British Resident

“ If you were an impulsive, excitable, sentimental American and thought you were mildly rebuking your British friends when you ventured to wonder at the extraordinary naturalness of life in the West End, or at Walton Heath golf links, or at Chelsea football grounds, or at the Newmarket race-course, you found yourself unconsciously paying a tribute to "British character." ”

“ He represents the city of London, and all the other commons of this land, and the inhabitants of all the colonies and dominions of Great Britain; and is, in duty and conscience, bound to take care of their interests. ”

“ It is obvious that the words “British population” are vague, and include many odd forms of nationality, but the thing itself is simple, the class whose interests and sentiment are on the British side, who seek progress on British lines. ”

“ What race are we? Britons! Why, lads, the British over there aren’t as British as we are; They are English and Scotch and Irish and Welsh—but what are we? All these British strains mixed! Most of us have some Scotch blood and some English blood and some Irish blood mixed in our veins, many of us have been to other parts of Britain and got a touch of Canada, or Australia, or South Africa into us. I say lads we are more British than the folks in the Old Dart. We are a fine blend of all the flavours of different Britons, we are the very essence of Britain! We are epitomes of Empire. ”

“ Of Great Britain I need say nothing beyond mentioning that in spite of my intense dislike of British Rule, I have numerous personal friends in England whom I love as dearly as my own people. I had my legal education there. I have therefore nothing but good wishes for your country and Great Britain. ”

“ Here is an example of tender patriotism, so much localised that the lover of her own country, which is one of the Hebridean islands, feels herself a foreigner in London, and it might be argued that every British subject ought to feel at home in the capital of the nation. ”

“ Then we had in London a number of prominent Colonial public men, each of whom regarded his individual colony as his true sphere of public labour, and none of whom desired to be merged in the ordinary ruck of the purely British population. ”

“ It is a great pleasure to me to begin my travels in India at a place so long associated with the Royal Family of England, and to find that during so many generations of British rule this great port has steadily prospered. Your natural advantages would have insured a large amount of commerce under any strong Government, but in your various and industrious population I gladly recognize the traces of a rule which gives shelter to all who obey the laws; which recognizes no invidious distinctions of race ”

“ Peculiar complaints of British settlers.Besides those causes of complaint which are common to the whole Colony, the British settlers have many peculiar to themselves. The emigrants who have settled in the country within the last ten years, are supposed to comprise half the population. ”

“ Anyone who knows English colonies knows that the British Government, wherever it has been possible to do so politically, that is, in all her colonies which are already properly organised and firmly established as British, has always met in a most generous and sympathetic way German, and indeed any foreign, trade or other enterprises. ”

“ But since the only section of Europe, and the only Europeans with whom the vast majority of natives ever come in contact are England and the British, by inference the word has come to mean British almost whenever used. ”

“ The people of the Continent consider Britain a chilly, unattractive land. Its historic and literary traditions, so dear to the average American, who holds a common language, do not appeal to those who think their own countries superior to any other in these particulars. ”

“ So rapid is the development of the British Empire, that the time might come when a visit to such out-of-the-way places as London or Manchester could no longer be claimed as a right, but only asked for as a concession to the susceptibilities of the English. ”

“ But if reason acquiesces in the ultimate triumph of that busy, pushing energy which distinguishes the British settler, there is something very attractive to the imagination in the picture presented by the peaceful community of French habitans, living under the gentle and congenial control of their coûtumes de Paris, with their priests and their seigneurs, their frugal, industrious habits, their amiable dispositions and simple pleasures, and their almost exaggerated reverence for order and authority. ”

“ The tendency of English law has long been, as an acute jurist has pointed out,75 to lay more emphasis on domicile than on nationality, the disabilities of the alien have been diminished almost to vanishing-point, and British citizenship itself could be had almost for the asking. ”

“ The main body of the British are now daily arriving by thousands from England, Canada, India, and Australia, and are about to advance through the country. In a short time the Republic will be in the hands of the English, and no sacrifice of life on your part can stop it. ”

“ Now the people of our colonies need no admission to citizenship. They are already British subjects; the essence of the modern colonial relation is that they remain British subjects. The inhabitants of the colonies, each man by himself, are the equals of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom; this or that colonist may be an elector in the United Kingdom; let him come and live in the United Kingdom and he may become a member of Parliament, a cabinet minister, a peer of the realm. It is only the communities, as communities, that are subject. ”

“ Strictly speaking, there is nothing really and truly British; everybody and everything is a naturalised alien. Viewed as Britons, we all of us, human and animal, differ from one another simply in the length of time we and our ancestors have continuously inhabited this favoured and foggy isle of Britain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This last demand rankles more than all with a British subject, who may quit his birth-place unquestioned, and who hugs himself with the belief that nothing pitiful or paltry can be connected with the idea of an Englishman by the foreigners among whom he is about to sojourn. ”

“ But there are innumerable families in America who, even if they be of British descent, have lost all vital recollection of the fact; who (as the tide of emigration has not yet turned eastwards) have no friends or relatives settled in England; and who, in their American homes, are far more apt to come in contact with men of almost every other nationality than with Englishmen. "But surely English literature," it may be said, "brings England home even to people of this class, and differentiates her from France or Germany." ”

