death.

It was not to be wondered at that the Queen thus situated should be
cautious, when about throwing down the gauntlet to the greatest powers of
the earth. Yet the commissioners from the United States were now on their
way to England to propose the throwing of that gauntlet. What now was
that England?

Its population was, perhaps, not greater than the numbers which dwell
to-day within its capital and immediate suburbs. Its revenue was perhaps
equal to the sixtieth part of the annual interest on the present national
debt. Single, highly-favoured individuals, not only in England but in
other countries cis-and trans-Atlantic, enjoy incomes equal to more than
half the amount of Elizabeth's annual budget. London, then containing
perhaps one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, was hardly so
imposing a town as Antwerp, and was inferior in most material respects to
Paris and Lisbon. Forty-two hundred children were born every year within
its precincts, and the deaths were nearly as many. In plague years, which
were only too frequent, as many as twenty and even thirty thousand people
had been annually swept away.

At the present epoch there are seventeen hundred births every week, and
about one thousand deaths.

It is instructive to throw a glance at the character of the English
people as it appeared to intelligent foreigners at that day; for the
various parts of the world were not then so closely blended, nor did
national colours and characteristics flow so liquidly into each other, as
is the case in these days of intimate juxta-position.

"The English are a very clever, handsome, and well-made people," says a
learned Antwerp historian and merchant, who had resided a long time in
London, "but, like all islanders, by nature weak and tender. They are
generally fair, particularly the women, who all--even to the peasant
women--protect their complexions from the sun with fans and veils, as
only the stately gentlewomen do in Germany and the Netherlands. As a
people they are stout-hearted, vehement, eager, cruel in war, zealous in
attack, little fearing: death; not revengeful, but fickle, presumptuous,
rash, boastful, deceitful, very suspicious, especially of strangers, whom
they despise. They are full of courteous and hypocritical gestures and
words, which they consider to imply good manners, civility, and wisdom.
They are well spoken, and very hospitable. They feed well, eating much
meat, which-owing to the rainy clima