British

“ The nobility, the clergy, the gentry, the literati, the professional classes, and then the people—after all, in England they are one; “shade unperceived and softening into shade,” and joined and knit together by habits, tastes, alliances, and interests, in a wonderful order. Much yet remains to be done, and will be done, to smooth down remaining asperities between rank and rank; but the British aristocracy may be said, even now, to be a genuine one, identified with everything great and good in the nation, and, on the whole, presenting a wholesome example to other classes in the State. ”

“ I note with satisfaction the assurance I derive from your address, that under British rule men of varied creeds and nations live in harmony among themselves, and develop to the utmost those energies which they inherit from widely separate families of mankind, whilst all join in loyal attachment to the British Crown, and take their part, as in my native country, in the management of their own local affairs. ”

“ And as the American people has formed no comprehension of the British Empire as a whole and is without any understanding of its spirit, so it has drawn for itself a caricature of the British character. ”

“ But for their simplicity of nature and amiability of character, the British Empire—that glorious conglomeration of races upon which the sun utterly declines to set—would have fallen into decay and debility, as a second-class Power. ”

“ The world explains the British Empire of to-day, and the great American nation which has sprung from it, by a happy congenital talent for colonizing waste places, for self-government, for assimilating and making friends with the unprogressive peoples, by giving them a better government than they had before. And certainly without such gifts the British races could not have overspread so large a portion of the earth. ”

“ 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.—— ”

“ We shall claim much for them as the British nation claims much for itself—on the strength of its best examples, without imagining that the full advantages are universally, or even generally, realised. ”

“ The strength of the British Empire lies in the strength of character of the individual Englishman, taken all alone by himself. And that strength, I am persuaded, is perennially nourished and kept up by nothing so much as by the national worship, in which all classes meet, of athletic outdoor life and sport. ”

“ Thus British institutions—the institutions of national self-government, which are peculiarly British in origin—have played a main part both in determining the character of the British Empire and in bringing about its wonderful expansion. The more the British Empire has grown the more freedom has been established on the face of the earth. ”

“ Look to the history of the British nation for an example. Most assuredly the British people are powerful in war, but their might and renown are in a great measure due to their proficiency in the works which make a time of peace fruitful and glorious.
By their skill in agriculture, they have converted their country into a garden; by their genius as traders, they have attracted to it a large share of the wealth of other lands.
Let us take advantage of this season of tranquillity to confer similar benefits on the Punjâb. ”

“ What are the principles which experience has gradually worked out in the British Empire? They cannot be embodied in a single formula, because they vary according to the condition and development of the lands to which they apply. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Politics took the place of honor among the gentlemen, their range embracing not only State and national politics, but British as well, as to which they possessed astonishing knowledge, interest in English matters having been handed down from father to son as a class test. ”

“ “The furtherance of the British Empire, for the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire. What a dream! but yet it is probable. It is possible.” ”

“ I have heard an Englishman enumerate the advantages of the British constitution to a circle of French Bourgeois, and explain to them in what manner the people of their rank of life were protected from the insolence of the courtiers and nobility ”

“ They are sentiments which ought never to have occurred even to his heart. I repudiate, I reject them. I remember there was a time when England, with not a tithe of her present resources, inspired by a patriotic cause, triumphantly encountered a world in arms. And, Sir, I believe now, if the occasion were fitting, if her independence or her honour were assailed, or her empire in danger, I believe that England would rise in the magnificence of her might, and struggle triumphantly for those objects for which men live and nations flourish. ”

“ Forty years of constant communication with, and work amongst, British-speaking people has moulded him along British lines, and although the French manner and charm remain, British determination, doggedness, clear sight, and broad views are dominant. ”

“ Before our Revolution, all persons born within the dominions of the king of Great Britain, whatever their color or complexion, were native-born British subjects; those born out of his allegiance were aliens. ”

“ Such is the manifest decay of our authority, so fallen in the eyes of all mankind is the character of this country, that two of the greatest States of the world are content to arrange their differences through a British Minister, from reliance on British influence, and from confidence in British equity and British wisdom! ”

“ The practical common-sense of modern society, the utilitarian direction which labor, laws, opinion, religion take, is the natural genius of the British mind. ”

“ The British Genius startles at th' Alarm,
And bids her Sons confederated, Arm;
Arm, the mild, legal Empire to defend,
Of GEORGE, her firm, avow'd, experienc'd Friend.
Thus, soon shall your associating Bands,
'Gainst all invading Pow'rs secure your Strands ”

“ The first is that men's minds are extraordinarily easily influenced by mere words. The word "Empire" suggests, to many, conquest and dominion over unwilling subjects. In so far as it does so, it begs the question. As we shall try to show, this word is really misapplied to the British realms. The character of their government and of the bond which holds them together would be much better expressed by a phrase which is now being widely used in Britain—the British Commonwealth of Nations. ”

“ The British were indeed very far superior to the Americans in every respect necessary to military operations, except the revivified courage and resolution, the result of sudden success after despair. ”

