Britannia

“ Rule, Britannia, Britannia, rule the waves,
⁠Britons never shall be slaves. ”

“ Not less interesting to us has been the marvellous growth of Britain’s empire in the last hundred years. Her colonies and possessions are found on every continent, and her flag floats on every sea. She is still “Mistress of the Sea,” and her navy carries British goods and manufactures to every land. Her commerce is great beyond comparison, and her language and civilization are finding a sure foothold in every nation. But better than all, England’s influence for truth, justice, and righteousness, is greater than ever. ”

“ Thus Great-Britain, under the illustrious house of Brunswick, a house that seems to flourish for the happiness of mankind, has found a felicity, unknown in the reigns of the Stuarts. But if once we are separated from our mother country, what new form of government shall we accept, or when shall we find another Britain to supply our loss? Torn from the body to which we are united by religion, liberty, laws, affections, relations, language, and commerce, we must bleed at every vein.
In truth, the prosperity of these provinces is founded in their dependance on Great-Britain ”

“ Consider in contrast with these empires the question—What is the distinction in this phase of human life of the Empire of Britain, of its history? Steadily growing from its first beginnings—shall I say, from that great battle of the Winwaed, where three Kings are in conflict and the slayer of two lies dead—steadily growing, on to the present hour, as in politics so in religion, the effort sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious, but persistent, continuous, towards an ever purer, higher, nobler conception of man's relations to the Divine. ”

“ The last and westernmost settlement was made on the island of Great Britain, and here they were stopped from further progress by the Atlantic Ocean; and here, after many generations of war, they coalesced and mingled their blood together, and thus became the British nation; and thus out of the commingling of the blood of the most enterprising races that came out of the loins of Japheth has grown that nation, that in all lands has vindicated its right to be known as the foremost nation of the world. ”

“ Oh, wonderful rights! that have lost to Great Britain her empire on the ocean,—her boasted, grand, and substantial superiority,—which made the world bend before her! Oh, inestimable rights! that have taken from us our rank among nations—our importance abroad, and our happiness at home; that have taken from us our trade, our manufactures, and our commerce; that have reduced us from the most flourishing empire in the world, to be one of the most compact and unenviable powers on the globe! ”

“ Setting aside England’s enormous and majestic politics, the country lives a life that is simultaneously material and mystical. In England matter is sovereign; and, let us add, it is sovereign in a useful and splendid way; names by which it is called include: bank, stock market, industry, commerce, production, circulation, exchange, wealth, prosperity; in England matter hampers progress wile goading it on; it is massive and tumultuous; it overwhelms a person and gains the upper hand; it fills him full of lead and covers him with wings; the wings are power, the lead is gold. ”

“ They had not only a respect, but an affection for Great-Britain; for its laws, its customs and manners, and even a fondness for its fashions, that greatly increased the commerce. Natives of Britain were always treated with particular regard; to be an Old England man was, of itself, a character of some respect, and gave a kind of rank among us. ”

“ Our ancestors in their emigration to this country brought with them the common law of England as their birthright. They adopted its principles for their government so far as it was not incompatible with the peculiarities of their situation in a rude and unsettled country. Great Britain then having the sovereignty over the colonies, possessed undoubted power to regulate their institutions, to control their commerce, and to give laws to their intercourse, both with the mother and the other nations of the earth. ”

“ Years went on and still the power and prestige of Great Britain grew, still its industry and commerce spread and expanded, still its colonies increased in population and new lands were added to the sum, until the island-empire stood foremost in industry and enterprise among the nations of the world, and its people reached the summit of their prosperity. ”

“ History of the Britons 7Here beginneth the history of the Britons, edited by Mark the anchorite, a holy bishop of that people.
The island of Britain derives its name from Brutus, a Roman consul. Taken from the south-west point it inclines a little towards the west, and to its northern extremity measures eight hundred miles, and is in breadth two hundred. [4] It has also a vast many promontories, and castles innumerable, built of brick and stone. Its inhabitants consist of four different people; the Scots, the Picts, the Saxons, and the ancient Britons. ”

“ Hundreds of years ago, in the ancient boroughs of England, a genius for self-government began to display itself, and it is that to which the greatness of our empire is mainly to be attributed. We not only got the noblest of all Imperial gifts—self-government—but we got more than that. Great Britain gave us another noble Imperial gift—the magnificent continent we possess, with all its resources and all its wealth. ”

“ England is less a nation than a race. The Anglo-Saxons know no fatherland but the sea. England, looked upon as wealthy in her vast domains, owes her fortune and her power to her commerce. It is not her colonies which should be envied her, but her merchants, the authors of her wealth. ”

“ A glance at the map of the world in which the parts of the British Empire are coloured red may well fill us with astonishment that the little spot marked England has expanded into an empire that covers one-sixth of the habitable globe, and measures more than one hundred times as much as the little island that forms its heart and home. ”

“ A full detail of the sufferings of the English nation, in consequence of the absurd war on their colonies, may be left to more voluminous writers; while we only observe that Great Britain lost an extensive territory containing millions of subjects, the fruits of whose genius and industry she might have reaped for ages, had she not been avaricious of a revenue by methods which neither the much boasted constitution of Englishmen or the laws of prudence or equity could justify... ”

“ He was the first king who ruled all England as one kingdom. Long before his birth the people who are known to us as Britons lived there, and they gave to the island the name Britain.
But Britain was invaded by the Romans under Julius Cæsar and his successors, and all that part of it which we now call England was added to the Empire of Rome. The Britons were driven into Wales and Cornwall, the western sections of the island. ”

