Miss Corner

“ In a very short time, the negroes will be at liberty like other working men; and the masters, instead of buying them, must hire them like servants, and pay them wages; and they will be able to leave their master if he does not treat them well, and get another place, as our servants do."
"Ah, how glad I am," said Charles, "that will be a good thing for the poor blacks. I do not wish to have a slave now, papa; I would not have one for the world. But Peter's father's slaves do not work in the gold mines, they make sugar: why is that?" ”

“ You may think how glad the people were that the wars were over, and the king was very glad too, for he now had time to do what was more pleasant to him than fighting, which was, to do all the good he could for the country. He thought the best way to defend it against its enemies was to have good ships to keep them from landing; but, as the English did not know much about ship-building, he sent for men from Italy to teach them, and also had models of ships brought that they might see how they were constructed, and men were taught to manage them, so that England, for the first time, had a navy. ”

“ But pleasure cannot last for ever. The pantomime was soon over, and as Charles went home, he said he should like to go to the play every night, all the rest of his life—"Ah, Charles,"—said his papa, "we are all apt to like what is new to us, but you will find out, my boy, that people get tired even of pleasure, if they have too much of it." ”

“ The people of Scotland did not like the union of the two kingdoms, at first, because the [151] king and many of the nobility went away to live in London, which, as there was little trade, left Scotland in a very poor condition; and it was a long time, indeed, not before the people had experienced the great benefits of British trade and commerce, that they began to feel as a part of the English nation; but now that the English and Scots have become like one people, it is certainly much happier and better for both. ”

“ Missionaries are good and religious men, who go out to different parts of the world, on purpose to benefit those poor ignorant creatures whom we call savages, by teaching them religion, and also such arts as they are capable of learning."
"That is very kind of them," said Charles; "for it cannot be very pleasant to live among savages."
"No, my dear; but these good men do not consider what is pleasant, they only consider what is right; and that is the proper way to think, is it not?"
"Oh yes, papa, I know that we ought all to do what is right, whether it is pleasant or not." ”

“ You have been told that Ireland had been subject to England, ever since the time of Henry the Second; but there had constantly been quarrels and warfare between the native Irish, and the new Irish, who were the descendants of the English, who had settled there, after the conquest.
40. Then the new Irish were just as ready to quarrel with new English settlers, as the old Irish were with them; and, till the last fifty years, little had been done to make the people of Ireland a better or a happier race. ”

“ The houses of the great men were very like large barns, and each house stood on an open space of ground, enclosed by a wall of earth and a ditch, within which there were stacks of corn, sheds for the horses and cattle, and huts for the thralls to sleep in. ”

“ Yes, Charles, I am sorry to say, that Englishmen, as well as Spaniards, have traded in slaves, for when some of the West-India islands came into the possession of the English, they found the negroes so useful, and made so much money by their labour, that they forgot how unjust it was to keep them in slavery. However, I am happy to say, that a law is now in operation which will soon set all the slaves free. ”

“ The country was not then called England, but Britain; and its inhabitants were called Britons. They were divided into many tribes; and each tribe had a king or chief, like the North American Indians; and these chiefs often went to war with one another.
4. Some of the tribes lived like savages, for they had no clothes but skins, and did not know how to cultivate the land: so they had no bread, but got food to eat by hunting animals in the forests, fishing in the rivers, and some of them by keeping herds of small hardy cattle, and gathering wild roots and acorns, which they roasted and eat. ”

“ No, I have no doubt they were quite satisfied with themselves, my dear, and not without reason, for they had taught themselves many useful things; but at last they found out that there were people in the world who were cleverer than they were as you shall hear. There was a Spanish soldier, named Pizarro, who happened to hear that there was a great deal of gold and silver to be found in Peru; so he thought he would go there, and try if he could not make himself rich. Pizarro was a fierce, cruel man, but he had been brought up in total ignorance ”

“ Edward the First was a much wiser and better prince than his father, but he was too fond of war, and too anxious to be renowned as a conqueror, which was the cause of the long wars in Scotland, for his great ambition was to conquer that country. ”

“ Yes, Charles, so we see how much may be done by one person alone, if he will take the pains. But there is one thing that the missionary has taught the savages, which is better than all the rest; he has taught them to know that there is a God, who made the world, and all that is in it, and that those who love him, and keep his commandments, will be rewarded in the world to come. ”

