to bear upon a part only. This he was able to do by sailing between the French van and the island, five of his ships taking up their stations on the inner side of the enemy's line, and the rest on the outer side. Thus the French van and centre were caught between two fires, whilst the rear ships, being at anchor to leeward, were unable to come to the rescue of their distressed sisters.
6. It was already dusk when the first broadside was fired. Not a moment had been lost in getting into action. Three of Nelson's ships were miles off when the battle began. It was so dark when the Culloden arrived that it struck on a shoal and there lay useless right through the battle. The other two, warned by her fate, reached the scene of action in safety. They came just in time to take the place of the Bellerophon, which was retiring maimed and disabled after a combat of more than an hour with the Orient, the largest ship afloat. The two new-comers, placing themselves on either side of this monster, made up for delay by the rapidity of their fire.
7. At the end of an hour flames were observed on the poop of the Orient. The nearest English ships brought their guns and musketry to bear upon the blazing poop, and made the task of extinguishing the fire quite hopeless. The flames spread rapidly, upward along the masts and the tarred rigging, downward to the lower decks, where her undaunted crew, still ignorant of their approaching doom, worked at the guns. Nelson, who had been struck on the forehead by a flying piece of iron, and for the time almost blinded, demanded to be led on deck, where he gave orders for the boats to be lowered to help in saving the unhappy crew. He then remained watching the progress of the fire. In less than an hour the flames reached the powder-magazine, when a terrific explosion shattered the great vessel into fragments, and hurled the brave seamen into the air. Ten minutes of death-like stillness passed before a gun dared to break the awful pause. In the meantime our sailors were busily rescuing the unfortunate French sailors that had been blown out of their ship.
8. At dawn it was found that the six ships of the French van had hauled down their flag. The Orient having blown up, there were six survivors. Of these three were ashore and helpless; but the other three, being in the rear, had received little injury, and now got under way to make off. On setting sail one of them ran aground. The crew escaped to the beach, and she was then set on fire by the captain, her colours flying as she burned. The two other ships escaped, for only one British ship was in condition to give chase.
9. The crews were so worn out with their night's work that "as soon as the men," writes Captain Miller of the Theseus, "had hove our sheet anchor up they dropped under the capstan bars, and were asleep in a moment in every sort of posture." Nelson took the earliest opportunity of returning thanks to God for this great victory:
"Vanguard, 2nd August, 1798.
"Almighty God having blessed His Majesty's arms with victory, the Admiral intends returning Public Thanksgiving for the same at two o'clock this day; and he recommends every ship doing the same as soon as convenient.
"HORATIO NELSON."
10. The results of Nelson's victory were highly important. In giving England the command of the Mediterranean, it utterly spoiled Bonaparte's design. He came to conquer Egypt, because he regarded that country as the gate to India and as a kind of jumping-off place from which to attack our Eastern possessions. But the loss of the French fleet left him and his army stranded in Egypt without the means of drawing supplies from France. Bonaparte did not at once give up all hope of reaching India. He crossed the desert into Syria, but was brought to a standstill before the walls of Acre. And on trying to take the place by storm, his troops were hurled back by the Turkish garrison, with the aid of a small British squadron under Sir Sidney Smith. Bonaparte was wont to say, in later days, that but for Sidney Smith, he might have died Emperor of the East.
11. To the victory of the Nile we also owe our possession of Malta; for the destruction of the French Mediterranean fleet left our ships free to blockade, without serious hindrance, the harbour of Valetta, and to starve out the French garrison by whom it was held. Thus fell into our hands one of the strongest links of the chain that binds India to England, and what is regarded—from its strong fortress, excellent harbour, and central situation—-the best naval station in the Mediterranean.
(8) NELSON'S CROWNING VICTORY.
1. Napoleon hastened back from Egypt to France at the first opportunity, and being raised to supreme power took measures for building a strong fleet. This he viewed as the first step towards the invasion of England. He next collected an immense flotilla of flat-bottomed boats at Boulougne, to transport an invading army across the Channel. His troops were eagerly awaiting the signal to embark, like hounds straining at the leash with the hare in sight.
2. Napoleon knew that the only chance of getting his army across "the silver streak" was to get command of the Channel for at least a few hours. With this end in view, he had induced Spain to join him, and devised a scheme for the union of all the French and Spanish men-of-war and their sudden appearance in the Channel. But the best-laid schemes often go awry, and so did this one. The allied fleets did, indeed, come together, but not in the Channel. They were encountered by a British fleet under Nelson, off Cape Trafalgar.
3. The battle of Trafalgar, fought on the 21st October, 1805, is one of the most famous sea-fights on record. The allies mustered thirty-three battleships, the British twenty-seven. Nelson arranged the general order of battle with his captains some days beforehand. He drew up his ships, on the fateful day, in two columns, placing himself at the head of one column in the Victory, whilst Admiral Collingwood in the Royal Sovereign took the lead in the other. The allies received the attack with their ships arranged in a single irregular line, stretching from north to south in front of the harbour of Cadiz.
4. Nelson arranged that the two British columns should advance parallel to each other, and bear down on the enemy at right angles to their line. Collingwood was to break through the line near the centre and engage the ships forming the rear to the south; Nelson himself undertook to break through the line, also near the centre, and so dispose his forces as to leave unengaged ten or a dozen of the enemy's ships forming the van, to the north. By the time these ships tacked so as to come into action, it was hoped that the day would be decided, the allied ships in the centre and rear having had to bear the whole brunt of the attack made by the entire British fleet.
5. Having made all arrangements for the approaching fight, Nelson went down into his cabin to pray. The words of his prayer, written on his knees in his private diary, the last he ever penned, ran thus:—
"May the great God, whom I worship, grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may humanity after victory be the predominant feature of the British fleet. For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him who made me, and may His blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my country faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen, Amen, Amen."
6. Then our hero appeared on deck ready for anything that might befall him. Just before going into action he issued the famous signal, "England expects that every man will do his duty." The ships of the three nations now hoisted their colours, and the admirals their flags. Nelson wore, as usual, his admiral's frock coat, on the left breast of which were stitched the stars of four different orders. The officers on board the flagship saw these stars with dismay, knowing as they did that the enemy's ships swarmed with soldiers, many of whom were sharpshooters, and that the action would be at close quarters. But none dared to advise their chief to make himself less conspicuous.
7. The Royal Sovereign was the first to reach the enemy's line. As the Victory at the head of the second column advanced, she became the target of all the ships in the enemy's centre. For forty minutes she had to endure the hail of the enemy's shot in silence, her speed continually getting less as one sail after another was stripped from the yards. Despite her injuries the Victory continued to forge ahead, and at last her bows crossed the wake of the French flag-ship, by whose stern she passed within thirty feet. Now spoke the double-shotted guns of the Victory, as they passed in succession the French admiral's ship, their shots raking the vessel from stern to stem. Twenty guns were at once dismounted and a hundred men laid low.
8. The Victory, passing on, brought up alongside the Redoubtable. The rigging of the two ships got entangled so that they lay side by side, with their guns almost mouth to mouth. Both ships were soon on fire. The flames, however, were soon extinguished, but the fury of battle grew fiercer. Marksmen in the rigging of the French ship shot down at the officers and men on the deck of the Victory. The figure of a one-armed officer, with epaulettes on his shoulders and stars upon his breast, attracted the notice of one of these marksmen. The man fired, and the ball shot through epaulette and shoulder and lodged in the spine. The wounded Nelson fell into Captain Hardy's hands, saying, "They have done for me at last."
9. Nelson was carried to the cockpit with his handkerchief over his face and breast, so that the crew might not become discouraged by observing his fate. The dying hero, an hour or two later, sent for his friend Hardy, but he was unable to leave the deck for some time. "Well, Hardy," said Nelson, when at last he appeared, "how goes the battle?" "Very well, my lord; we have got twelve or fourteen of the enemy's ships already in our possession." "I hope none of our ships have struck, Hardy." "No, my lord, there is no fear of that." Nelson then said, "I am a dead man, Hardy. I am going fast" .... "I feel something rising in my breast," he said, somewhat later, "which tells me I am gone. God be praised, I have done my duty." The last words audible were, "God and my country."
10. By the time firing ceased, near sunset, seventeen of the enemy's ships had struck, and one, with the tri-coloured ensign still displayed, was burning to the water's edge. Our boats used every effort to save the brave fellows who had so gloriously defended her; but only two hundred and fifty were rescued, and she blew up with a tremendous explosion.
11. Nelson's victory secured for Britain the undisputed sovereignty of the seas, freed her from all fear of invasion, ensured the safety of the seas to her merchantmen, and threw a strong shield over her colonial possessions. When Nelson died, his work was done, his mission ended; but yet he has not ceased to be a source of living power, "he being dead yet speaketh." Wherever danger has to be faced and duty done, at cost to self and for the sake of fatherland, there the name and deeds of Nelson still speak with an uplifting force.
12. It is interesting to know that Nelson's splendid services and his mournful death are still commemorated in the Royal Navy by certain details, in each blue-jacket's dress, with which we are all familiar. The three rows of white braid on the collar recall the three greatest of Nelson's victories—the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar; whilst the black silk handkerchief, worn by each sailor, reminds him of the sad occasion when it was first assumed in token of mourning for the fallen hero in the hour of victory.
1. Whilst Nelson was sweeping the French war-ships off the ocean, and securing for Britain the sovereignty of the seas, the Marquess Wellesley was turning every French soldier out of India, and making British rule supreme in that country. Wellesley held office as governor-general of India between 1798 and 1805, the years of Nelson's victories of the Nile and Trafalgar. The former victory relieved Wellesley of all fear of a French invasion of India, and left him free to deal with the native princes, who had now nothing to rely upon but their own resources.
2. The time had now come for England to make herself the mistress of India. During the last hundred years the Mogul Empire had gone more and more to pieces, and now the old emperor was a prisoner in the hands of one of the Mahratta princes. It was in the interests of good government that one power should arise strong enough to keep all the others in order, and with a sense of justice keen enough to hold the balance fairly between them. Our governor-general did not for a moment doubt that the power best qualified for giving the law to India was the British, and he resolved, if possible, to make that power supreme.
3. Wellesley's plan was to separate the states under native princes from each other by encircling them with a ring of British territory, like so many islands surrounded by the sea, and to gain possession of the sea coasts so as to exclude all foreign foes. His first aim was to destroy all French influence. His watchword, like Nelson's, was "Down with the French," who at that time, we must remember, were trying, under Napoleon, to enslave all Europe. Many of the Indian princes had French soldiers in their pay, by whom their armies were trained. The Marquess began his great task by persuading our ally, the Nizam of the Deccan, to dismiss his French officers, and these he packed off home by the next ship. The sepoys whom they had drilled were disbanded, and then induced to take service under British officers.
4. The Nizam thus became a dependent ally. He was still master in his own domains, and over his own people, but he could no longer make war or form alliances, on his own account, with other princes. He had, in fact, bartered his independence for protection. In any attack from another state he was assured of being defended, if need be, by the whole force of British India. This system of protected states made great progress whilst Wellesley held office.
5. The princes who put themselves under British protection were expected to receive one of our officials at his court, and to be guided by his advice. They were also required to admit British troops as a part of their standing army. And when they complained of the cost of their maintenance, the Marquess offered to accept a slice of their territory and to pay the troops out of its revenues. This may seem sharp practice, but it worked well in the interests of the Hindoos who came under our rule. The ceded districts soon became the home of an industrious population, who looked to British officials for justice, and looked not in vain.
6. Before Wellesley had been five years in office the whole of Southern India, the whole plain of the Ganges, and a strip along the whole of the eastern coast were under the direct rule of the British or their dependent allies. The Mahratta princes alone were capable of doing much mischief, and the time had now come to put an end, if possible, to the bloodshed and ruin that followed the track of their horsemen. With two of the Mahratta princes the Marquess came to terms without fighting; with the remaining three he went to war. Having organized two armies, he placed one under the command of General Lake to invade the northern part of the Mahratta dominions, and the other under the command of his brother, Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, to wage war in the southern part of their territory.
Marquess Wellesley and the Nizam.
7. "The hero of a hundred fights" won his first great victory at Assaye, in the Nizam's dominions, which the Mahrattas had invaded. With a force of 5000 men he defeated the enemy, numbering, it is said, eight to one. The English general took advantage of the junction of two rivers, near Assaye, to place his little army in the angle between them, so as to be open to attack only in front. But to get into this position it was necessary to cross one of the rivers, and his guide assured him there was no ford by which the passage could be made.