“ They may in the main be a tiny bit jealous of England, but individually they seem to love British people, and welcome them so warmly one can only regret that more English do not travel in America where they would see her people at their best, for, alas! many of the Americans who come over here leave a wrong impression altogether of the charms of our brothers and sisters across the Atlantic. ”

“ British in their dislike to take advice, their humbler position among the nations makes them more ready to study and learn from foreign example. Though there is no division into two races as in London, it would be absurd to pretend that social distinctions are unknown. Each town with its rural district has its own "society." ”

“ There is, indeed, diffused through the world, the race of British breed, settling and colonizing in some lands, ruling and trading in others, and held together by kinship and correspondence and newspapers and literature and societies and sports and temperament. ”

“ By dispersing annually a proportion of well-educated natives throughout the provinces, under British superintendence, well-founded hopes are entertained that prejudices may gradually disappear, the public service be improved, and attachment to British institutions increased. ”

“ British statesmen have been awakened to the necessity of winning the good-will of their colonists, and within recent years have adopted the policy of inviting the Colonial premiers to London to discuss questions affecting Imperial and Colonial interests. ”

“ The British public leaves us there as long as we don’t interfere with it, but if ever we put on airs and try to stand on our hind legs, the British public will just take us by the scruff of the neck and out we shall go. ”

“ This we have seen reduced to practice in the present and preceding reigns, and have the highest reason, from the paternal care and goodness that His Majesty and the British Parliament have hitherto been graciously pleased to discover to all His Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, and to the colonists in particular, to rest satisfied that our privileges will remain sacred and inviolate. The connection between Great Britain and her colonies is so natural and strong as to make their mutual happiness depend upon their mutual support. ”

“ The other is that the vast estates into which England has long been divided are passing out of the hands of the English gentry into the hands of men who are always upstarts and often actually foreigners. ”

“ To the growth of the plantations Britain is in a great measure indebted for her present riches and strength. As the wild wastes of America have been turned into pleasant habitations and flourishing trading towns, so many of the little villages and obscure boroughs in Great Britain have put on a new face, and suddenly started up and become fair markets and manufacturing towns and. opulent cities. London itself, which bids fair to be the metropolis of the world, is five times more populous than it was in the days of Queen Elizabeth. ”

“ The colonists left England when this spirit was high, and in the emigrants was the highest of all; and even that stream of foreigners, which has been constantly flowing into these colonies, has, for the greatest part, been composed of dissenters from the establishments of their several countries, and have brought with them a temper and character far from alien to that of the people with whom they mixed. ”

“ When an Englishman in England leaves office, no matter how unfaithful, though he be a friend of any country save his own, they send him to the House of Lords—or so I was told in France when I was there. ”

“ Resolved,⁠That these ^united Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the british crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved
NH.—— ”

“ Views of the English settlers.The English population, an immigrant and enterprising population, looked on the American Provinces as a vast field for settlement and speculation, and in the common spirit of the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of that continent, regarded it as the chief business of the Government, to promote, by all possible use of its legislative and administrative powers, the increase of population and the accumulation of property ”

“ It is easy to understand that common judgment of foreigners regarding the English people. Go about in England as a stranger, travel by rail, live at hotels, see nothing but the broadly public aspect of things, and the impression left upon you will be one of hard egoism, of gruffness and sullenness; in a word, of everything that contrasts most strongly with the ideal of social and civic life. And yet, as a matter of fact, no nation possesses in so high a degree the social and civic virtues. ”

“ We are habituated to its exclusiveness, and, no doubt, custom in England is a power; but let some event suddenly occur which makes a nation feel or think, and the whole thing might vanish like a dream. ”

“ When I was in England, I kept thinking of how nice it is to be home. When I am home, perhaps I shall be thinking of how much finer and better it is to be in England than anywhere else.
I have seen greatness and power, wealth, prosperity, and an incomparably high standard of achievement. Never have I felt sad at the idea that we form only a small and imperfect corner of the world. To be small, unsettled, and uncompleted is a good and valiant mission. ”

“ England is my country. To America, though an alien by birth, I am, as an English Liberal, no alien in heart. I deeply share the desire of all my political friends in England and of the leaders of my party to banish ill-feeling and promote good-will between the two kindred nations. ”

“ In England I have rarely gone so far as to fancy myself in treaty for the best house, but, failing this, I have rarely failed to feel that ideal comfort for the time would be to call one's self owner of what is denominated here a "good" place. Is it that English country life seems to possess such irresistible charms? ”

“ It has always been a case of Britain first and the rest nowhere. The Britisher makes a good living, has an established connection, is the life and soul of the social community, keeps up a fair average of orders with home firms, and is content. ”

“ The British public generally, and the colonists individually, are under the most heavy obligations to those persons whose active benevolence and liberal contributions have laid the foundation of establishments on which general prosperity and happiness will eminently rise. ”

“ By those who entertain this view, it is assumed that Great Britain is indebted for the preservation of her colonies, not to the natural affection of their inhabitants—to {59} their pride in her history, to their participation in the benefit of her warlike, scientific, or literary achievements—but to the disinterested patriotism of a dozen or two of persons, whose names are scarcely known in England, except by the clerks in Downing Street; who are remarkable for nothing above their neighbours in the colony, except perhaps the enjoyment of offices too richly endowed ”