Great Britain

For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Read by George Banfield.

Recorded in Somerset, England, June 2024. scientific american supplement number seven hundred ninety five march twenty eighth eighteen ninety one by various the telegraphic communication between great britain europe america and the east by george walter There are at present 26 submarine cable companies, the combined capital of which is about £40 million sterling.

Their revenue, including subsidies, amounts to £3,204,060, and their reserves and sinking funds to £3,610,000, and their dividends are from 1% to 14.75%.

The receipts from the Atlantic cables alone amount to about £800,000 annually.

He then sent an officer to Nicholson to propose the terms of capitulation.

It was agreed that the garrison should march out with the honours of war, and be transported to France in English ships, and that the inhabitants within three miles of the fort should remain upon their estates with their corn, cattle, and furniture during two years in case they are not desirous to go before, they taking the oath of allegiance and fidelity to Her Sacred Majesty of Great Britain.

Then to the roll of the drum, and with all the honours of war, the French troops marched out, and the New Englanders marched in.

The British flag was raised, and, in honour of the Queen of England, Port Royale was named Annapolis Royale.

And for so doing this shall be your warrant.

And so we bid you farewell, given at our court at Kensington, the twenty-third day of June, 1713, in the twelfth year of our reign.

public archives canada nova scotia a volume four page ninety seven and a footnote the status of the acadians under the treaty reinforced by this warrant seems to be sufficiently clear if they wished to become british subjects which of course implied taking the oath of allegiance they were to enjoy all the privileges of citizenship not accorded at that time to catholics in great britain as well as the free exercise of their religion but if they preferred to remove to another country within a year, they were to have that liberty.

The French authorities were not slow to take advantage of this part of the treaty.

They had practically taken in possession of the whole of Shangqing province and Manchuria, and still they want Beijing province.

Germany had taken Zhajiu and a large strip of valuable land from Shandong province and and now she wants more she wants the whole province and god alone knows what else she is after great britain took hong kong and then wei hai wei and lately grabbed kowloon and for some time past her covetous eye has been firmly fixed on the yangtze valley France made seizure of Annam and Tonkin several years ago, and since then she has been scheming to extend her northern boundary line far into the Guangxi and Yunnan provinces.

She is planning soon to grab the beautiful island of Hainan.

Japan has become insatiable.

So I say, the greedy grabbing of territory by the different powers is the principal cause for the recent uprising.

Then, again, there is the spirit of commercialism, which has brought great enmity between China and the Western nations.

For instance, in the year 1840, Great Britain, for greedy gain, declared war against China.

The cause of the war was the destruction of over 20,000 chests of opium by the Mandarins in their efforts to prevent its introduction into the empire.

CHAPTER XIII.

recorded by alec datesman famous men of the middle ages by john h harran and a b poland chapter thirteen egbert king from eight o two to eight thirty seven a d one egbert the saxon lived at the same time as did haroun alraschid and charlemagne 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 caesar 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 the romans kept possession of the island for nearly four hundred years they did not leave it until four ten the year that alaric sacked the city of rome at this time the roman legions were withdrawn from britain some years before this the saxons angles and jutes german tribes had settled near the shores of the north sea they learned much about britain for trading vessels even at that early day crossed the channel among other things the men from the north learned that britain was crossed with good roman roads and dotted with houses of brick and stone that walled cities had taken the place of tented camps and that the country for miles round each city was green every spring with waving wheat or white with orchard blossoms after the roman legions had left britain the jutes led it is said by two great captains named hengist and horsa landed upon the southeastern coast and made a settlement britain proved a pleasant place to live in and soon the angles and saxons also left the north sea shores and invaded the beautiful island the new invaders met with brave resistance the britons were headed by king arthur about whom many marvellous stories are told His court was held at Caerleon, in North Wales, where his hundred and fifteen knights banqueted at their famous round table.

The British king and his knights fought with desperate heroism, but they could not drive back the Saxons and their companions, and were obliged to seek refuge in the western mountainous parts of the island, just as their forefathers had done when the Romans invaded Britain.

Thus nearly all England came into the possession of the three invading tribes.