8. Going forward to see for himself, General Wellesley observed that two villages stood facing each other on opposite banks of the river. "I immediately said to myself," he tells us, "that men could not have built two villages facing one another on opposite sides of a stream without some means of passing from one to the other. And I was right. I found a passage, crossed my army over. And there I fought and won the battle, the bloodiest for the numbers that I ever saw."
"This is England's greatest son,
He that gained a hundred fights,
Nor ever lost an English gun;
This is he that far away
Against the myriads of Assaye
Clash'd with his fiery few and won."
9. Meanwhile, General Lake was equally successful at the other end of the Mahratta's dominions. After a great but costly victory, he entered Delhi in triumph, and delivered the old emperor from his long captivity. Wellesley nominally restored him to the throne and set apart £150,000 a year for his maintenance; but from this time the Emperor of India was merely a pensioner in the pay of the British and under British control, forbidden even to go beyond the walls of Delhi, where the "Great Moguls" formerly gave the law to the whole of India. The real masters of India, from this time, were the British.
10. Marquess Wellesley's work in India was now done. He had attained every object he proposed to himself. The last of the French officers in native employ had disappeared from India; there was no corner of the coast left on which a Frenchman could land. He not only made Britain from this time the supreme power, but by his system of protected states—separated from each other, and fenced round by British territory—he did much to place that power on a firm and lasting basis.
1. In the great war with Napoleon, as our fleets were led to victory by Nelson, so were our armies by Wellington. The scene of his battles and sieges were, with one exception, the peninsula of Spain and Portugal, and on this account the war in which he was engaged, between 1808 and 1814, is called the Peninsular War. When Wellington began his Peninsular campaigns, Napoleon was practically the master of Europe. Some of the nations he had crushed, others he had overawed or won over to his side, all were either his humble servants or his forced allies.
2. Napoleon had already been crowned Emperor of France, and his amazing successes on the continent caused him to dream of Europe as an empire, with Napoleon as its emperor, and Paris as its capital. But there was one nation near his own doors that stood in his way, and whom he would fain have struck to the ground, had his arm been long enough to reach across "the silver streak." England might, perhaps, after the victory at Trafalgar, have held aloof from the strife which turned all Europe into a battle-field; she might, perhaps, have lived in ease and security in her island-home, and left the less-favoured nations on the continent to be trampled under the heel of the conqueror; but she nobly chose to stand forth and take the lion's share in the war against the tyrant.
3. Hence arose the Peninsular War which, with varying success, was persevered in for years as the most effectual way of draining the life-blood of France. That war was to France like a running sore. Napoleon sent his best generals, one after another, to put an end to the war by driving the British out of the country. To Marshal Soult he wrote, "You are to advance on the English, pursue them without ceasing, beat them and fling them into the sea. The English alone are formidable—they alone." But the English refused to be flung into the sea. On the contrary, it was the French that had, in the end, to take their flight homeward.
4. In the course of his seven campaigns in the Peninsula, Wellington found the tide of success ebb and flow. Sometimes he was able to advance and drive the enemy before him, sometimes he was compelled to retreat and stand on the defensive; but whether advancing or retiring he suffered no disaster, he lost no pitched battle. Much of Wellington's success was due to the solidity and steady discipline of his troops, still more perhaps to his own military skill and personal character. By patience and perseverance, by careful attention to details, by never letting a chance slip by, by never sparing himself, by making "duty" his watch-word; by such plain, homely virtues our Wellington fought and won. "Wellington dazzled no one," says a French writer, "but he beat us all the same." After being routed at Vittoria, in 1813, the French were compelled to beat a hasty retreat across the Pyrenees, and to seek safety in France.
5. In the meanwhile, Napoleon's great army of 400,000 men had perished in Russia, and in the retreat from the burning city of Moscow. Henceforth, Napoleon is like a hunted lion whom his enemies were gradually gathering round so as to cut off his retreat and encage him. At length, in 1814, the fallen emperor resigned his crown, and retired to the little island of Elba, which was to serve as his prison.
6. Wellington's work now seemed crowned with success, but really a greater task was in front of him. In March, 1815, the world was startled to hear that the lion encaged at Elba had made his escape, and was now at large in France. Owing to the return, since the peace, of some 200,000 of his veterans from the prisons of Germany, Napoleon was soon at the head of a powerful army. All Europe flew to arms. The first to encounter his troops were the British and the Prussians.
7. In the great battle of Waterloo (18th June, 1815), the fate of Napoleon was finally decided. It was the first time Napoleon had witnessed the unflinching courage and stubborn solidity of British troops, and ere the battle began had only mocked at Soult when he declared, "They will die rather than quit the ground on which they stand." With his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon ceased to be the central figure of the civilised world. He was banished to the Isle of St. Helena, and there he died after six years spent in darkly brooding over his broken fortunes.
8. On Napoleon's fall, the nations of Europe entered on a long peace. A congress was held between the great powers at Vienna, and the map of Europe redrawn, France being thrust back within her ancient borders. During the war England had seized the Colonial possessions of France. Those of Holland shared the same fate, for she had thrown in her lot with her powerful neighbour. The war had cost Britain a vast sum of money and many thousands of lives but she now received large additions to her empire.
9. By the Treaty of Vienna, Britain was allowed to retain what is now called British Guiana, Ceylon, and the Cape of Good Hope, all of which she had taken from Holland. She also obtained the island of Mauritius, which, lying on the sea-route to India, had long enabled the French to strike a blow at our Indian trade and possessions. The islands of Trinidad and Tobago in the West Indies also fell to her share, and above all the island of Malta, placed like a watch-tower in the centre of the Mediterranean, the central sea of the civilised world.
10. Nor do these important additions to the empire include all the fruits of victory in the course of the great war with Napoleon. An Australian writer tells us that the Australian colonies are apt to think of these Napoleonic wars as matters having no direct bearing on their concerns. But in reality, as he reminds them, Australia was made British on the shores of Europe. What Hawke and Wolfe did for Canada, Nelson and Wellington did for Australia. We owe it to Trafalgar and Waterloo that the island-continent to-day is free and peaceful from end to end, instead of being parcelled out among nations of different races, all jealous of one another. We owe it to the success of our arms, under Nelson and Wellington, that when in later years the French asked how much of the Australian continent we claimed, our Minister could say, "The whole," without their being able to say "Nay."
11. We usually associate peace with plenty; but such was not the first results of the long peace which followed the victory at Waterloo. The war had given employment to thousands who now found wherever they turned for work, a notice staring them in the face, "No more hands wanted here." One great advantage to our colonies arose from this state of things. Finding it impossible to make a living in the old country, large numbers in the first years of the peace emigrated to the colonies, where brawny arms were in great demand, and where food was cheap and plentiful. We shall presently follow the fortunes of our countrymen who now go forth to plant nations on the shores of Australia, to people the valleys of Tasmania, to share New Zealand with the Maoris, to take possession of South Africa and lay there the foundation of a great state,—driven across the seas by
"Such wind as scatters young men through the world
To seek their fortunes further than at home,
Where small experience grows,"
Progress of India and the Colonies
(Since 1815).
(Canada).
1. The French Canadians, after the conquest of their country by the British, were turned into loyal citizens of the empire by being left in the enjoyment of their own language, laws, and religion. Even when our American colonies rose in rebellion, they remained true to the British Crown. The same feeling of loyalty led many of the American colonists themselves to throw in their lot with the old country. They banded themselves together as the United Empire Loyalists, and fought on the side of Britain rather than help their fellow-colonists to rend the empire.
2. On the conclusion of the war that gave the American colonies their independence (1783), thousands of the "Loyalists" came streaming across the Canadian frontier, leaving behind them the bulk of their property, and forced to starve and struggle for years before they could carve comfortable homes out of the Canadian forests. Many of them migrated to Nova Scotia, others found rest in the beautiful valley of the St. John river, and founded the province of New Brunswick, whilst others toiled up the St. Lawrence to create the fertile and busy province of Ontario, thus building up a British colony in Upper Canada by the side of the old French colony in Lower Canada.
3. The inrush of loyalist refugees from the lost colonies was followed by a large immigration from the mother-country, and especially from Scotland. Of the Scotch peasants who emigrated many came from the same district, and held together in the new country. On the downfall of Napoleon the tide of emigration flowed more strongly than ever. We hear of four hundred discharged Irish soldiers coming over in a body with their old regimental officers at their head, and forming a regular military camp in the backwoods, till their united efforts had cut out the roads and fields, and built the houses required for the settlement. We find, in fact, that a large proportion of the early settlers were old soldiers, and they handled the pruning-hook none the worse for having once handled the sword. While the silence of the desert spread over the barren moors and hillsides of Scotland and Ireland, the Canadian woods were ringing with the settler's axe.
4. Emigration to Canada has gone on ever since, though at a slower rate than in those early years when 160,000 emigrants landed on Canadian soil in the space of four years. One of the most interesting experiments in Canadian emigration has been made in our own day. During the last ten or a dozen years about ten thousand picked boys and girls, from the homes of the "National Waifs' Association," have been settled by Dr. Barnardo on a large estate in Manitoba, or placed out as labourers and servants on Canadian farms, with the happiest results.
5. Canada has not seen much war since the days of Wolfe, though she has not been left wholly at peace. During the great French war a dispute arose between Britain and the United States, which foolishly led to a half-hearted war between the two nations, and to the invasion of Canada by American troops. After three campaigns, in which the British and French Canadians fought side by side, the war ended without the loss of an inch of their territory. The only result was, to create a feeling of mutual sympathy and respect between the two races that shared Canada between them.
6. However, as time went on, and new emigrants came pouring in, the Canadian form of government, which had well served its purpose for some years, began to encumber the young limbs of a nation so rapidly growing. The fact is, time always works changes, and nations pass through stages—childhood, youth, and manhood—as well as individuals. Thus constant changes are required in the machinery of government to keep pace with the changing circumstances and varying wants of a people. In the year that Queen Victoria came to the throne (1837), all Canada was discontented, and the lower province on the eve of rebellion, which actually broke out a little later. The rebels, however, were easily put down, and the leaders were soon either in prison or exile.
7. The Home Government in this crisis acted wisely and promptly. They sent over Lord Durham with the olive branch of peace, and directed him to ascertain the cause of the rebellion, and to find out remedies. He reported that the root of the whole mischief was to be found in the Constitution under which the people were governed. The Canadians elected men to form an "Assembly," like our House of Commons, and though these men were free to express the wishes of the people, they had no power to make the ministers and officials of the Government give effect to them. They were expected to vote funds for the public service, but they could not call the ministers to account if they misspent the money.
8. At Lord Durham's suggestion all this was changed. The governor-general was henceforth to employ as his ministers such men as had the confidence of the "Assembly," and the ministers were to be responsible to that House for the advice they gave the governor-general, and for the way in which the public revenue was spent. The first Canadian Parliament, under the new regulations, met in 1841, and from this year we date the self-government of the British colonies.
9. What was done now for Canada became in due time the rule for the other colonies in which men of our race have chiefly settled. All in turn, as they became capable of self-government, were entrusted with the power to mark out their own course, and to manage their own affairs in their own way. By this system of government full play is given to local opinions and feelings, the laws are framed by the colonists themselves, through their representatives, and the public affairs of the whole colony are managed by ministers who have obtained the confidence and esteem of its inhabitants. Moreover, the same system of self-government in respect to local affairs is usually extended to every town and district in the colony. Thus the principle of self-government is brought home to the door of each colonist, whenever circumstances admit. This is the secret of England's success in keeping her world-wide empire peaceful and contented, under the protection of one flag, and in allegiance to one sovereign.
(Canada).
1. The new era that smiled on Canada with the grant of self-government, in 1841, was marked by a rapid growth of the population. So great was the number of emigrants who came flocking into the country that in the next quarter-century the population nearly trebled itself. Canada at that time, it must be remembered, was but a shred of the vast expanse that reddens the map of North America to-day. The settled part included the two provinces now called Quebec and Ontario, the three provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, and the island of Newfoundland. The whole of the remainder—known as the great "North-West"—was, until 1870, the happy hunting-ground of the "Hudson Bay Company."
2. It is true that the Company did not, as did that great hunter, William the Conqueror, turn a peopled country into an uninhabited wilderness, but they took good care that the vast wilderness in their possession should not become a country inhabited by white men. Their whole territory was nothing but a vast game preserve from which all settlers were warned off. The red man was looked upon with favour, for he was as the game-keeper who trapped the fur-bearing animals and brought their skins to exchange for their masters' goods. Dotted over the Company's wide domains stood the log or stone forts where the furs were collected, and where lived one of the Company's factors—usually a Scotsman—to trade with the Indians. Around the fort no village was allowed to spring up. Some idea may be formed of the solitary life led by the factor, when we are told that the postman only visited him once a year.
