Overseas

“ It is to be remembered that more than three-fourths of the seamen in our merchant vessels are foreigners. They are from all parts of the world. A great many from the north of Europe, beside Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, men from all parts of the Mediterranean, together with Lascars, Negroes, and, perhaps worst of all, the off-casts of British men-of-war, and men from our own country who have gone to sea because they could not be permitted to live on land. ”

“ The western nations of Europe, in order to secure advantages in this newly opened country for commerce, have sent their ablest representatives. You will meet there with the diplomats of all the western nations, and your intimacy with them will be a university of the largest opportunity. You will come in contact with the best minds of Europe. You can make a great reputation in the keen rivalry of this situation by securing the best of the trade of Japan for your own country to its western coasts over the waters of the Pacific. ”

“ Nor must we overlook the fact that, despite what was said above, regarding the oceans as the greatest barriers to the spread of civilization, that smaller seas aided it, for the very country of which I speak was intersected by five important seas, and to them it is under immeasurable obligations for its development. This Asiatic-Africo-European belt has exercised the greatest influence on all the course of human affairs, on all colonization, on the differing of races and languages, and the arts of war and of peace, over the habitable world. ”

“ In the heart of the North American Continent, forming in part the boundary line between the United States and the British possessions to the north, lies that chain of great freshwater lakes bordered by busy and rapidly growing commonwealths, washing the water-fronts of rich and populous cities, and bearing upon their steely blue bosoms a commerce which outdoes that of the Mediterranean in the days of its greatest glory. ”

“ People will tell you, "Foreigners do this"; "Foreigners do that"; "Foreigners smoke so much"; "Foreigners always take coffee for breakfast." "Indeed," I love to answer; "I've never observed it myself in Central Asia." 'Tis Parson Adams and the Christian religion. Nine English people out of ten, when they talk of Abroad, mean what they call the Continent; and when they talk of the Continent, they mean France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy; in short, the places most visited by Englishmen when they consent now and again to go Abroad for a holiday. ”

“ The third quarter of the eighteenth century thus saw the remarkable and unstable spectacle of a Europe divided against itself, and no longer with any unifying political or religious idea, yet through the immense stimulation of men’s imaginations by the printed book, the printed map, and the opportunity of the new ocean-going shipping, able in a disorganized and contentious manner to dominate all the coasts of the world. ”

“ Their own country, washed by the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and possessed of excellent harbours, is admirably situated for the purposes of trade between Europe and America, being so placed as to command the commerce of both hemispheres. ”

“ Imagine a rich country, producing goods in large quantities which are salable in foreign lands, and anxious and willing to buy, in equal quantities, the goods of these foreign lands. Imagine such a country without a single harbour—with, perhaps, a long unbroken coast of sandy beach on which relentless surges pound the whole year through. ”

“ Henceforth European commerce, European politics, European thought and European activity, although actually gaining force, and European connections, although actually becoming more intimate, will nevertheless relatively sink in importance; while the Pacific ocean, its shores, its islands and the vast region beyond will become the chief theater of events in the world's great hereafter. ”

“ As an old sailor who has sailed before the mast around this world many times, I want to tell you Americans how lucky you are to live in a great country occupying a large part of this continent, with the wide Atlantic for a barrier on one side and the Pacific on the other. ”

“ Our intercourse with the natives of the interior should be frequent and intimate: these people (beyond where I am acquainted with them) are represented as very numerous, hospitable, and industrious; and a friendly intercourse would develop the resources of their country, draw its produce to our markets, and give the natives a taste for British [314] manufactures. This intercourse, however, must be prudently introduced and carefully advanced; for to bring these wild people into contact with ignorant and arrogant Europeans would produce bloodshed and confusion in a month. ”

“ And although fully aware that a voyage round the globe, in the course of which little more than the coasts were visited of the various countries we touched at, could not pretend to offer much new information to the greatest of maritime nations, it seemed, nevertheless, that it might interest a people so eager in the pursuit of knowledge as the English, to know the impression which has been made upon travellers of education by the Colonies and Settlements of Britain throughout the world. ”

“ Across the Pacific looms Asia, no longer a remote vision and a symbol of the unchanging, but borne as by mirage close to our shores and raising grave questions of the common destiny of the people of the ocean. ”

“ With one foot planted on the Atlantic and the other on the Pacific, we occupy a position between the two old continents of the world—a position which necessarily secures to us the commerce and the influence of both. If we abide by the counsels of common sense, if we succeed in preserving our liberties, we shall in the end exhibit a spectacle such as the world never saw. ”

“ Asia has given to Europe the first-fruits of civilization and culture: letters, articulate speech, arithmetics, medicine, astronomy, the knowledge to guide a ship out of the sight of land. Take the sum-total of these few things, and you obtain Trade and Exploration. ”

“ Let us, sir, never carry our arms into the territory of other nations, unless we are compelled to take them up in self-defense. A pacific character is of all others most important for us to maintain. With a sea-coast of two thousand miles, indented with harbors and lined with cities, with an extended commerce, and with a population of only six millions, how are we to set up for the avenger of nations? ”

“ Ships are made of nought but trees, and if it were not for ships we would know but little of the great world of which these English islands form less than a half. Asia itself is slightly larger than all Scotland, and if it were not for the ships we would be like to delude ourselves with the idea that we and our neighbours formed the major part of the world. ”