2. arthur and his knights were devoted christians for the romans had not only made good roads and built strong walls and forts in britain but they had also brought the christian religion into the island and at about the time of the saxon invasion st patrick was founding churches and monasteries in ireland and was baptizing whole clans of the irish at a time it is said that he baptized twelve thousand persons with his own hand missionaries were sent out by the irish church to convert the wild picts of scotland and at a later day the distant barbarians of germany and switzerland the saxons angles and jutes believed in the old norse gods and tiu and woden thor and frigga or frisia were worshipped on the soil of britain for more than a hundred years The Britons tried to convert their conquerors, but the invaders did not care to be taught religion by those whom they had conquered, so the British missionaries found the work unusually hard.

In the centre was placed a single mast which carried one large sail.

For the most part, however, the Norsemen depended on rowing, not on the wind, and sometimes there were twenty rowers in one vessel.

The Vikings were a terror to all their neighbours, but the two regions that suffered most from their attacks were the island of Britain and that part of Shulmany's empire in which the Franks were settled.

common to all of these is one general principle that as the goods to be conveyed are usually the larger so they are to be chiefly considered in the conveyance the owner being indeed little more than an appendage to his trunk or box or bale or at best a small part of his own baggage very little care is to be taken in stowing or packing them up with convenience to himself for the conveyance is not of passengers and goods but of goods and passengers

secondly from this conveyance arises a new kind of relation or rather of subjection in the society by which the passenger becomes bound in allegiance to his conveyor this allegiance is indeed only temporary and local but the most absolute during its continuance of any known in great britain and to say truth scarce consistent with the liberties of a free people nor could it be reconciled with them did it not move downwards a circumstance universally apprehended to be incompatible to all kinds of slavery for Aristotle in his Politics, hath proved abundantly to my satisfaction.

that no men are born to be slaves except barbarians and

these only to such as are not themselves barbarians and indeed mr montesquieu hath carried it very little farther in the case of the africans the real truth being that no man is born to be a slave unless to him who is able to make him so thirdly this subjection is absolute and consists of a perfect resignation both of body and soul to the disposal of another after which resignation during a certain time his subject retains no more power over his own will than an asiatic slave or an english wife by the laws of both countries and by the customs of one of them if i should mention the instance of a stage coachman many of my readers would recognize the truth of what i have here observed all indeed that have ever been under the dominion of that tyrant who in this free country is as absolute as a turkish in two particulars only his power is defective he cannot press you into his service and if you enter yourself at one place on condition of being discharged at a certain time at another he is obliged to perform his agreement if god permit but all the intermediate time you are absolutely under his government he carries you how he will when he will and whither he will provided it be not too much out of the road you have nothing to eat or to drink but what and when and where he pleases nay you cannot sleep unless he pleases you should for he will order you sometimes out of bed at midnight and hurry you away at a moment's warning indeed if you can sleep in his vehicle he cannot prevent it nay indeed to give him his due this he is ordinarily disposed to encourage for the earlier he forces you to rise in the morning the more time he will give you in the heat of the day sometimes even six hours at an alehouse or at their doors where he always gives you the same indulgence which he allows himself and for this he is generally very moderate in his demands i have known a whole bundle of passengers charged no more than half a crown for being suffered to remain quiet at an alehouse door for above a whole hour and that even in the hottest day in summer but as this kind of tyranny though it hath escaped our political writers hath been i think touched by our dramatic and is more trite among the generality of readers.

i was now eased of the greatest apprehension which i had from the length of the passage and i told the captain i was become indifferent as to the time of his sailing he expressed much satisfaction in this declaration and at hearing from me that i found myself since my tapping much lighter and better in this i believe he was sincere for he was as we shall have occasion to observe more than once a very good-natured man and as he was a very brave one too i found that the heroic constancy with which i had borne an operation that is attended with scarce any degree of pain had not a little raised me in his esteem that he might adhere therefore in the most religious and rigorous manner to his word when he had no longer any temptation from interest to break it as he had no longer any hopes of more goods or passengers he ordered his ship to fall down to gravesend on sunday morning and there to wait his arrival sunday june thirtieth nothing worth notice passed till that morning when my poor wife after passing a night in the utmost torments of the toothache resolved to have it drawn i despatched therefore a servant into wapping to bring in haste the best tooth-drawer he could find he soon found out a female of great eminence in the art but when he brought her to the boat at the water-side they were informed that the ship was gone for indeed she had set out a few minutes after his quitting her nor did the pilot who well knew the errand on which i had sent my servant think fit to wait a moment for his return or to give me any notice of his setting out though i had very patiently attended to the delays of the captain for days after many solemn promises of weighing anchor every one of the three last but of all the petty bashaws or turbulent tyrants i ever beheld this sour-faced pilot was the worst tempered for during the time that he had the guidance of the ship which was till we arrived in the downs he complied with no one's desires nor did he give a civil word or indeed a civil look to any on board the toothedrawer who as i said before was one of great eminence among her neighbors refused to follow the ship so that my man made himself the best of his way and with some difficulty came up with us before we were got under full sail for after that as we both had wind and tide with us