3. The Company made enormous profits, for the goods they supplied to the Indians cost a mere trifle compared with the value of the furs they received in exchange. For a long time the nation, at home, was kept in the dark, not only as to the profits of the fur trade, but as to the real nature of the country from which the fur was obtained. The people, in fact, supposed that the fur country was an irreclaimable wilderness in which no white settlers could possibly make a living. At length it became known that in the great "North-West" there were immense prairies (over which roamed herds of buffalo) that would yield, if cultivated, rich crops of the finest wheat. When this discovery was made the country was thrown open to settlers (1870), and the province of Manitoba soon became the granary of Canada.
4. Another discovery had already led to the colonizing of British Columbia, the country beyond the Rocky Mountains. This was the discovery of gold (1858). The Indians, canoeing down the river Fraser, brought with them quantities of the precious metal which they had found along the river-bed. The men who had ransacked California for gold now rushed to the new gold country. The hardships they had to encounter were appalling.
5. At the season when the miners flocked into Columbia the water in the rivers was at its highest, and the sand-bars in which they hoped to find gold were hidden deep beneath its surface. The rivers themselves flowed through gloomy gorges, along which not even a mule could make its way. All provisions had to be carried on men's backs, and before a mule-track could be cut the miners were reduced to a diet of wild berries. Hundreds of miles had to be traversed before the rich Cariboo district was reached, where nuggets could be picked up in an old river-bed. News of this "find" brought men into the country so much faster than flour that all were reduced to the verge of starvation. The same thing has occurred in our own day, still further north, in the district of Klondyke.
6. Gold is a powerful magnet. It is one of the best colonizing agents known. What hardships will not men face to fill their pockets with gold! Wherever gold is to be picked up, there thousands of adventurers soon gather, and if the country is suitable for a colony thousands of settlers remain. Thus British Columbia owes its position as a colony, in the first place, to the gold-nuggets sown in the sands of its river-beds.
7. Attached to British Columbia is the island of Vancouver, and here also a discovery was made, which has much enhanced its value and attracted colonists. A settlement had already been made at Victoria on its southern shores, when, one day, came some Indians from the northern part of the island, and entering a smithy were surprised to find a fire of coals. When told that the fuel had been brought thousands of miles across the sea, they were much amused, as there was any quantity, they said, of the same sort of "black stone" on that very island. And so it proved. At the present time, indeed, the output amounts to one million tons a year.
8. Canada now extended over a region nearly the size of Europe, embracing besides the old provinces in the east, British Columbia in the far west, Manitoba in the centre, and the unsettled lands of the great "North-West." The next thing was to knit together the various provinces and out of them to make one great nation. This was made possible by the Confederation Act of 1867. By this Act the Dominion of Canada came into being, with a constitution, settling the terms on which the different provinces could unite. In less than seven years all the Canadian provinces, except Newfoundland, consented to join. Thus a new nation was born on the great American continent.
9. By the new constitution each province continues to manage its own local affairs, whilst all matters of national concern are brought before the Dominion Parliament. This parliament consists of an Upper House styled the Senate, and a Lower House called the House of Commons. The former is composed of life-members nominated by the Crown, the latter of members elected by the people, and having full control of the public purse. The Sovereign is represented by the governor-general, appointed by the Crown, and no laws are valid without his consent.
10. To avoid all jealousy between the province of Ontario and that of Quebec, neither of their capitals was selected as the seat of the national or federal government. That honour was given to the little town of Ottawa, situated on their common border. Ottawa has now grown into an important city, and in its Houses of Parliament possesses two of the finest edifices on the continent of America.
(3) PROMISE OF NATIONAL GREATNESS
(Canada).
1. With the union of the Canadian provinces into the Dominion of Canada, a new nation sprang into existence (1867). As no nation deserves to be free unless it can defend itself when attacked, Canada at once took steps for guarding her existence. A law was passed requiring every able-bodied man between sixteen and sixty to enrol himself for the defence of the Dominion, and to prepare for that duty by spending a certain number of days each year in drill and rifle-shooting.
2. Though Canada is a distinct nation, with her destiny in her own hands, either to make or mar, she is, at the same time, a member of the great British Empire. This connection obliges her to make no treaty with a foreign power without the consent of the British Government; but as a set-off, it entitles her in time of danger to the powerful assistance of the British army and navy. And, as we have seen in the great Boer war, Canada is willing, on her part, to come to the aid of the mother-country in the time of stress and strain. No more gallant men than her sons have fought in that war and it is a great satisfaction to England to know that the support she has received from Canada has been freely rendered by Canadians of French origin as well as by those of British descent. Thus the defeated foe of Wolfe's day has, by just treatment, been turned into the loyal friend of to-day.
3. After providing for her defence Canada's next care was to bring the different provinces into touch with each other. By means of a wonderful network of waterways, a person can go through the length and breadth of the land almost entirely by water. But this mode of travelling is slow and difficult. Steps were, therefore, taken by the Dominion Parliament to bind the different provinces together by means of a line of rails. What a gigantic task lay before them! The distance to be crossed between the two oceans was no less than 3000 miles, a distance so great that it would take an ordinary train, going day and night, almost a week to accomplish the journey.
4. The task, however, was completed in five years. The Canadian Pacific Railway, as it is called, was begun in 1880 and finished in 1885. Thus the Dominion of Canada, which now stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is linked together by the iron road, and its most distant parts brought into easy communication with each other by rail and wire. To British Columbia and Manitoba, in particular, such a line meant everything. It afforded settlers easy access to the interior and gave an outlet to the markets for the produce of their farms. And to the mother-country also this railway is of great value as an important link in the chain that binds together the various parts of the British Empire. Mails from England to the Far East are now carried by way of Canada more quickly than by any other route. Troops may be transported from Liverpool to Hong Kong in less than thirty days.
5. Canada has everything required to make a nation great and prosperous. Her various provinces have each their own special character and productions. Nova Scotia, for instance, is the great coal-cellar of the eastern provinces, and it stands first in the whole Dominion for its fisheries; whilst the supply of wood-pulp for making paper is almost unlimited.
6. The province of Quebec was formerly a vast forest, and the lumber trade is still its most important industry. Its inhabitants are chiefly of French origin, and they still cling to the language and customs of their ancestors. The French Canadian does not seem to move with the stream of time. He is content to smoke his home-grown tobacco and to get his sugar from the sap of the maple. He wears a strong "home-spun" cloth, spun and woven at his own fire-side; in fact, he is content to go on as his fathers before him. The people of Ontario are strikingly different. They are mostly of British origin and are always pushing on, trying to make what is good still better. Their fruit orchards, vineyards, and dairy-farms are a growing source of wealth, and a great surprise to those who have thought of Canada as the land of ice and snow. Canadian butter and cheese are now largely exported; in 1900, for example, about twenty million pounds of butter and 200 million pounds of cheese were sent abroad.
7. On entering Manitoba, the central province, the traveller finds himself in a new world. Here are vast plains presenting in summer the appearance of a sea of waving corn. The farms are immense, all so different from our English farms with their small fields and hedge-rows. Think of a farm where the furrows are four miles long and as straight as an arrow! Continuing westward we come to the slope of the Rocky Mountains which are specially adapted to the raising of cattle. This is the "ranch" country of Canada, where the horses and cattle range wild, and as a rule manage to provide for themselves both in winter and summer.
8. Of British Columbia, on the western side of the Rockies, we have already spoken as rich in gold and coal. This province is also valuable for its timber and salmon. If you buy a tin of preserved salmon, you will be almost sure to find that it has come from this colony. So plentiful are the salmon in this part of Canada that at times they swarm up the rivers like a shoal of herrings on the coast of Cornwall.
9. Canada, then, it will be seen is bountifully supplied by nature with all she needs to make her the land of plenty. She has been styled "Our Lady of the Snows," and it must be admitted that the Canadian climate is very cold in winter, and that the snow lies on the ground for some months over most of the country. The snow, however, is really one of the boons of nature: protecting the ground from extreme frosts, bridging the streams, converting rough tracts into the smoothest of roads, and turning with the warm breath of spring into water to moisten the ground for the upspringing crops.
10. Canada's great want is men of the right stamp to turn the gifts of nature to account, and these will come in time. She has now five millions of people, but could well support ten times as many. She possesses every element essential to national greatness, both in the character of her people and the wealth of her resources. The fisheries of her maritime provinces, the timber of her ancient forests, the granaries of the prairie region, the ranches of the Rockies, and the treasures of her mines, together with her intricate network of water-ways—all combine to give Canada the promise of an honoured place among the great nations of the world, and to make us proud to remember that she is a staunch and loyal friend to the British name and nation.
(4) "THE GOOD OF THE GOVERNED"
(India).
1. We have already seen how Clive laid the foundations of British rule in India, how Warren Hastings tightened our hold on the country, and how the Marquess Wellesley reduced the native princes to a state of dependence, and made the British the real masters of India. To establish a firm and just rule, and to save India from anarchy and its people from oppression, were all that the early rulers of India could attempt. But with the appointment of Lord Bentinck as governor-general, in 1828, our rule began to have a higher aim, and that was to build British greatness upon Indian happiness.
2. Of his many services to India, two stand out conspicuously: one was the rooting out of the Thugs, who made the robbing and murdering of travellers a pious duty, thinking that such acts would win them the favour of the dread goddess Kali. An old French traveller speaks of them as "the cunningest robbers in the world, who use a certain slip, with a running noose, which they can cast so deftly about a man's neck, that they strangle him in a trice." No person whom they attacked ever escaped to tell the tale. They went in bands disguised as travellers or rich merchants, and always carried tools for digging the graves of their victims. After each successful attack, offerings were made in the temples of the goddess. Within six years nearly all the members of this strange profession were hanged or placed in safe custody for life.
3. A still greater service, perhaps, was the putting an end to the custom of suttee. When any Hindu died, his widow was expected, in some parts of India, to accompany him to the next world by throwing herself into his funeral pile, and perishing in the flames. So common was the practice that in a single year, in Bengal alone, seven hundred widows were burnt alive. To this day the country is, in certain districts, thickly dotted with little white pillars, each in memory of a suttee. Lord Bentinck made a proclamation declaring that henceforth all who took part in a suttee would be held guilty of murder.
4. When Bentinck's seven years of office were over, a statue was erected to his memory with this inscription:
To
William Cavendish Bentinck,
WHO INFUSED INTO ORIENTAL DESPOTISM THE SPIRIT
OF BRITISH FREEDOM;
WHO NEVER FORGOT THAT THE END OF GOVERNMENT IS
THE HAPPINESS OF THE GOVERNED.
5. We pass on to the next great landmark in the story of British rule in India. This was the governor-generalship of the Earl of Dalhousie, who ruled India between 1848 and 1856. Though he added to the empire more territory than any other British ruler in India, before or since, he did it all for the good of India as well as for the greatness of Britain. Believing that rulers exist only for the good of the governed, he made it his great aim to do away with abuses, to redress wrongs, to deal even-handed justice all round, and to promote the happiness of the people under his care.
6. It may seem strange that Dalhousie, whose great maxim was "the good of the governed" should have done so much to extend the British Empire in India. This was partly due to the fact that wars were forced on him, and partly to the fact that he believed that people were better off under British rule than any other. This consideration led him to take advantage of every opportunity to substitute British rule for that of a native prince. When, for instance, a native ruler died without offspring, instead of allowing his adopted son, as was the custom in India, to succeed him, Dalhousie annexed the territory thus left kingless.
7. Our governor-general also dethroned unworthy rulers, including the King of Oudh, whose realm was naturally the fairest province of all India. It may be remembered that in all the dependent states a British official resided at court to give his advice, and to watch over British interests. The British resident at Lucknow, the capital of Oudh, reported to Dalhousie that under its native ruler, Oudh knew neither law nor justice, that "great crimes stain almost every acre of land in his dominions." The strong, he said, everywhere preyed upon the weak, and what might be the garden of India was fast becoming a wilderness, whilst the king amused himself in the company of fiddlers, singers, buffoons, and dancing girls. After a solemn warning, and a reprieve of five years, the corrupt monarch was deposed and his kingdom added to our Indian Empire.
8. During Dalhousie's rule much was done to bring the different parts of this great empire into closer touch with each other. A cheap uniform postage was introduced, by which a letter could be sent from one end of India to the other for half an anna, about three farthings. A short railway was laid down as an experiment, and it proved highly successful. The new mode of travelling rose at once into favour with the natives of India. They soon saw the advantage of cheap travelling at the rate of twenty or thirty miles an hour in carriages drawn by the "English fire-horse."