“ For the confirmation of these observations I appeal to that which I have stated as the last of the considerations in reference to which the policy of the British Government was calculated—mean, to the present state of the world. No man can witness with more delight than I do the widening diffusion of political liberty. Acknowledging all the blessings which we have long derived from liberty ourselves, I do not grudge to others a participation in them. ”

“ Some of216 the heads of British firms told me that the young men who come out to them to-day from England, are not, as a rule, equal either to those of thirty years ago or to the young Germans who are sent to serve German houses. ”

“ genuine British liberty!—This instant about two thousand liberty boys are swearing and swaggering by with large sticks—thus armed in hopes of meeting with the Irish chairmen and labourers—all [p. ”

“ To many, no doubt, he will seem to be somewhat blatant and bumptious, but we prefer to regard him as being simply British. ”

“ Clearly, so far as concerns the great dominions, the British Empire is far from being a military domination imposed by force. It is a voluntary partnership or brotherhood of free peoples, a Commonwealth of Nations. It is a wonderful achievement in the combination of unity and freedom, an experiment in the unforced co-operation of free States such as has never before been seen in human history. ”

“ The creation of the British Empire has been simply a part (though, perhaps, the greatest part) of that outpouring of the European peoples which has, during the last four centuries, brought the whole world under the influence of western civilisation. That is a great achievement, and it has brought in sight the establishment of a real world-order. It is merely foolish to condemn the "lust of conquest" which has driven the European peoples to subdue the rest of the world, though, of course, we ought to condemn the cruelties and injustices by which it has sometimes been accompanied. ”

“ Be Britain still to Britain true,
Amang oursels united;
For never but by British hands
Maun British wrangs be righted! ”

“ We shall need all our qualities, every quality that Britain and its people possess. Prudence in council, daring in action, tenacity in purpose, courage in defeat, moderation in victory, in all things faith, and we shall win. ”

“ British Army;
A SERIES OF
Narratives of the Services of Regiments from their Formation to the present Time.
PREPARED BY
Richard Cannon, Esq.,
ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE.
Authentic accounts of the actions of the great, the valiant, the loyal, have always been of paramount interest with a brave and civilized people. Great Britain has produced a race of heroes, who, in moments of danger and terror, have stood "firm as the rocks of their native shore;" and when half the world has been arrayed against them, they have fought the battles of their country with unshaken fortitude. ”

“ I hold that the real policy of England—apart from questions which involve her own particular interests, political or commercial—is to be the champion of justice and right; pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the Quixote of the world, but giving the weight of her moral sanction and support wherever she thinks that justice is, and wherever she thinks that wrong has been done. ”

“ But the world is apt to forget that there were other empires sprung from other European peoples—Portuguese, French, Spanish, and Dutch—each at some time larger in wealth, area, or population, than that which owed allegiance to the British Crown. ”

“ If we now turn to consider as a whole the character of this vast Empire, [1] whose principal regions we have been examining, the first thing that must strike us is that, while it is by far the biggest of all the world-dominions which have come into existence in modern times, it is also the most loosely organised of them all. ”

“ The life-blood of this Empire is trade; its supreme interest is manifestly peace. The conception of the meaning of empire which is indicated by its history is not a conception of dominion for dominion's sake, imposed by brute force. ”

“ This is a description given to us in Germany—'a timorous, craven nation, trusting to its fleet.' I think they are beginning to find their mistake out already. And there are half a million of young men of Britain who have already registered their vow to their King that they will cross the seas and hurl that insult against British courage against its perpetrators on the battlefields of France and of Germany. ”

“ With that breadth and generosity of mind which make them the truly imperial people of the world, the English and the English press have continually extolled the valour of the Scots, Irish, Welsh, or men of the Overseas Dominions. ”

“ It is necessary to get a true view of the operations, for it is safe to say that they are destined for immortality, and will be recounted so long as British history is handed down from one generation to another. ”

“ For never but by British hands Maun British wrangs be righted! ”

“ The wise statesmen of the last generation, men whom your school histories tell you were statesmen, serving under a monarch who they tell you was a patriotic monarch, spent £130,000,000 of the fruits of the industry of the people in a vain—happily a vain—endeavour to retain the colonies of the United States in subjection to the Monarchy of England. ”

“ If Europe is no better, and the people of England have been so much worse, who has benefited by the new system of foreign policy? What has been the fate of those who were enthroned at the Revolution, and whose supremacy has been for so long a period undisputed among us? ”

“ In the heart of a foreign country, unsupported by the Spanish government, his army wanting the very necessaries of life, he found himself obliged to commence that retreat in winter, over mountains covered with snow, [89] which proved so fatal to the British army, or wait to meet the French troops, flushed with victory, and sustained by an overwhelming force. In vain he appealed to the junta of Salamanca for aid. In vain he endeavored to arouse the spirit of patriotism, which had shone forth so brightly in the first days of the insurrection. ”

“ Yet I am asked, I, who am one of the legislators of a Christian country, to measure my policy by the policy of ancient and pagan Rome!
I believe there is no permanent greatness to a nation except it be based upon morality. I do not care for military greatness or military renown. I care for the condition of the people among whom I live. There is no man in England who is less likely to speak irreverently of the Crown and Monarchy of England than I am ”