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.
[Illustration: 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.
(7) NELSON AND NAPOLEON.
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.
(9) INDIA'S NEW MASTERS.
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.
[Illustration: 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.
(10) WELLINGTON AND NAPOLEON.
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,"