9. Lord Dalhousie then drew up a scheme for laying down 4000 miles of rails between the great centres of population and the seats of government. And he succeeded in getting the necessary capital for this vast undertaking by offering it to public companies with the guarantee, on the part of the Indian Government, of a fair profit on their outlay. So great was the success of this scheme that in the course of the next quarter-century £100,000,000 were spent on Indian railways.
10. It would not be easy to overrate the importance of railways in this vast country, in the interests both of Britain and India. They form so many iron bands to unite the scattered provinces under British rule, and to enable our military forces to be sent speedily to any threatened quarter. They also serve to bring supplies to districts suffering from famine, whereas in former times it often happened that people in one part of India were dying for want of the food that was stored up in rich abundance in some distant part. The advantages that the railways offer to trade are still more important. "Great tracts," wrote Dalhousie, "are teeming with produce they cannot dispose of. Others are scantily bearing what they would carry in abundance, if only it could be conveyed whither it is needed.... Ships from every part of the world crowd our ports in search of produce which we have, or could obtain in the interior, but which at present we cannot profitably fetch to them." So great an impulse was given to trade in the course of the seven years of Lord Dalhousie's rule, that the export of raw cotton was doubled and that of grain increased threefold, whilst the total annual exports rose from thirteen millions to twenty-three.
11. The great viceroy also, meanwhile, set in action a scheme for binding all India together by a network of telegraph wires. In the last two years of his rule, no less than 4000 miles of electric telegraph were put in working order. The difficulties to be overcome were very great. The wires had to be carried on bamboo poles, or on pillars of stone and iron, over broad swamps and rocky wastes, through dense and deadly jungles, up wild mountain steeps, across deep gorges, and seventy large rivers. And all this had to be done in spite of the depredations of white ants, wild beasts, and half-civilised men. A famous writer thus describes the difficulties the engineers had to contend with:
12. "His posts had to pass through jungles, where wild beasts used them for scratching-stations, and savages stole them for firewood and rafters for huts. Inquisitive monkeys spoiled the work by dragging the wires into festoons, or dangling an ill-conducting tail from wire to wire. Crows, kites, and fishing-eagles made roosting-places of the wires in numbers so great as to bring them to the ground; though once or twice a flash of lightning, striking a wet wire, would strew the ground with the carcases of the feathered trespassers by dozens. The white ant nibbled galleries in the posts, and the porcupine burrowed under them."
13. It is owing to the telegraph that all India is held under the control of the governor-general. The wires are as the nerves that pass through the whole body of India and terminate, as it were, in his hands. By their means the latest news reaches him from every part of India, and by the same means he flashes back his commands. In the great mutiny that broke out, at the close of Dalhousie's term of office, it was the telegraph that saved us from many a disaster. "It is that accursed string that strangles us," exclaimed a mutineer pointing to the telegraph wire as he was led out to execution.
(India).
1. The story of India cannot be told without frequent reference to war. Though the Marquis of Dalhousie was so much occupied, as we have seen, with the arts of peace, he was obliged to wage more than one great war. On landing at Calcutta (1848) he was told by the last governor-general that so far as human foresight could predict, "it would not be necessary to fire a gun in India for seven years to come." Yet, within a twelvemonth, the whole scene was changed.
2. The Punjab, or Land of the Five Rivers, was inhabited by the Sikhs, a brave and warlike people. They had already fought desperately for the mastery of India and had been defeated. A British army had marched into Lahore, their capital, and dictated terms of peace, by which the Sikhs were left under the rule of a native prince, but required to receive a British officer at the royal court and to be guided by his advice. Dalhousie had scarcely been in office six months when the Punjab was all aflame again, and he found himself compelled to renew the war. "I have wished for peace," he said, "I have striven for it. But untaught by experience, the Sikh nation has called for war, and on my word, sirs, they shall have it with a vengeance."
3. The work that lay before the British army was a terribly difficult one. After a trying campaign in which we came near defeat, the two armies met for a decisive encounter at Gujerat. It ended in the rout of the Sikhs, who fled in dismay, leaving behind them most of their guns and standards, their ammunition, stores, and tents. The defeated troops were never allowed to rally, and within three weeks the last gun had been abandoned and the last soldier had laid down his arms. The Sikhs cheerfully owned themselves beaten, and heard with delight that their Afghan allies "had ridden down through their hills like lions and ran back into them like dogs."
4. The conquest of the Punjab was followed by its annexation. The Sikhs were informed that they must henceforth regard themselves as British subjects, and the Land of the Five Rivers as a part of British India. Two famous brothers, Henry and John Lawrence, were appointed to set things in order in this great province and to establish a firm and just government. The Sikh soldiers readily took service under our flag. They were proud to be enlisted in the regiments that had so well beaten them. Forts were built to defend the new frontier, the taxes were lightened and made more even, canals were cut, roads laid out, criminals punished, and honest labour protected; in fact, in a few short years the latest British conquest became the best managed, the most contented, and the most loyal of all the British provinces in India.
5. Three years after the annexation of the Punjab, war broke out at the opposite end of the Indian Empire, in what was then called Further India. It is known as the Second Burmese War (1852). Burma was at that time under the rule of an upstart king, whore throne was at Ava. He seems to have been as ignorant and arrogant as the King of Ava in the First Burmese War (1824), who on being requested by the governor-general of India to withdraw his troops from Assam, which they had invaded, ordered his commander-in-chief to proceed to Calcutta, arrest the governor-general, and bring him to Ava, bound in golden fetters, for execution. As a result of that First Burmese War Assam had been added to the empire. It now forms the great tea-plantation of India.
6. The spoils of the Second Burmese War were still more valuable. The most brilliant feat of arms in that war was the storming of Rangoon. The Burmese troops held the city and pagoda of Rangoon with 18,000 men; the British could only bring one-third that number to the attack. Among the Burmese were the picked guards known as "The Immortals of the Golden Country," whose military oath compelled them to conquer or die at their posts. The courage of the ordinary troops was also insured, as their women and children were fastened up at the back of the fort to incite the valour of their husbands, sons, and brothers. But all to no purpose. The headlong rush of our troops, and the fierce cheer with which they came on, seemed to take the heart out of the defenders, and when the storming party entered at one gate the garrison fled by the opposite one, the brave Immortals in their gilt lacquer accoutrements leading the way.
7. Before the end of the year the whole of Lower Burma was at our disposal. As the people of that province everywhere greeted us as friends, and besought us to deliver them from the tyranny of their king, there was good reason to believe that it could be held by a small number of troops. It was, accordingly, annexed to our Indian Empire. Rangoon has become one of the great ports of the empire. In thirty years its population increased fifteen-fold, and its trade grew in the same proportion. The rest of Burma was annexed as the result of another war some years later.
8. The British India which Lord Dalhousie left to his successor was more than one-third larger than the India of which he had received charge seven years before. The great changes which he had made produced a spirit of unrest among the inhabitants. The native princes naturally felt their thrones insecure; the introduction of railways and telegraphs was to the old-fashioned native a sign that a new era had begun, and that old customs were giving place to new; whilst many began to fear that even their religion was in danger of being supplanted.
9. Lord Canning, the next governor-general, seems to have seen signs of the coming upheaval; for on taking office, he said at the send-off banquet in London, "We must not forget that in the sky of India, serene as it is, a small cloud may arise, at first no bigger than a man's hand, but which growing bigger and bigger may at last threaten to overwhelm us with ruin." He knew that the same instrument that we had used to help us to conquer India might be turned against ourselves. And what made our position the more serious was the fact that the Sepoys in our army—who constituted that instrument—were five times as numerous as our own troops, and that the native gunners outnumbered ours by two to one.
10. On reaching India, Lord Canning heard the first muttering of the storm which threatened to drive the British out of India. There had long been a prophecy among the natives that British rule would come to an end at the close of a hundred years from its commencement. The fateful year (1857) had now come, and with it came the great mutiny of our Sepoy regiments. England, in her hour of danger, has never lacked brave and patriotic sons to defend and maintain her cause, and never has this been more conspicuously the case than in the Sepoy Mutiny.
(India).
1. The Sepoy Mutiny had its centre at Delhi, where lived the old emperor in great state and luxury, but without a vestige of power or authority. The mutineers placed this shadow of an emperor at their head, making him their centre of union, and his sovereignty a cause to fight for. The great powder-magazine within the city was luckily in British hands. Of the garrison in charge of it were two British officers, who, at the sacrifice of their own lives, applied a torch to the powder, and in a moment the building, with hundreds of Sepoy mutineers, was sent flying into the air.
2. There were two circumstances which in the most providential manner enabled our countrymen to hold their own until succour reached them from England. These were the loyalty of the Sikhs, who had recently been conquered, and the passage across the seas of British troops on their way to China. These troops were intercepted at Cape Town and Singapore, and diverted to India. The Sikhs threw in their lot with their conquerors, and fought like lions for them throughout the Mutiny. A few weeks after the first outbreak, a combined British and Sikh force arrived at Delhi. Our men posted themselves on a commanding ridge outside the city, and held it against all comers, whilst waiting for reinforcements.
3. Sir John Lawrence was straining every nerve to collect forces in the Punjab, and to push them on, with all speed, to Delhi; whilst his brother, Sir Henry Lawrence, was rendering a service, scarcely less valuable, at Lucknow. Forewarned by telegraph, he made every preparation for defence within his power before the rebels in the city heard of the outbreak. He brought all the Europeans within the "Residency," as the government buildings were called, and stocked it well with provisions and ammunition. Lawrence himself was mortally wounded, near the beginning of the siege, by the bursting of a shell that crashed into his room, where he was writing at table. When dying he desired that on his tomb should be engraven:
HERE LIES
Henry Lawrence
WHO TRIED TO DO HIS DUTY.
4. The siege of Lucknow is one of the most memorable in our history. We may well be proud of the splendid stand which a small band of our countrymen made here, in the presence of their wives and children, against myriads of the enemy, who were kept in check for nearly three terrible months, until relief came.
5. All this time the eyes of India and Great Britain were earnestly fixed on Delhi. It was there all felt the question was being fought out, who should be masters of India. For three weary months our men had to cling to their position on the ridge, outside the city, before obtaining guns sufficiently heavy to begin the siege. Great was the joy in the British camp when the guns arrived, and with them General Nicholson, known alike to friend and foe for his daring valour. All were eager to follow where he led.
6. After a bombardment of three days, two great breaches in the walls opened the way for the assault, and an entrance at each breach was made at the point of the bayonet, but whilst leading on his men the gallant Nicholson was slain. Of the many daring deeds performed that day the most memorable was the perilous exploit of blowing up the Cashmere gate, to make a third entrance for our troops. A small band of heroic men volunteered to place bags of powder under the gate, and to take the risk of being shot or blown up in the attempt.
7. "I placed my bag," said Sergeant Smith, "and then at a great risk reached Carmichael's bag (for he was killed), and having placed it in position with my own, arranged the fuse for the explosion, and reported all ready to Lieutenant Salkeld, who held a quick-match. In stooping down to light the quick-match, he was shot, but in falling had the presence of mind to hold it to me. Burgess was next him and took it. I told him to keep cool and fire the charge. He turned round and said, 'It won't go off, sir; it has gone out, sir.' I gave him a box of lucifers, and, as he took them, he let them fall into my hand, he being shot through the body at that moment. I was then left alone, and was proceeding to strike a light, when the fuse went off in my face, the light not having gone out as we thought. I took up my gun and jumped into the ditch but before I had reached the ground the charge went off, and filled the ditch with smoke." Before the smoke cleared away our troops were through the gateway.
8. But though the entrance to the city was gained the work had only begun. Every street and public building had been fortified, and had to be won by steady and continuous fighting. It was not until the sixth day that our men had fought their way to the palace in the heart of the city. When the British flag waved over the palace, all felt that the neck of the rebellion was broken, and that our Indian Empire was saved. The old emperor was sent as a state prisoner to Rangoon, where he died in 1862, being buried in the night-time near his bungalow, so that no native might know the resting-place of the last of the emperors.
9. Three days after the fall of Delhi, General Havelock reached the Residency at Lucknow, after fighting half a dozen battles on the road and forcing his way through streets lined with armed rebels. We can imagine the kind of welcome the troops received on their arrival. "In a moment," writes a lady, one of the survivors of the garrison, "big, rough-bearded soldiers were seizing the little children out of our arms, kissing them with tears rolling down their cheeks, and thanking God that they had come in time." They had come in time to save the women and children from falling into the enemy's hands, but not in sufficient numbers to remove them.