he

would have found it impossible to overtake the ship till she was come to an anchor at gravesend the morning was fair and bright and we had a passage thither i think as pleasant as can be conceived for take it with all its advantages particularly the number of fine ships you are always sure of seeing by the way there is nothing to equal it in all the rivers of the world the yards of deptford and of woolwich are noble sights and give us a just idea of the great perfection to which we are arrived in building those floating castles and the figure which we may always make in europe among the other maritime powers that of woolrich at least very strongly imprinted this idea on my mind for there was now on the stocks there the royal anne supposed to be the largest ship ever built and which contains ten carriage-guns more than had ever yet equipped a first-rate it is true perhaps that there is more of ostentation than of real utility in ships of this vast and unwieldy burden which are rarely capable of acting against an enemy but if the building such contributes to preserve among other nations the notion of the british superiority in naval affairs the expense though very great is well incurred and the ostentation is laudable and truly political indeed i should be sorry to allow that holland france or spain possessed a vessel larger and more beautiful than the largest and most beautiful of ours for this honor i would always administer to the pride of our sailors who should challenge it from all their neighbors with truth and success and sure i am that not our honest tars alone but every inhabitant of this island may exult in the comparison which he considers the king of great britain as a maritime prince in opposition to any other prince in europe but i am not so certain that the same idea of superiority will result from comparing our land forces with those of many other crowned heads in numbers they all far exceed us and in the goodness and splendor of their troops many nations particularly the german and french and perhaps the dutch cast us at a distance for however we may flatter ourselves with the edwards and henries of former ages the change of the whole art of war since those days by which the advantage of personal strength is in a manner entirely lost hath produced a change in military affairs to the advantage of our enemies as for our successes in later days if they were not entirely owing to the superior genius of our general they were not a little due to the superior force of his money indeed if we should arraign marshal saxe of ostentation when he showed his army drawn up to our captive general the day after the battle of laval we cannot say that the ostentation was entirely vain since he certainly showed him an army which had not been often equalled either in the number or goodness of the troops and which in those respects so far exceeded ours that none can ever cast any reflection on the brave young prince who could not reap the laurels of conquest in that day but his retreat will always be mentioned as an addition to his glory in our marine the case is tirelessly the reverse and it must be our own fault if it doth not continue so for continue so it will as long as the flourishing state of our trade shall support it and this support it can never want till our legislature shall cease to give sufficient attention to the protection of our trade and our magistrates want sufficient power ability and honesty to execute the laws a circumstance not to be apprehended

as it cannot happen until our senates and our benches shall be filled with the blindest ignorance or with the blackest corruption

CHAPTER I.