“ Now it is a very good thing for men to be brave, for I do not know what we should do [86] without brave men for soldiers and sailors, to fight for us; but it is not the most useful quality a king can possess; and I think you will agree with me, when I tell you that Richard the First, instead of staying at home to make good laws, and take care of his subjects, went away to fight, or gain glory, as fighting was then called, in the Holy Land, while all things were going wrong in England, for the want of somebody to keep order. ”

“ There was once a king of Scotland, named Duncan, who was a good man, and much beloved by his subjects. This king had a cousin named Macbeth, who being the bravest general in Scotland, was employed by Duncan to fight all his battles for him, when he was too old to fight them himself; but Macbeth, although a brave man, was not a good man, and besides that, he had a very wicked wife, who wanted to be a queen, and therefore she tried to persuade her husband to kill Duncan, that he might be made king in his stead. ”

“ Athelstan had a good deal of fighting to do, for the people of the Daneland revolted, and he was obliged to lead his soldiers into their territory, to bring them to order; and then he had to march against Howel, the Prince of Wales, who was defeated in battle, when Athelstan nobly gave him back his dominions, saying, “There was more glory in making a king than in dethroning one.” ”

“ Wherever there is civil war, there is sure to be famine and misery of all kinds, and there never was more misery in England than during the reign of king Stephen; for, in order to keep as many of the Barons on his side as he could, he let them do just as they pleased; and he gave titles and estates to a great many bold and bad men, who built castles and kept bands of ruffians, who went at night to rob and plunder the towns [81] and villages; so that the people, when they shut up their houses at night, used to kneel down and pray that God would protect them from robbers and murderers. ”

“ It is when the people of any country cannot agree among themselves, and so make war upon each other: there have been civil wars in all countries at different times; they are the most dreadful of all wars, because relations and friends are often fighting in battle against each other. ”

“ There had been a great revolution in France. The people rose up against king Louis the Sixteenth, who was made prisoner, and beheaded; just as Charles the First was treated here, and for much the same cause. Then a number of persons took the government into their own hands, and governed without a king, and declared war against the king of Great Britain, and also against the stadtholder of Holland, and the king of Spain, for disapproving of what the French people had done. ”

“ So in the morning, when it became known that the king was murdered, Macbeth pretended to be very much surprised and grieved at it, and although the people all thought he had done it himself, they were afraid to say so; and he was made king of Scotland. But wickedness is sure to be punished, as you shall hear; for the two young Princes, Malcolm and Donald Bane, as soon as they heard their father was dead, escaped from the castle, fearing that if they staid they might be killed too. ”

“ The war in which king William was engaged, had nothing whatever to do with the English, but was only for the sake of helping the Archduke of Austria, to fight out his quarrels with the king of France; yet, after William’s death, these wars were carried on during the whole reign of queen Anne, who succeeded [172] William the Third, in the year 1702, after he had reigned thirteen years.
12. These wars caused great distress in England, where the taxes were increased, to pay the expenses of the soldiers, and trade was much injured, as we were at war with both France and Spain. ”

“ After the Norman conquest they were called villeins, which meant villagers, and they lived in the same manner, and had the same kind of duties to perform for their lords, as in the Saxon times; but there were many new feudal customs brought here by the Normans; as for example, a mill was set up on every estate, to which all the poor people were obliged to take their corn to be ground, instead of grinding it at home with hand-mills, as they used to do; and, out of each measure, a part was taken for the baron, which was a very hard tax upon them, especially if they had large families. ”

“ He was astonished to see that they could tell the hour of the day by their watches, and thought the Europeans must be very wonderful people indeed, to make such clever things; but what pleased him more than all, was the art of writing. ”

“ The war caused a great deal of unhappiness in private families; for, although it was principally the soldiers who fought, everybody was interested in the question whether there should be a king, or not; and such violent quarrels [155] arose, that the nearest relatives, even fathers and sons, and brothers often became enemies, and many young men went to join one army, or the other; so that sometimes two brothers might be on different sides; and then think how dreadful it was, when a battle took place, that they should be fighting against each other. ”

“ When America was first discovered, which is about three hundred and fifty years ago, there were many gold mines found in the West-Indies, all the mountains contained a vast quantity of gold, but it was very hard work to dig for it, and the natives of the country, who were savages, were not strong, and had never been used to work; so that the Spaniards who had discovered the country, could not get as much gold as they wished, although they were cruel enough to force the poor savages to work in the mines, and chained them together ”