10. For final deliverance they had to wait nearly two months longer, until the arrival of the Commander-in-chief, Sir Colin Campbell, at the head of a small army of 5,000 men. It is interesting to know that Lieutenant Roberts, now Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, was an officer in the relieving force, and gave proof of his daring spirit, as the troops fought their way through the city, by hoisting the British flag, amid a shower of bullets, on the tower of a fort they had captured. Sir Colin now turned his arms against every city in revolt, and before the end of the following year (1858), the embers of the rebellion were finally stamped out.
(7) BRITISH RULE ON A NEW FOOTING
(India).
1. As soon as peace was restored to India, after the Mutiny, a proclamation, at Calcutta, declared that the governing power of the East India Company was abolished, and that henceforth the sovereign of England would be the immediate ruler of India. In this proclamation, which may be regarded as the Magna Charta of the people of India, it was announced, in the name of the queen, that we desire no further extension of territory in India, but that what we had got we intended to hold; that we would respect the rights, dignity, and honour of the native princes; that we would in every way endeavour to further the interests of the people, and in no way interfere with their religious convictions.
2. The title of Empress of India was not assumed until some years later. But the assumption of that title, and the change in the form of government, as stated in the proclamation, gave great satisfaction to the princes and people of India. Our Indian government acquired new dignity in their eyes, and our rule became more acceptable, since they could now regard themselves as fellow-subjects with ourselves of the same personal sovereign. They had now distinct promises on which they could rely, for they knew by experience that their English masters would feel themselves bound by their own words. Nothing is more gratifying to our national pride than the reliance thus placed on the pledged word of our Government. "It is certain," says a great Polish writer, in reference to the Boer war, "that if King Edward VII. guaranteed to the Boers, with his royal word, the enjoyment of their liberty and laws, not an Englishman would be found throughout the gigantic British Empire, who would not burn with shame if the royal promise were broken."
3. The improved state of feeling among the people of India, in consequence of the changes which had been made, and the distinct promises they had received, showed itself very clearly, when, a few years later, the Prince of Wales—now King Edward VII.—paid a visit to India as the representative of Queen Victoria. His progress through the land called forth a succession of brilliant demonstrations—cities, temples, and palaces, being illuminated in his honour. All the princes and rajahs of India vied with each other in the magnificence of their trappings and the splendour of their welcome. And when at last the Prince set sail for England, the ship was laden with numerous memorials and presents of great variety, value, and interest. The proclamation in the following year of the queen's new title, as Empress of India, tended to draw still closer the ties of love and loyalty between Her Majesty and her Indian subjects.
4. Sweeping changes were made in our Indian army at the close of the Mutiny. That army now contains only two natives to one European, and the artillery is kept almost entirely in the hands of British soldiers. Many wars have occurred in India since it came under the British crown, but they have all been wars on her borders, keeping strife and danger far removed from every home in India. They have been wars to preserve internal peace, and to strengthen our frontiers, especially on the borders of Afghanistan, the only quarter from which an invading army could approach India except by sea.
5. But the chief enemy we have had to fight in India since the days of the Mutiny is famine, which has been known to carry off in a single year five millions of people. This calamity has arisen not from want of food in India, but from the difficulty of transporting it to the distressed districts. As famine in India is caused by an insufficient rainfall, great works have been executed to store water in vast tanks or lakes—for instance, by damming up the outlet of some mountain valley—and to cut canals for carrying water to the crops suffering from drought. Great engineering works have been taken in hand to keep the great rivers in bounds, and to prevent their waters in time of flood from rushing with ruin and havoc over the land.
6. If the British were to abandon India to-morrow they would leave behind them a grand memorial of their works for the good of the country, in their schools and colleges, their telegraphs, railways, roads, bridges, canals, reservoirs, and river embankments. People who have only seen such things in our own island-home, have no conception of the great scale on which such works have been carried out in a large country like India—a country as large as all Europe, leaving out Russia—where the rivers are immense, and subject to terrible floods from the down-pouring tropical rains which fall most copiously on the southern slopes of the Himalayas.
7. It is true that we do not give India the same kind of government we give Canada and Australia. We are obliged to govern India, not according to the notions of the natives, but according to our own. We take care, however, to keep order and see justice done, not only in the provinces under direct British rule, but also in the dependent states, which occupy about two-fifths of the country, and contain one-fourth of the population. There are no less than seven hundred of these states, great and small; none of them may make alliance with any other state except Britain; each of them must admit a British resident, who keeps an eye on its government. If any prince, after repeated warnings, fails to reform, he is replaced by another native, for Britain annexes no longer. On the other hand, a prince who does his duty and governs wisely, receives from the Emperor some mark of distinction or titular honour, nowhere in the world more valued than in India.
8. It will be seen then that our government of India is despotic, like that of a schoolmaster, who makes his own laws and administers them for the good of his scholars. There is, however, this difference. In India, the natives themselves are admitted to a large share in the administration of the laws and in the service of the state, an arrangement tending to keep the educated natives contented and to train them for the work of self-government.
9. On the whole, it may be said with truth that there is nothing more wonderful in the history of the world than that, under the flag of these two little islands, there should have grown up the greatest and most beneficent despotism that the world has sees. The very face of the country has changed; pestiferous swamps have been drained, and are now fertile lands with healthy cities. Wide tracts of jungle, the secure refuge of evil beasts, have been reclaimed. The great rivers are now brought under control; canals receive their surplus waters, and instead of causing desolation, bring fertilizing streams to a thirsty land. Railroads transport corn and rice through tunnels cut in the mountains, and across mighty rivers, to distant famine-stricken districts. In short, the story of India's progress under British rule is one of which we may well be proud.
10. The advantage, however, has not been all on one side. The connection with India has brought, and still brings, much grist to our own mill. It provides high salaries for about eight hundred of our most competent countrymen, acting as governors, magistrates, and high state officials; it offers employment for our engineers and land surveyors; it serves as an excellent training-ground for our officers and soldiers; and, above all, it opens up a splendid trade to our merchants and manufacturers. Were India to fall into the hands of a foreign power, like Russia, our merchants would probably find themselves, if not shut out entirely from the markets of India, much hampered in doing a profitable business. But with the government in our own hands we can make such regulations as tend to the mutual advantage of the two countries. So flourishing is the trade between them now that its annual value amounts to more than £50,000,000.
11. Such being the mutual advantages to India and Britain of our rule in that great country, it would be an indelible stain on our name and nation, if through indifference, or negligence, or faint-heartedness, we were to lose an empire built up by so much genius and heroism under the controlling hand of an unseen Power.
"We sailed wherever ship could sail,
We founded many a mighty state;
Pray God our greatness may not fail
Thro' craven fears of being great."
(Australia).
1. To measure the progress that has been made by our kinsmen in Australia, we must know something of the country in its natural condition, and of the special difficulties they have had to contend with. One of these difficulties was of our own making, and that was the landing there of shiploads of our worst criminals, many of whom fled to the "bush," and preyed upon the lonely settlers, or committed outrages upon the natives, who naturally tried to take revenge upon any white men that came in their way.
2. The plants found in Australia by the early explorers had, with few exceptions, never been seen in any other parts of the world. Strange to say, no wheat or any other cereal grew there, and but few fruits or vegetables fit for human food, although both soil and climate are in many parts so favourable to their growth that, since their introduction, they have thriven as well as in most countries.
3. The animals peculiar to Australia are even more strange than its plants. Of all the useful animals belonging to other countries, not a single representative was found here. All our domestic animals, however, have been introduced, and thrive remarkably well. One, indeed, the rabbit, has thriven so well as to form a serious pest. So rapidly do these animals multiply here that the colonists are obliged to incur much expense in the effort to keep down their numbers. Of the quadrupeds found elsewhere Australia only possessed, when first discovered, some species of rats and mice and a sort of wild dog, or dingo. Most of the native animals are pouched, like the kangaroo.
4. Dingoes cannot be trained for the service of man. They are always ready to prey upon his flocks. So great a pest are these animals, in certain parts, that each man on a sheep-station is expected to carry strychnine, in order to poison the carcase of any dead animal he may chance to find in his wanderings, with the view of destroying the dingoes that may happen to feed upon it. These animals destroy far more than they devour. On entering a sheepfold they bite and kill without stint or stay. There is, however, one drawback to their wholesale destruction, as they are the natural enemies of the kangaroo. Since the dingoes have become scarce, the kangaroo has multiplied greatly. In some districts droves of these animals are still seen, eating up every blade of grass and starving the sheep off the land.
5. As the native productions of Australia are of little service to man, it is not surprising to find the natives a low order of savages. There is no bond of union between them. They consist of many tribes, always ready to go to war with each other. It is supposed that about 50,000 survive, but through intemperance, wars and diseases, their numbers are gradually dwindling. They have already almost disappeared from the more settled parts, but as such a large proportion of Australia is uninhabitable by white men, they will probably long linger in the more remote quarters of the continent.
6. Like all wandering savages, their senses are remarkably acute, and their skill and cunning in hunting and snaring beasts and birds can hardly be surpassed. Advantage is taken of this fact by the Australians, who employ them to track out fugitives, when offenders against the law have to be pursued, or when cattle have strayed.
7. The natives were at first a source of great trouble to the settlers. They stole their sheep and ran off with their horses, caused their cattle to stampede, and killed their shepherds and herdsmen. But as the colonist never moved out of doors without his firearms, they soon gained a wholesome dread of his power. One tribe of "blacks" also was always ready to help the white man to pursue and punish the men of another tribe. In Queensland, indeed, a body of native police, officered by Europeans, was formed to cope with the disorders and depredations of the savages, who are bolder and more numerous in that part of Australia. But the experiment was attended by dreadful results, for a member of one tribe displays savage enjoyment in the slaughter of members of any other tribe. Among the settlers also were men who had been dangerous criminals, and who had no compunction in murdering "blacks," as if they were devoid of human souls.
8. One of the great bars to progress in Australia is the irregular supply of rain. Whilst droughts are not infrequent, there is occasionally an excessive downpour, causing disastrous floods. The amount of rain that falls from first to last would probably be sufficient to make Australia a well-watered country. But owing to the extreme irregularity of the rainfall the plains are liable to be alternately deluged and burnt up. Explorers have often been in danger of perishing with thirst from this cause; for instead of finding a large lake, where they had seen one on a former occasion, they find nothing but a stretch of baked mud.
9. In times of drought the rivers, too, dwindle into mere threads of water, or become too shallow for navigation. Even the Murray, the largest of Australian rivers, is at times but an indifferent waterway. Still worse, its mouth consists of shallow channels of shifting sand, so that no steamer can enter it from the sea. Large sums have been expended in trying to remove the bar at its mouth and form a harbour; but the attempt has been abandoned, for as fast as the sand is dredged away, fresh deposits of silt take its place.
10. These are some of the difficulties and drawbacks which the Australian colonists have had to fight against. But in spite of them an extraordinary advance has been made, thanks to their own energy and enterprise, to the mineral wealth of their country, and to their freedom from war. Contrary to the experience of nations, in other continents, the Australians have never had to fight a regular battle in their own land. This immunity from war they owe, in large measure, to the protecting arm of the mother-country, and to the wisdom she has shown in granting self-government to her Australian colonies as soon as they became fit to manage their own affairs.
(9) EFFECT OF THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD
(Australia).
1. Next to wool as a source of Australian wealth comes gold. The discovery of gold, in 1851, had a wonderful effect on the progress of Australia. The discovery was made, near Bathurst, in New South Wales, by Hargraves, one of the numerous adventurers that left the colony in 1848 to dig for gold in California. The first thing which impressed him on his arrival in the gold country was the resemblance between it and the district around his own home in Australia. The more he saw of the gold-diggings in California, the more he was struck with the likeness. At length he resolved to return, and on searching a creek near his old home, he found it rich in gold.
2. At the news of this discovery, thousands hastened to the diggings from all parts of the colony. The news of this "rush" for gold had hardly reached the people of Victoria, when it became known that there was a still richer gold-field at Ballarat in their own country. The gold fever seized upon the Victorians, and in a few weeks most of the men in the colony were grubbing for gold. Workshops were left without workmen, ships without crews, and houses without tenants. The squatters were left to look after their own sheep, and farmers saw their crops spoiling for want of labourers to harvest them. Ordinary business came to a standstill, and even schools were closed for want of teachers.
