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.

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.

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,"

CHAPTER V.

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.

(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.

(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.