THE BRITAINS alfred the great figures in history as the founder in some sense of the british monarchy of that long succession of sovereigns who have held the sceptre of that monarchy and whose government has exerted so vast an influence on the condition and welfare of mankind he was not indeed actually the first there were several lines of insignificant princes before him who governed such portions of the kingdom as they individually possessed more like semi-savage chieftains than english kings alfred followed these by the principle of hereditary right and spent his life in laying broad and deep foundations on which the enormous superstructure of the british empire has since been reared if the tales respecting his character and deeds which have come down to us are at all worthy of belief he was an honest conscientious disinterested and far-seeing statesman if the system of hereditary secession would always furnish such sovereigns for mankind the principle of loyalty would have held its place much longer in the world than it is now likely to do and great nations now republican would have been saved a vast deal of trouble and toil expended in the election of their rulers although the period of king alfred's reign seems a very remote one as we look back toward it from the present day it was still eight hundred years after the christian era that he ascended his throne tolerable authentic history of the british realm mounts up through these eight hundred years to the time of julius caesar beyond this the ground is covered by a series of romantic and fabulous tales pretending to be history which extend back eight hundred years further to the days of solomon so that a much longer portion of the story of that extraordinary island comes before than since the days of alfred respect however to all that pertains to the interest and importance of this narrative the exploits and the arrangements of alfred are the beginning the histories in fact of all nations ancient and modern run back always into misty regions of romance and fable before arts and letters arrived at such a state of progress as that public events could be recorded in writing tradition was the only means of handing down the memory of events from generation to generation and tradition among semi-savages changes everything it touches into romantic and marvellous fiction the stories connected with the earliest discovery and settlement of great britain afford very good illustrations of the nature of these fabulous tales the following may serve as a specimen at the close of the trojan war neas retired with a company of trojans who escaped from the city with him and after a great variety of adventures which virgil has related he landed and settled in italy here in process of time he had a grandson named silvius who had a son named brutus brutus being thus neas's great-grandson one day while brutus was hunting in the forest he accidentally killed his father with an arrow his father was at that time king of alba a region of italy near the spot on which rome was subsequently built and the accident brought brutus under such suspicions and exposed him to such dangers that he fled from the country after various wanderings he at last reached greece where he collected a number of trojan followers whom he found roaming about the country and formed them into an army with this half-savage force he attacked a king of the country named brutus was successful in the war and pandrosus was taken prisoner this compelled pandrosus to sue for peace and peace was concluded on the following very extraordinary terms pandrosus was to give brutus his daughter imogena for his wife and a fleet of ships as her dowry brutus on the other hand was to take his wife and all of his followers on board his fleet and sail away and seek a home in some other quarter of the globe this plan of a monarch's purchasing his own ransom and peace for his realm from a band of roaming robbers by offering the leader of them his daughter for a wife however strange to our ideas was very characteristic of the times emojna must have found it a hard alternative to choose between such a husband and such a father brutus with his fleet and his bride betook themselves to the sea and within a short time landed on a deserted island where they found the ruins of a city here there was an ancient temple of diana and an image of the goddess which image was endured with the power of uttering auricular responses to those who consulted it with proper ceremonies and forms Brutus consulted this oracle on the question in what land he should find a place of final settlement.

His address to it was an ancient verse, which some chronicler has turned into English rhyme, as follows.

The goddess of shades and huntress, who at will walks in the rolling sphere and through the deep, on thy third reign the earth, look now and tell what land, what seat of rest thou bidst me seek.

Pai Carucho in the island of Madeira, 5,067 feet.

pike teneriffe thirteen thousand one hundred and ninety seven the same according to dr heberden in madeira fifteen thousand three hundred and ninety six summit of cotopaxi in the province of quito according to don antonio de joya nineteen thousand nine hundred and twenty nine feet cayamboa under the equator eighteen thousand chimboraco nineteen thousand three hundred and twenty pechincha fourteen thousand five hundred and eighty carason fourteen thousand eight hundred and twenty from the survey of mountains it appears that snowdon is the highest in south britain yet below the point of permanent snow it has been observed by the french academicians that amongst the cordilleras in the province of quito pechincha and carazon are the highest accessible mountains and that all of greater heights are vested with eternal snow on the glaciers fnow is permanent at a much inferior height and where the fun's rays fall more oblique lefs height is found the boundary between temporary and eternal fnow but no mountain in fouth britain touches the region of barrennefs that intervenes between the limits of vegetation and perpetual fnow fheep pass to the fummits of fhaggy fnowdon green helvellyn and purple barrennefs only prevails where rock and precipice the invincible objects to vegetation oppofe themfelves roads from lancaster to the lakes miles lancaster longovicum three miles to heft bank nine miles over lancaster sands to carter house two miles cartmel church town or flukeborough two miles holker gate three miles over ulverston sands to carter house one mile ulverston twelve miles dalton furness abbey and back to ulverston four miles penny bridge two miles lowick bridge or five from ulverston to lowick bridge two and a half miles through nibthwaite to coniston waterfoot six miles to coniston waterhead three miles to hawkshead five miles to ambleside or three miles to the ferry on windermere one mile bowness across the windermere seven miles to ambleside and boglana see the waterfall in the groves two miles to ridal see the waterfall above the hall and the cascade in the summer-house two miles to grasmere two and a half miles to dunmail raised stones three and three quarter miles dale head see the general view of thirlmere four and three quarter miles castle rig see the grand view of the vale of keswick one mile keswick the three miles loader waterfall one mile grange one mile boda stone castle hill two and a half miles wrothwaite two and a half miles seathwaite sea black lead or wood mines nine and a half miles keswick eight miles down bassinthwaite water by bowness bradness skearness to armothwaite nine miles up the other side of the lake to keswick five miles gaffgadale three miles buttermere six miles down crummock water to lawton seven and a half miles to keswick four miles threskield six miles whitbarrow see the roman encampment one mile penruddock six and three quarter miles penrith bereda five miles dun mallet at the foot of ullswater and pooley bridge nine miles watermillock goberry park airy bridge to the head of ullswater see the waterfall in gobarrow park nine miles ambleside or fourteen miles to penrith ten and a half miles by lowther ascombe and bampton to horsewater Fifteen miles from the head of Haweswater through the Longsleydale to Kendal.