3. To the streams of men from every part of Australia was soon added a flood of adventurers from all quarters of the world, including numbers of escaped convicts from Tasmania. Of those who came in the hope of rapidly making a fortune at the diggings, the majority were doomed to disappointment. But a few picked up gold nuggets of considerable size, and one miner at Ballarat hit upon the largest mass of gold ever found. It was called the "welcome stranger," and was worth upwards of £8000. The scene at the gold-fields is thus described in the "Story of the Nations:"—
4. "The banks of the Yarrowee presented a strange appearance, with the eager line of men standing shoulder to shoulder, washing in the muddy water the dirt brought them from time to time by a companion. A little further back the earth was cut into innumerable holes, flanked by great mounds of red soil, in and around which men busily ran or dug with feverish energy. At night the scene was even more weirdly curious, for the glaring lights of the theatres and grog shanties, with the flaring torches and fires of the miners, joined in throwing into strong relief the shadows of the tents and their wild surroundings. Above all rose the hum of a city, broken now and again by bursts of noisy revelry. Wealth easily won was as readily squandered, and the lucky digger showered gold with a free hand. Prices were exorbitant, for the miner, drunk with fortune, seldom asked for change, and the style of living generally was recklessly extravagant."
5. The value to Australia of the discovery of gold within her territory has been far greater than the worth of the gold itself, though that, in forty years from its first discovery in 1851, amounted to the extraordinary sum of £300,000,000. It has been the means of bringing to her shores hundreds of thousands of enterprising men, who on leaving the gold-fields have settled down in the country to gain a livelihood, if not a fortune, by steady industry in some useful employment. Thus, just before the discovery of gold, the population of Victoria was less than 80,000; now, half a century later, the population is nearly one-and-a-quarter millions.
6. Gold-mining is now one of the regular industries of Australia. But gold is no longer to be picked up on the surface. It is now only obtained by sinking shafts, and much expensive machinery is required in working the mines. The yield of gold in Victoria and New South Wales is, of course, much less than it was, but the annual value is still considerable.
7. Gold-mining has also been long carried on in Queensland. Indeed, the Mount Morgan mine in that colony has proved itself one of the richest mines in the world. Its story is a curious one. A young squatter had bought a farm near Rockhampton, but it was on a rocky hill, and he found that for grazing or cultivation it was useless. He was, accordingly, glad to sell it to three brothers, named Morgan, at £1 an acre. The dirty grey rocks of which the hilly farm was composed turned out to be so rich in gold, that the hill, which had cost the Morgans £640, was sold for £8,000,000. And now West Australia, which has long lagged behind the sister colonies, can also boast of its gold mines, and has fairly started on its onward march.
8. Australia has lately followed the example of Canada, and formed her six colonies into one great dominion, under the name of the Commonwealth of Australia, which started on its new career on the first day of the twentieth century. Each colony, or state, retains control over its own local affairs, but the Parliament of the Commonwealth is empowered to decide all questions relating to defence, railways and telegraphs, customs duties and postal rates, and all other matters common to the whole country.
(10) EXPLORATION AND ITS MARTYRS
(Australia).
1. The story of Australian exploration tells of hardships and hazards innumerable. It is a story that is highly creditable to the dauntless courage and persevering energy of our brothers in Australia. As landlords of a vast estate, they have endeavoured to ascertain its nature, and to learn how best to turn it to profitable account. This knowledge could only be gained at the expense of many lives, and at the cost of great self-sacrifice. The explorers who have lost their lives in the fulfilment of their self-imposed task, if not entitled to a place on the roll of martyrs, have certainly earned a place among the makers of our empire. Of such men we can only give one or two examples in this brief account.
2. The vast interior is worse to cross than the Sahara, for while it is often quite as hot and quite as dry, it is covered in many parts with a dense "scrub," consisting of prickly shrubs and the dreaded porcupine grass. The constant pricking of this grass causes raw and bleeding swellings round the horses' legs; and to escape from it, they will prefer to force their way through the densest scrubs. Here they rush along, frequently forcing sticks between their backs and their loads; then comes a frantic crashing through the scrub, packs are forced off, and the horses are lost sight of for hours or even days.
3. Mr. Kennedy, who explored in Queensland, describes the difficulty of travelling in the tropical jungles of that colony. He speaks, in particular, of the terrible lawyer vine and the equally-dreaded tree-nettle. The former is a species of rattan, armed with hooks and spurs, which once fast never let go. The other is a forest-tree belonging to the nettle family, and its broad leaves sting so severely as to cause serious inflammation; horses, indeed, which have plunged about and got stung all over, sometimes die from the effects.
4. For exploring the interior, Adelaide, in South Australia, has been a favourite starting-point; in 1840 Mr. Eyre made his perilous journey along the shores of the Australian Bight to King George's Sound, a distance of 1,200 miles. The greatest difficulty was to find water. He had with him ten horses and six sheep. Before moving the animals from their halting-place it was necessary to secure water for them, and Eyre himself explored in advance, sometimes five or six days at a time, without finding a drop, being reduced to collecting dew with a sponge and rags. When 600 miles from his destination Eyre was left with one native servant, two horses, 40 lbs. of flour, and four gallons of water. It was 150 miles further before they obtained a fresh supply of water. Thus they struggled on for a month, living on horse-flesh, with a little flower-paste or damper. They had then the good luck to attract the notice of a whaling ship near the shore, and were kindly received on board for a fortnight. Being sufficiently recruited, they continued their journey, and after undergoing further hardships for twenty-three days, succeeded in reaching King George's Sound.
5. In 1860 an expedition set out from Melbourne to cross the continent from south to north. Burke and Wills were first and second in command. These two men accomplished the last part of the journey alone, and on foot, for all the camels had sunk with fatigue. Having reached the shores of Carpentaria, they retraced their steps in the expectation of coming across the men and stores they had left at a certain place on the route. Four months and a half after leaving the depot they reached it again, only to find a notice stating that their friends had left that same morning. The word "dig" was cut on a neighbouring tree, and buried beneath it they discovered a small supply of provisions.
6. On their way back to the depot they had been rejoined by one of the party. The three deserted wanderers rested for a couple of days, and then started for Adelaide. They were rapidly dying of hunger when they met some natives, who treated them in a friendly manner. After resting with them for four days they resumed their journey. But first Wills, and then Burke, completely broke down and died. The only survivor wandered on until he met with a tribe who permitted him to stay with them. He was afterwards found by a rescue party from Victoria, but so weak that he could scarcely speak. The blacks were rewarded for their kindness with gifts of looking-glasses, gay pieces of ribbon, and other articles of finery.
7. While the explorers just mentioned were crossing the continent from Melbourne, another expedition, under Stuart, was attempting to cross from Adelaide. About the centre of the continent Stuart reached a mountain, which has been named Central Mount Stuart. He had penetrated within 200 miles of the Gulf of Carpentaria, when he was forced to turn back through the hostility of a numerous tribe of natives. Nothing daunted, Stuart set out again from Adelaide on New Year's Day, 1861, and got about 100 miles beyond the point already reached, when his further progress was barred by an impenetrable scrub. He made strenuous efforts to pass the obstacle, but without success. Reluctantly compelled to turn back for want of provisions, he arrived safely in the settled districts, north of Adelaide, and for the third time attempted to reach the goal; and this time with well-earned success. Neither on this, nor on any of his previous journeys, did Mr. Stuart lose a single man of his party.
8. This journey had important results. It showed that through the centre of the continent was a chain of fertile spots and grassy plains, through which a track might be found for a telegraph line, stretching from Adelaide in the south to Port Darwin in the north. But the difficulties to be overcome in carrying this line across the continent were considerable. For one thing, the two ends of the wire were 1,600 miles apart, and for no small part of the way it had to pass through a desolate region void of water and pasture. The northern section of the work proved the most difficult to accomplish; for there were no trees for posts, and the tropical heat was too great for European labour. Indian coolies and Chinese labourers were hired, wells were dug along the route, iron posts were imported, and by great exertions the task was, in 1872, completed.
9. It is by this telegraph line that Australia is in constant communication with the rest of the world. Thanks to this magical wire, Australians are able to read at their breakfast tables events which had occurred on the opposite side of the globe a few hours previously. Thanks to the same wire, if an important cricket match is being played in Australia, we at home can almost stand round the field and watch it in progress. Whilst the telegraph has brought us within easy speaking distance of Australia, the steam-ship has also wrought its wonders. It is worth remembering that at the time when Australia received its first ship-load of settlers, the Orkneys and other remote parts of Scotland were as far distant from London, in respect to the time taken in travelling, as are the Australian colonies to-day, whilst the difficulties and risks of the journey were considerably greater.
(11) MUTUAL ADVANTAGE OF MOTHERLAND AND COLONY
(New Zealand).
1. Of all the colonies, with the exception of Tasmania perhaps, New Zealand most resembles the mother-country both in climate and scenery. At the same time it is wholly unlike Australia. If a long-sleeping Briton could be set down among the Otago hills, and, on awaking, be told that he was travelling in Galway or the west of Scotland, he might be easily deceived, though he knew those countries well; but he would feel at once that he was being hoaxed, if he were told in any part of Australia that he was travelling among Irish or British scenery.
2. Everything English seems to flourish here. The only quadrupeds seen are those imported from Europe. The complaint is that many of our English animals and plants thrive only too well. Hosts of pigs run wild; rabbits also spread over the country in battalions, and do great damage to the crops. Gorse and sweet-briar, brought by the early settlers from "home" are with difficulty kept in check. Even the English grasses are displacing those of native origin. Our house-sparrow is now the most common bird in New Zealand, and our house-fly seems likely to be as often seen there as here.
3. In colonising Australia little account had to be taken of the natives, who were both few and feeble. It was otherwise with the natives of New Zealand. The Maoris, as they called themselves, were a fierce, warlike race, strong and brave, who were not content with killing their enemies, but fed upon their flesh afterwards. They were not, however, mere naked savages. They wove mats and clothing from flax, and cloaks of great value from the dressed skins of dogs. In the narrative of the wars between the Maoris and the colonists, one is constantly reminded of the war between the ancient Britons and the Romans; in both cases the natives were brave and skilled in war, and owed their final defeat to their own divisions and to the superior arms of their enemies.
4. The first settlement was made here in 1840 after a friendly treaty had been made with the Maoris. By this treaty they took Queen Victoria for their sovereign, but on the express understanding that their lands should remain at their own disposal. "The shadow of our lands," said an old chief, "will go to the queen, but the substance will remain in our own hands." Emigrants began to pour in and to purchase lands at a low price. At the end of twenty years the Maoris began to awake to the fact that the settlers were increasing very rapidly, and now outnumbered themselves, whilst their lands were continually passing out of their hands. A movement, accordingly, soon took place among themselves for the purpose of stopping the sale of land to the stranger.
5. The war that ensued lasted, off and on, for ten years. Aided by British troops, the colonists at last convinced the Maoris that their cause was hopeless. They consented to live at peace on the terms offered, and have ever since been as good as their word. All, except a few of the older people, call themselves Christians. They have become to a certain extent educated and civilised; many of them have farms and ships. But with the change in their habits has come a change in their spirit. They seem to feel themselves a doomed race. "As the white man's rat," they say, "has extirpated our rat, as the European fly is driving out our fly, as the foreign clover is killing our ferns, so the Maori himself will disappear before the white man."
6. Since 1870, when the war ended, the whole of New Zealand has made steady progress. In the course of the next ten years, such a stream of emigrants came flowing in that the population almost doubled itself. All skilled labourers who came found ready employment and good pay. It was a time when much money was spent on public works. The New Zealand Government had raised a loan of ten millions from men of capital in England. The money thus borrowed was devoted to three purposes: (1) to improve the means of communication by constructing roads, railroads, bridges, telegraphs, and coasting-vessels; (2) to purchase lands from the natives whenever they were willing to sell; and (3) to aid men of the right stamp to emigrate from Britain.
7. New Zealand is, as I have intimated, an eminently British Colony. The colonists are almost entirely of British descent. Their trade is nearly confined to the British Empire, seven-tenths of it being with the mother-country, and nearly all the rest with Australia, India, and Fiji. The discovery of the method of keeping meat frozen in cold air chambers during the passage of a vessel through the tropics has been a great boon to New Zealand, and a great advantage to our own land, enabling British workmen to purchase excellent meat at a moderate price.
8. A moment's reflection on these facts will serve to bring home to our minds the mutual advantages accruing to the mother-country and her colonies, when in friendly relations with each other. We observe that New Zealand has received the aid of British troops in her war with the natives; she has been able to raise a large loan for public works at a moderate rate of interest from men of property at home; and she enjoys here a ready market for her produce.
9. The mother-country, on her part, has been able to provide new homes for her surplus population in a country like their own; she has secured seven-tenths of the trade of New Zealand, increasing thereby the amount of profitable employment for her workpeople; she has drawn from the colony supplies of cheap food to help fill the hungry mouths of her millions, and quite recently she has received the substantial aid of 6,000 New Zealand troops in her war in South Africa.
(12) A DIFFICULT BRITISH STATE TO BUILD
(South Africa).