“ Foreigners, in like manner, means Frenchmen, Germans, Swiss, Italians. In the country called Abroad, the most important parts are the parts nearest England; of the people called Foreigners, the most important are those who dress like Englishmen. The dim black lands that lie below the horizon are hardly worth noticing.
Would it surprise you to learn that most people live in Asia? ”

“ Set in the heart of stormy seas, often difficult to navigate, often enshrouded in mist, the United Kingdom lies athwart the principal water-routes of the world, not only those which connect Europe with Canada, the United States, and the West Indies, but equally those which bring to the Northern European States the products of Africa, South America, India, China, Australia, and Japan ”

“ To every lover of his country, as well as to those more immediately concerned in commerce, it must be a pleasing reflection that a communication is thus happily opened between us and the eastern extreme of the globe. ”

“ Asia, Europe, and Libya, are but three islands, surrounded by the ocean; but beyond that ocean there is a vast continent, whose bounds are entirely unknown to us. The men and the animals of that country are much larger, and live much longer than those of this part of the world. ”

“ Yes, in years to come we shall fly on the wings of steam high in the air, over the mighty ocean. The young inhabitants of America will visit the old Continent of Europe. They will come to admire the ancient monuments and ruined cities, just as we make pilgrimages to the fallen glories of Southern Asia. ”

“ For in our country we have great inland seas, bordering on different States of the Union, with different laws, and also on foreign territory, which are navigable by vessels owned by residents of different States, and also by foreign vessels proper. ”

“ For centuries, indeed from the beginning, the face of Europe had been turned toward the east. All the routes of trade, every impulse and energy, ran from west to east. The Atlantic lay at the world's back-door. ”

“ The attention now everywhere excited by proposed or impending changes in the boundary-lines of European States, by the inroads of Western civilization in the East, by the settlement of the Pacific Islands, and by the growth of empire on the western coast of our own country, renders the publication of a compendious work like this very timely. ”

“ The civilized nations of Europe have been stimulated into unusual activity, so that commerce, trade, travel, and thorough acquaintance among people of different nationalities, has become common; whereas, before, it was but the few who had ever had the privilege of going beyond the limits of their own country or who knew anything about other people. ”

“ England dominates the Seven Seas of the world, not through her superiority man to man against other races, but through her merchant marine, carrying the commerce of the world, built up from simple fisher folk hauling in the net or paying out the line through icy salty spray above tempestuous seas. ”

“ Wherefore I know that lands and seas are full of those that praise thee, for by thy continual voyagings thou hast joined the East with the West, in order that the nations might learn to exchange their riches. ”

“ As all these open toward Europe, the situation of this whole region has been especially adapted to the most speedy advance in civilization. The pride of the American can no more plume itself on an independent progress than can that of the European; to the former, Europe is the Orient from which he receives, in an already advanced stage, what the European receives from Asia, his own Orient.
The less important peninsulas of North America, and the side most destitute of them, are turned toward the northern Pacific. ”

“ In the far Eastern seas, however, our stalwart fighting sailors are more than mere keepers of the peace of Britain, they stand between the crumbling Celestial Empire and the greed of the world.B Ever ready in diplomacy as in war, and with a force always sufficient to command respect as well as breed envy, they make the might of our island nation felt in all the affairs of the Far East. ”

“ England seeks Australia and New Zealand through the Golden Gate, and the productions of China and Japan flow to our magnificent harbors of the Pacific and cross the American continent on their way to supply the demands of Europe. ”

“ Passing through the closely packed lines of shipping, and landing as a stranger at Port Louis, perhaps the first thing to engage attention is the strange mixture of nations,—representatives, he might at first be inclined to imagine, of half the countries of the earth. ”

“ On the western edge of the continent of Europe lies the island of Great Britain, in the remote past a part of the continent, but long ages ago cut off by the British Channel. Divorced from the mainland, left like a waif in the western sea, peopled by men with their own interests and aims, it might naturally be expected to have enough to attend to at home and to take no part in continental affairs. ”

“ During the vast span of the last five centuries, Europe has spared time from her internal combustions to discover and conquer the outer world, the four continents of Africa, Asia, America, and Australia. ”

“ This has given Europe a character exactly opposite to that of Asia: its North and its South are united, its East and its West; they are not like antagonistic poles, but extend to each other friendly hands. ”

“ Europe, the most central of all continents, in relation to the great land-mass of the earth, and also the one most equally removed from the middle point of the great water-mass, touches the whole remaining world at the greatest number of points, and this, in conjunction with her remarkably broken coast-line, so favorable to the purposes of navigation, have given her her place of command, and have assigned to England her evident role of mistress of the seas. ”

“ To really enjoy the Continent it is not necessary—at least, for people bred and brought up as we have been—to be very rich; on the contrary, many—ay, and the greatest—advantages of Continental travel are open to very small fortunes and very small ambitions. ”

“ At the very threshold, in order to understand how the heroic navigator came to discover the vast continent of which the United States is part, we must pause to study the economic conditions of Europe which impelled the adventurous voyage, and led to the discovery of a great continent stretching across the ocean path. ”

“ And though the amusement expected in these narrations is doubtless one great source of that curiosity with the bulk of readers, yet the more intelligent part of mankind have always agreed that from accounts of this nature, if faithfully executed, the more important purposes of navigation, commerce, and national interest may be greatly promoted: for every authentic description of foreign coasts and countries will contribute to one or more of these great ends, in proportion to the wealth, wants, or commodities of those countries, and our ignorance of those coasts ”