“ But with the transition from medieval to modern history, the conditions were altered in England's favour. The geographical expansion of Europe made the outposts of the Old World the entrepôts for the New; the development of navigation and sea-power changed the ocean from the limit into the link of empires; and the growth of industry and commerce revolutionized the social and financial foundations of power. ”

“ The heart of the British Empire is to be found in Great Britain. It is not proposed in this place to deal either with the working of British political institutions, or with the various important social and economic problems which the actual condition of England presents, but only with the extremities of the body politic, and more especially with those where the inhabitants of the countries under British rule are not of Anglo-Saxon origin. ”

“ How admirable are the care, the energy, and the perseverance with which Nature works, through centuries, at the formation of the nations which she has destined to civilise certain territories! We have here an example with which it is impossible not to be struck. In the designs of God, in the progress of the human race, it is written that England shall play a great part in the development of Western civilisation. For this purpose a people must be formed—I was going to say, must be wrought—whose powerful constitution shall be capable of fulfilling the great task. ”

“ For this empire is built upon a design more liberal even than that of Athens or the Rome of the Antonines. Britain conquers, but by the testimony of men of all races who have found refuge within her confines, she conquers less for herself than for humanity. "The earth is Man's" might be her watchword, and, as if she had caught the Ocean's secret, her empire is the highway of nations. That province, that territory, that state which is added to her sway, seems thereby redeemed for humanity rather than conquered for her own sons. ”

“ And that work was surely an expansion, an expansion of England. We come once more to our paradox; may it not be that England herself may be expanded by the very cutting short of her dominion? Again, what is England? Do we mean by it simply the dominions of the Crown of England—or rather the dominion of a Crown of whose kingdom the British England is but a part? Or do we mean by it the land of the English folk, wherever they may dwell? ”

“ However England may regard us, we need only view her as a splendid example of a nation great and powerful by the productiveness of her soil and mines, the ability of her people, and the liberalizing spirit of her commerce. In her present external condition, in her vast navy, her extensive commerce, in all save her insulated and secure position, we may read our own near destiny. Grasping, ambitious and powerful the British race certainly is ”

“ Great Britain, freed from the connection, can well afford to repose in peaceful majesty on her own shores, improving the arts, extending her commerce, and communicating, as the most noble and renowned nation the blessings of religion to the remotest parts of the globe. ”

“ The British Empire has a population of over 430,000,000, of which less than 100,000,000 are white, and there was a big problem to solve: `How to rule with justice and equity this great multitude of various races and creeds and consolidate them as fellow-subjects of one great and mighty Empire.' The future of the British Empire could be secured by following the high ideals of `Brotherhood' which were foreshadowed by Christ in the Bible, and by great writers such as Shakespeare and Addison. ”

“ We have conventional ideas, as we have conventional phrases; the untravelled man speaks of a sunrise on the Alps, or the roar of Niagara, or a battle in Manchuria, with the faintest notion of the awful phenomena indicated by his words. And so, in speaking of the 'British Empire,' we are apt to be content with commonplaces and generalities, having but a bare glimpse of the complexity and diversity of the multitudinous interests and activities, qualities, and forces, involved in that expression. ”

“ For my part, I regard Great-Britain as a bulwark happily fixed between these colonies and the powerful nations of Europe. That kingdom is our advanced post or fortification, which remaining safe, we under its protection enjoying peace, may diffuse the blessings of religion, science, and liberty, thro' remote wildernesses. It is, therefore, incontestibly our duty and our interest, to support the strength of Great Britain. When, confiding in that strength, she begins to forget from whence it arose, it will be an easy thing to shew the source. ”

“ In England then the influence of this epoch of tragic insight, and of its transforming force, advances imperceptibly, unnoted across two generations, yet the true sequence of cause and effect is unquestionable. The England which, towards the close of the eighteenth century, presents itself like a fate amongst the peoples of India, bears within itself the wisdom which in the long run will save it from the errors, and turn it from the path, which the England of the Plantagenets followed in Ireland and in France. ”

“ It would be curious if the true derivation of the world-renowned name of Britain should be ascertained for the first time through an Assyrian medium.
Edw. Hincks.
Killyleagh, Down.
As there are several Queries in the Note of G. W. which the Celtic language is capable of elucidating, I beg to offer a few derivations from that language.
Britain is derived from briot, painted, and tan, a country—i. e. "the country of the painted people." It is a matter of history, that the people of Britain dyed their bodies with various colours.
Tin is from the Celtic tin, to melt readily, to dissolve. ”

“ The highest-mounted thought, the soul's complete attainment, like the summits of the hills, can be the possession only of the few, but the paths that lead thither this empire shall open to the daring climber. Humanity has left the Calvinist and Jacobin behind. And thus Britain shall become the name of an ideal as well as the designation of a race, the description of an attitude of mind as well as of traits of blood. ”

“ But, we say it with the gratification of Englishmen, proud of their country's fame, and still prouder of its principles—that the lead in this noblest of all human victories, has been clearly taken by England. It is she who pre-eminently stimulates the voyage, and plants the colony, and establishes the commerce, and civilizes the people. ”

“ In those directions and towards those high endeavours amongst the subjects within her own dominion, and thence amongst the races and religions of the world, the short space that is illumined of the path in front of Britain does unmistakably lead. Every year, every month that passes, is fraught with import of the high and singular destiny which awaits this realm, this empire, and this race. The actions, the purposes of other empires and races, seem but to illustrate the actions, the purposes of this empire, and the distinction of its relations to Humanity. ”