1. The story of South Africa, since the British gained a footing there, is marked by many a dark spot of misfortune and disaster that we would gladly forget. When Britain, in 1806, took possession of the Cape, the country was occupied by Boers, Hottentots, and Kaffirs. The building up of a British state, with such conflicting elements, has been a work of extreme difficulty, which has put the best qualities of the British race to a severe test, and much of the work still remains to be done.
2. The Home Government, for many years, only valued the Cape as a military post and naval station, occupying a commanding position on the waterway to India. They shrank, accordingly, from extending British rule in South Africa beyond the narrowest limits, and for many years made no attempt to colonize the country. It was not until 1820 that a body of picked emigrants, numbering 5,000, were landed at Algoa Bay, and, having been taken 100 miles inland, were put in possession of farms of 100 acres each.
3. The first three years were years of blight which killed the growing grain, and then came a flood which washed away their cottages and gardens. Many of the emigrants were good artisans but bad farmers. They had been set out like so many plants, in well-ordered rows, and told to grow where they were placed. But the experiment was bound to fail. Before long many of the men deserted their farms and found work as artisans, whilst those who were fitted for farm-work added the derelict farms to their own, and thus in time each one found himself in the sphere for which he was best adapted.
4. The coming of the British settlers had a marked effect on the government of the colony. The governor was no longer able to rule simply as he thought best. The new-comers were not disposed to be treated as children. They wanted law and government, but insisted on their right to question the acts of the governor, and to see that he governed according to law, and not merely according to his own will and pleasure. It is interesting to find from an official report made to the House of Commons that,—"The introduction of the English settlers, and the right of discussion which they claimed and exercised, have had the effect of exciting in the Dutch and native population a spirit of vigilance and attention, that never existed before, to the acts of the government, and which may render all future exertion of authority objectionable that is not founded upon the law."
5. The history of South Africa, for more than thirty years after the first British settlement, is marked by two special features, both arising from the fact that three races—British, Boer, and Kaffir—were contending for the mastery. One feature was the repeated migrations of the Boers to get away from British rule and taxation, and from British justice, which was dealt out even-handed to black men and white men alike. The Boers succeeded in forming two republics—the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. They also attempted to settle in Natal, but that colony was annexed by the British government (1843).
6. The other feature of those early days was the frequent necessity of going to war with the Kaffirs. Several serious wars had to be fought with the natives, who were very numerous, before they were convinced that the white man had come to stay, and that his arm was stronger than theirs. Each war with the Kaffirs ended in an extension of British territory, and by the middle of the century nearly the whole country south of the Orange river was taken under British rule.
7. The governor that did most for the peace of the colony was Sir George Grey, who had already done a good work for the empire in South Australia and New Zealand. He secured the good offices of the Kaffir chiefs by taking them into his pay, and he opened schools where their young men might be trained in some useful occupation, as farming, gardening, and carpentry. But he met with only moderate success. Like the negroes of the West Indies, most Kaffirs hate work and have no desire to better their condition. Given a noisy musical instrument, a bright sun, and a gaudy dress, and their mirth and gaiety seem boundless.
8. Sir George Grey also tried to cure the natives of their belief in witchcraft, but in this he miserably failed. He did much, however, to put down the practice of "smelling out" witches. The Kaffirs believe that diseases and disasters of all kinds are caused by wizards and witches, and in every tribe there was a professional witch-finder whose duty it was to go through certain forms, calling "smelling-out," and then point out the individual, who was supposed to have caused the mischief. This practice did not commend itself to the governor's sense of justice, and he did all he possibly could to put it down.
9. The superstitious belief of the Kaffirs was the cause of a terrible tragedy during Grey's term of office. Thousands of their cattle had been carried off by a pestilence, when a Kaffir prophet consoled the poor natives by assuring them that the Kaffir chiefs, long dead and gone, were about to return to earth with a new breed of cattle, which disease could not touch, and that their coming would result in the triumph of the black men over the white. But all this, he said, would only happen if all the present cattle and corn were destroyed. Thousands took the madman at his word and made away with their corn and cattle. The great day of deliverance was fixed for February 18th, 1857, and to their amazement the sun rose and set as usual, leaving the poor dupes face to face with starvation. The Kaffirs suffered so dreadfully from the scourge of famine, and their numbers were in consequence so much reduced, that we hear of no more wars during the next twenty years.
10. During this peaceful time Cape Colony made steady but slow progress, but, in 1870, an event occurred which awoke the colony to new life. This was the discovery of a rich diamond-field around Kimberley. Men and capital began to flow into the country and the wheels of industry began to turn more rapidly. Farmers obtained a good market, trade became brisk, railways were speedily laid down. The diamonds are found in a kind of "blue ground," which is nothing but a stream of volcanic mud cast up in ages past. So rich is it in diamonds that the mines have yielded, since 1870, a yearly revenue of between two and three million pounds.
11. The blacks in 1878 made one more hopeless attempt to oust the white men. The struggle ended in the British government taking possession of all the Kaffir lands, except Basutoland, and adding them to Cape Colony. Basutoland is a native state under the direct rule of the British Crown. This arrangement was made in response to the prayer of a Basuto chief: "Let me and my people rest and live under the large folds of the flag of England."
(13) A GREAT EXTENSION OF BRITISH TERRITORY
(South Africa).
1. No sooner had we put down the Kaffirs and annexed their territory to Cape Colony than we had to advance into Zululand and finally add that country to the Empire. The Zulus were then under the rule of their king Cetewayo, who kept a large army, well drilled and armed with musket and assegai. This force was a standing peril to Natal, and to save this colony from the horrors it feared, a British force crossed the Tugela—which separates Natal from Zululand—to destroy, if possible, the Zulu king's "man-slaying machine."
2. The invading army crossed the river at a ford called Rorke's Drift (1879), and a division of the troops suffered a great disaster, not far from there, at Isandlana. Happily, a small detachment had been left to guard the passage at the ford. The command of this post was in the hands of Lieutenants Chard and Bromhead, whose names deserve an honoured place in our memory. With a force of 104 men they made an heroic defence against a savage host of 3000 warriors, who had reddened their assegais in the blood of our countrymen, taken by surprise, at Isandlana.
3. During the fight a building used as a hospital was set on fire by the Zulus. The brave defenders gallantly repulsed every attack whilst the sick were removed. A sort of redoubt was then constructed of bags of mealies in the centre of the camp, and when hard pressed to this they retired. The vigour of the siege continued from four in the afternoon until midnight. With the first light of morning the Zulus retired, on hearing of the approach of the British main-body, leaving three hundred black corpses on the ground. Of the gallant defenders seventeen were killed and ten wounded.
4. When the British General first came in sight of Rorke's Drift and saw smoke rising from the burning hospital, he felt certain that the depot had been captured, and that Natal, at that moment, lay at the mercy of a horde of savages. But he was quickly relieved at the sight of a British flag and the sound of a British cheer, and then he learned the story of the defence of that isolated post by the undaunted resolution of a little band of heroes, by whose conduct Natal was saved from invasion and massacre.
5. After a large force had landed from England, the invasion of Zululand was renewed, and a pitched battle, fought at Ulundi, brought the war to a close. To prevent the country from falling into the hands of the Boers, Zululand was annexed to Natal, and now forms part of the British Empire. The Zulus have ever since lived in peace and contentment.
6. It also became necessary to take under our wing the country of the Bechuanas on the west of the Transvaal; for there also many of the Boers were settling and making themselves at home on their neighbour's territory. Khama, a king of the Bechuanas sent to ask for British protection. "There are three things," he wrote, "which distress me very much—war, selling people, and drink. All these I shall find in the Boers, and it is these things which destroy people to make an end of them in the country." A part of Bechuanaland was, accordingly, brought under British rule, and the remaining part under British protection.
7. The next addition to the empire in South Africa was a vast country now known as Rhodesia, a country that owes its name to Cecil Rhodes, to whose marvellous enterprise its possession is mainly due. From its fertility, climate, and mineral wealth, it now bids fair to become a flourishing British Colony.
8. It was, however, difficult at first to make a settlement here, because it was partly occupied by the warlike Matabele, a tribe akin to the dreaded Zulus. Their king, Lobengula, kept an army of 10,000 warriors, who lived only for the joy of fighting. Permission, however, was purchased from Lobengula to search for, and work, the minerals within his territory. And a pioneer force was sent to turn this permission to account (1890). Before two years had passed it became quite clear that the Matabele warriors must be crushed before any progress could be made. Thanks to our machine-guns and modern rifles, this was soon effected.
9. A decisive engagement was fought near Bulawayo, the Matabele capital. The enemy foolishly hurled themselves against our small force when some were laagered, the rest entrenched. After an hour's carnage, they began to retreat with the loss of 1000 killed and wounded. A day or two later a loud report rent the air, and huge columns of smoke were observed to rise from Bulawayo. The king had fled after ordering his magazine to be blown up. Lobengula died shortly afterwards of fever, and his kingdom was placed under British rule.
10 The patriot that secured Rhodesia for the empire, has, unhappily, had his work cut short by an early death. Much as he had done for his country he hoped to do still more. His keen disappointment finds utterance in his last words: "So little done, so much to do."
Unity of the Empire.
1. It cannot be said that such is the unity of the British Empire that go where you will in it, you will find the same amount of liberty as at home, and exercise as large a share in the making of the laws. That can only be said if you go to one of the self-governing colonies, like Canada and Australia. But wherever you go within the limits of the empire, you may be pretty sure of being governed by law and not by caprice, and if wronged, of getting justice in a court of law. The empire stands for law and justice. These are two strands of the cord that unites the whole empire, independently of race and colour.
2. But the colonies which are peopled mainly by our own kinsmen enjoy with us the advantage of liberty in its fullest sense. It is worth while considering what is included in that word liberty. It means the right to form our own opinion on all subjects, and to express the same freely, without injury to others, in speaking or writing. It means the right for employers and workmen, like buyers and sellers, to settle their own terms without interference. It means the right to worship God according to conscience without having to suffer penalties or disabilities on account of our religion. It means the right to be governed according to law, and to be judged without fear or favour; and above all, the right to take part in levying taxes and making new laws by means of our representatives in Parliament.
3. So far as a people enjoys the right last named, it may in a real sense be said to govern itself. And it is this self-government which constitutes the crown of liberty. Only it must be remembered that it is not every nation, nor all in any nation, that are fit to govern themselves. Some nations are like children, not wise enough to know what is for their own good. Every nation, indeed, passes through the stages of childhood and youth before it reaches an age when it becomes capable of managing its own affairs with discretion.
4. In the colonies where men of our own race have chiefly settled, the period of childhood and youth has soon passed away, because I suppose their ancestors had spent a long period in these stages in the old country. It is astonishing on looking back a hundred years to see how much remained to be done in the cause of freedom even in England, which is now able to boast of being free and the mother of free nations. The mention of a few of the evils then existing will show how far we have travelled on the path of freedom since the centenarian of to-day was born.
5. The slave trade still went on, and slaves were still employed in our colonies; Roman Catholics were still at a serious disadvantage on account of their religion; children were permitted to work in mines and factories, however young, and even to climb chimneys for the purpose of sweeping them; crimes like stealing a sheep or a horse were punishable by hanging; trade was in fetters—scarcely was a thing imported duty free, even wheat from abroad was heavily taxed.
6. For a nation to be free the law must be supreme, and the people must have a share in making it through their representatives. Yet, a century ago, such large towns as Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham, sent no members to Parliament at all; whilst old decayed boroughs sent two. And the franchise, or right to vote at Parliamentary Elections, was limited to a privileged few. Thus one class of the people made the laws which all were expected to obey. These blots were removed by three Reform Bills, which were passed at intervals of twenty or thirty years.
7. It is worth observing from this example how gradual have been the changes made in our Constitution, or system of government. We seem to have learnt the lesson that true freedom can only be obtained when it is allowed to grow, when time is given for it to strike its roots deep in the life of the people. For the enjoyment of real freedom the law must be adapted to the wishes as well as the needs of the governed; that is to say, it must be moulded by public opinion, and the two must grow together so as to fit in with each other.
8. This is the secret of the ready obedience paid to the law by English people in general. Nothing so strikes a foreigner, on entering "the land of the free," as this willing submission to authority, especially as exemplified in the crowded streets of London, where all drivers instantly obey the policeman whose duty it is to direct the traffic. The coachman may have a prince or a duke in his carriage. It makes no difference. He must wait his turn. All alike willingly obey the officer in authority because he acts without fear or favour, with a single eye to the public convenience. Here we have a typical instance of the close connection that exists between law, order, and liberty, those three watchwords of every true Briton throughout the empire. The British are a law-abiding nation, because they join in making their laws, and as a practical people realise the fact that without obedience to law there can be no order, and without order no enjoyment of liberty.