Or five miles to Shapp by Roskill and Shapp Abbey.

Seven miles to Hawesfoot.

But the religious order of the family was the distinguishing characteristic.

In fact, a strict and regular observance of pious duties so generally prevailed, that it was one chief cause of the high eminence in scriptural knowledge, sobriety of manners, and every domestic virtue, for which the northern part of Great Britain was then justly celebrated." The principles by which a Christian home should be governed may be readily discovered.

The graces which adorn the Christian character shine with their richest lustre in the setting of the home circle.

Nowhere else do the fruits of the Spirit grow with richer, riper luxuriance.

Yet, at the eleventh hour, when too late to make other arrangements, I am informed that the job has been entrusted to a certain Bernadur Patruji, whose name, though probably incorrectly transcribed, certainly denotes a draftsman of native Indian origin.

whether he is fully competent for such a task i cannot at present say but unless he is qualified like myself by actual residence in great britain i fear that he may not possess sufficient familiarity with the customs and solecisms of english society to avoid at least a few ludicrous and even lamentable mistakes to guard against such contingencies i shall insert a note or comment opposite each picture as it is submitted to me pointing out in what respects if any the artist has failed to represent the author's intentions i sincerely hope that i may now and then be able to pat the aforesaid mr p on the back instead of acting as a rhadamanthus to rap his knuckles chapter i from calcutta to cambridge oversea route at sea the stoutest stomach jerks far far away from native soil when ocean's heaving waterworks burst out in brobdingnagian boil stanza written at sea by h b j unpublished the waves of neptune erected their seething and angry crests to incredible altitudes overhead in fulgenous storm-clouds the thunder rumbled its terrific bellows and from time to time the ghastly flare of lightning illuminated the entire neighbourhood the tempest howled like a lost dog through the cordage of the good ship rohokund captain o williams which lurched through the vasty deep as though overtaken by the drop too much at one moment her poop was pointed towards celestial regions at another it aimed itself at the recesses of davy jones's locker and such was the fury of the gale that only a paucity of the ship's passengers remained perpendicular and mr chunder bindabun bosh was recumbent on his beam end prostrated by severe sickishness and hourly expecting to become initiated in the great secret bitterly did he lament his hard lines in venturing upon the blackwater to be snipped off in the flower of his adolescence and never again to behold the beloved visages of his relations so heartrending were his tears and groans that they moved all on board and hon mr commissioner copsey who was returning on leave kindly came to inquire the cause of such

vociferous lachrymation

what is the matter baboo began the commissioner in paternal tones why are you kicking up the shindy of such a deuce's own hullabaloo because hon'ble sir responded mr bhosh i am in lively expectation that waters will rush in and extinguish my vital spark pooh said mr commissioner genially this is only the moiety of a gale and there is not the slightest danger Having received this assurance, Mr. Bosch's natural courage revived, and coming up on deck he braved the tempest with the cool composure of a cucumber, admonishing all his fellow-passengers that they were not to give way to panic, seeing that death was the common lot of all, and though everyone must die once, it was an experience that could not be repeated, with much philosophy of a similar kind, which astonished many who had falsely supposed him to be a pusillanimous.