9. It is interesting to read the impressions of an Eastern Potentate in his recent visit to England. "I have been particularly struck in this enormous metropolis with the loyal, willing recognition of lawful authority which pervades all classes, enabling your civil and municipal government to work smoothly, and your press to speak out fearlessly, and like watchdogs to bark at the least sign of encroachment upon the liberties of the subject. By a wave of his hand the police officer directs traffic at crossings and junctions of streets. By his writ or summons the magistrate orders you to appear to bear witness in a court of law. No one thinks of disobeying the policeman or the magistrate. Both are recognised as acting in the execution of their respective spheres of duty. I cannot think of Britain without realising how the source of all her strength is founded upon obedience. You detest tyranny. You love liberty. You bow to authority."
10. Much of what is here said about us resolves itself into one great characteristic, which stamps us all as one people, in whatever part of the empire we may chance to live, and that is the passionate love of justice or fair-play. What men of our race ask for is a fair field and no favour.
(2) IMPERIAL SPIRIT OF OUR RACE.
1. Not long ago a discovery was made which turned all eyes to South Africa as the land paved with gold (1886). In a district known as the Rand, in the west of the Transvaal, gold reefs were discovered of extraordinary richness. Many important results have grown out of this discovery, the most momentous being the great Boer War.
2. The gold-fields of the Transvaal drew a large stream of adventurers and gold-miners from all parts of the world. These "outlanders," as the Boers called them, included a large proportion of men of British nationality. These men were treated by the Boer government with gross injustice, and by Boer officials with open contempt. And when our government demanded fair treatment for British subjects, the Boers took offence at what they considered undue interference. Here then was one cause of the quarrel which ended in war.
3. But there was another cause not less potent. The gold mines of the Transvaal were so productive that the Boer treasury soon overflowed with gold. This wealth stirred the ambition of the Boer leaders, and made them dream of South Africa as a great federal Republic, with the Transvaal as the leading state, and the Boer flag as the national standard. This, of course, meant the sweeping of British authority out of South Africa.
4. The gold at their disposal seemed to the Boers to give them a fair chance of accomplishing this result. At any rate, it enabled them to build forts, to provide arms of the best modern type in abundance, and to employ European officers as artillery instructors. It is true, they may have reflected, our numbers are comparatively small, but all our forces are close at hand, whilst the British will have to draw theirs from a country 6,000 miles away.
5. And so at last the die was cast, and, on the 11th October, 1899, a Boer force entered Natal in the hope of driving the small British army into the sea before reinforcements could arrive from England. In this they failed, as we know, by the splendid stand made by our troops, under Sir George White, at Ladysmith. It is not our intention to tell the story of the war, whose main incidents are fresh in our minds, but to show what a marvellous effect that war has had in drawing out the great qualities of our race, and in uniting the whole empire.
6. In the beginning of the war our arms met with serious reverses. In one dark week of December came the news of three disastrous failures, in our attack on the enemy's position, in three different quarters. But what was the effect of this threefold misfortune? It braced the nation to put forth its strength, it stiffened their resolve to conquer in the end, whatever the cost in blood or treasure. A mighty wave of patriotism swept over the land, and thousands of our best and bravest responded to the call to arms. Regulars, militia, volunteers, yeomanry—all alike, men of all classes from prince to peasant, eagerly proffered their services.
7. Still more remarkable was the effect which the need of the great mother had upon her sons in all parts of the empire. From Canada, from Australia, from New Zealand thousands of brave men hastened to the rescue, all sent off from their distant homes with the acclamations of enthusiastic crowds. Offers of help came from every corner of the empire; nor were such offers limited to men of British origin. Indian princes pressed their services on our acceptance, and the Maoris of New Zealand were as eager as any in their land to fight for the flag. But the British government wisely declined the services of all who were not of British blood. The war was a contest between the Boers and the British for supremacy in South Africa, and it was resolved to make it a fair stand-up fight between the two races.
8. The spirit in which our nation girded themselves for the fight, when the blows of misfortune fell hard upon them in that dark December week, is well exemplified in the prompt response of Lord Roberts to the call made upon his services, as commander-in-chief of our army in South Africa, at the very moment when he had received the crushing news of the death of his son, in a gallant attempt to rescue some guns after the battle of Colenso.
9. No need to tell of the splendid services Lord Roberts rendered at the seat of war, how, within six months from his departure from England, he led his army in triumph into the capitals of the two Boer states, and made their conquest in the end almost a certainty. In taking his farewell of the army, the general paid a well-deserved tribute of praise to our soldiers, who "by their pluck, endurance, discipline, and devotion to duty" had covered themselves with glory. "For months together," said their commander, "in fierce heat, in biting cold, in pouring rain, you have marched and fought without halt, and bivouacked without shelter... You have forced your way through dense jungles, over precipitous mountains, through and over which, with infinite labour, you have had to drag heavy guns and ox-waggons.... You have endured the suffering, inevitable in war, to sick and wounded men, without murmur, and even with cheerfulness."
10. And if any other testimony is needed in favour of "Tommy Atkins," as we fondly call our soldiers, we have it in the despatch of a German officer: "We can only marvel," he says, "at the heroism with which British troops in close order attempt to scale steep heights under a fierce hail of bullets. We can only marvel at the intrepidity with which they try to force a passage through narrow mountain passes where the enemy lie concealed."
11. A thrill of pride, then, may well go through the heart of every Briton when he thinks of the deeds of courage, the splendid resolution, and the cheerful patience of our troops in South Africa. The nation, too, has given full proof that the spirit of their fathers, the same old spirit that has carried the old flag through so many times of stress and strain, is still active as ever, that the fibre of our race is as hard and well-knit as in days of yore.
12. War is at best a great calamity, but the war we have waged with the Boers has brought us compensations. It has proved that our soldiers and sailors are as truly hearts of oak now as formerly, and that our brothers in the colonies are made of the same stuff as the best of ourselves. It has done still more in revealing to the whole world that the British Empire is not a mere name for a number of territories scattered over the globe, but that it is a living whole animated by one and the same spirit. All nations may now know that the honour and interests of the empire are dear not to Britain alone, but to the whole family of nations that have sprung from her; and that in any future contest with Great Britain they will have to reckon also with the Greater Britain beyond the seas. "Shoulder to shoulder, all for each, and each for all, we stand united before the world, and our children have shown that they are not unwilling to share with us the obligations as well as the dignity of the empire."
13. The union of the empire has now been cemented by the blood so freely shed by our kinsmen in South Africa. In confirmation of the hope that the bonds of that union will only grow stronger with the increasing years, we may mention the impressions that the Prince of Wales has brought home with him from his tour round the empire. "If asked," he says, "to specify any particular impressions derived from our journey, I should unhesitatingly place before all others that of loyalty to the Crown, and of attachment to the old country, which they invariably referred to as Home. And with this loyalty was unmistakable evidence of the consciousness of strength, of a true and living membership in the empire, and of power and readiness to share the burden and responsibility of that membership."
14. Everywhere the prince had evidence of that pride of race, that unity of sentiment and purpose, that feeling of common loyalty and obligation, that eager desire to claim their share in the glories of a great empire with a great past and, perchance, a greater future—in a word, that imperial patriotism, which keeps in view the welfare of the whole empire,—
"One with Britain, heart and soul!
One life, one flag, one fleet, one throne!"
(3) THE SOVEREIGN IN RELATION TO THE EMPIRE.
1. Our sovereign serves the same purpose in the empire that a keystone does in an arch, and that is to lock the whole fabric together. The recognition of this fact has led King Edward in assuming his title to call himself king, not only of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, but also of the British Dominions beyond the seas. It has led him also to send his son the Prince of Wales, round the empire to carry his message of sympathy with his subjects on the loss of their beloved queen, and of thanks for the splendid way in which they had rallied round the old flag in South Africa.
2. It is by the interchange of such kind offices and services that the various parts of the empire are knit together; and it is the sovereign who has in his keeping the chief power of drawing them all more closely together by a common attachment to his person and loyalty to his throne. That the spirit of unity in the empire has for many years been steadily growing in strength is largely due to the character and example of our great Queen Victoria.
3. When Her Majesty celebrated her Diamond Jubilee, the demonstrations of love and loyalty, on the part of her people, in all parts of her empire, were so striking that it seemed impossible for that love and loyalty to be surpassed; yet it is certain that the noble part the queen played in the course of the Boer war intensified those feelings of devotion, and placed her on a still higher pinnacle of glory, not only in the eyes of her subjects, but of the civilised world.
4. It would take too long to mention one tithe of the queen's kind acts and words of comfort to the mourners and sufferers as the war went on. Her many kind messages to the besieged as well as the sick and wounded, her hearty congratulations to generals and soldiers on their gaining some victory or important success, her farewells to those going out to hazard their lives, her reception of troops returning from the war, and her visits to the military hospitals with her words of sympathy to those maimed or wounded in their country's service—all these things are written indelibly on the hearts and memories of the British people.
5. Nor will they ever forget the example of calm fortitude the queen set the nation in the days darkened by sad news from the seat of war, nor her self-sacrifice in visiting London and Dublin, after the turn of the tide, to show her admiration and gratitude for the devotion and bravery of her troops, and the patriotic spirit of her people. The task was only achieved at the cost of great fatigue and exhausting excitement, for Her Majesty's years numbered more than fourscore. As in this Boer war, so throughout her long reign, Queen Victoria was ever the centre of our national life, and the vital link between all parts of her world-wide empire.
6. The great Queen is dead, but we have every reason to believe that her son and successor, King Edward VII., will prove equally worthy of his exalted position. As Prince of Wales we all know he did his utmost to promote the well-being of the whole nation. His name is associated with numberless institutions set on foot for benevolent purposes. The affectionate relation existing between King Edward, when Prince of Wales, and the British people have been especially shown on two turning points in his life—his happy marriage and his dangerous illness.
7. Nothing could have exceeded the warm welcome given to the Princess Alexandra when she entered London to become his bride, or the great rejoicing throughout the land when she became the Princess of Wales (1863). But the joy of the nation on this happy event was of small significance compared with the wondrous sympathy manifested when the Prince seemed on the bed of death, and the Princess on the point of becoming a widow. All the nation seemed to stand around that bed, and to watch with increased hope or fear, every change in the progress of the disease. It was then perceived that as a nation we had a heart that could throb as with one pulse.
8. When the Prince was raised from the bed of sickness, a day of National Thanksgiving was solemnly observed. The Queen, accompanied by the Prince and Princess of Wales, appeared in St. Paul's Cathedral, with ten thousand of her subjects, to, acknowledge the hand of God in restoring health to the Prince, and the Prince to the nation (1872). Since then both prince and people have felt that they belong to each other.
9. We may, therefore, confidently hope that the link between the King and the nation will only grow stronger with the advancing years. And this hope is confirmed by the assurance that the King's solemn resolution, as he withdrew from the death-bed of the good and wise Queen, was to reign in the same spirit and after her example. This is apparent from his address, on the following morning, to his Privy Council:—
Your Royal Highnesses, my Lords and Gentlemen,
This is the most painful occasion on which I shall ever be called upon to address you.
My first and melancholy duty is to announce to you the death of my beloved mother, the Queen, and I know how deeply you, the whole nation, and I think I may say the whole world, sympathise with me in the irreparable loss we have all sustained.
I need hardly say that my constant endeavour will be always to walk in her footsteps. In undertaking the heavy load which now devolves upon me, I am fully determined to be a Constitutional Sovereign in the strictest sense of the word, and as long as there is breath in my body to work for the good and amelioration of my people....
In conclusion, I trust to Parliament and the nation to support me in the arduous duties which now devolve upon me by inheritance, and to which I am determined to devote my whole strength during the remainder of my life.
10. In this address, we observe, the King solemnly declares that he will act as "a Constitutional Sovereign in the strictest sense of the word." This means that in his official acts the Sovereign will be guided by the advice of his ministers, not merely by his own personal will and wisdom. This principle is the corner-stone of the British Constitution, as it makes the King's ministers responsible for his action, in all state affairs, and enables the nation, through Parliament, to call them to account for the same.
11. It is a maxim of our Constitution that "the king never dies," which implies that at the moment one reign ends the next begins. Hence the accession of Edward VII. dates from the 22nd January, 1901, but his solemn installation as king was deferred until June 26th, 1902, a day that will long be remembered as Coronation-day, when King Edward received the crown, as the symbol of sovereignty, in the presence of representatives from every corner of his wide dominions.
