r, and when continual defeats broke the power of both
on the sea, her colonies were left defenceless. Ceylon and Cape Colony
fell into the hands of the English; but so, too, did Java, Sumatra,
Borneo, Essequibo, Berbice, and, indeed, with but little exception, all
her colonial possessions, East and West. At the peace of 1814, England
restored to Holland the larger portion of this territory, though not
without many remonstrances from her own merchants and statesmen. But
Ceylon and Cape Colony she did not restore. These were more to her than
rich islands. They were links in a grand chain of commercial connection.
As Aden is the half-way station on the overland route, so Cape Colony is
the half-way station on the ocean route; and Ceylon, while it rounds out
and completes the great peninsula of which it may be considered to be a
part, furnishes in Point de Galle, at the south, a most needed port of
refuge, and on the east, at Trincomalee, one of the finest of naval
harbors, with dock-yards, machine-shops, and arsenal complete. Even
England could be generous to a fallen foe, whose enmity had been quite as
much a matter of necessity as inclination. But by no mistimed clemency
could she sacrifice such solid advantages as these.

This steady march toward the control of the commercial waters of the
earth, some of whose footsteps we have now traced, reveals the existence
of as steady a purpose. This colonial empire, so wide, so consistent, and
so well compacted, is not the work of dull men, or the result of a series
of fortunate blunders. Back of its history, and creating its history,
there must have been a clear, calm, persistent, ambitious policy,--a
policy which has usually regarded appearances, but which has also managed
to accomplish its cherished purposes. And the end towards which this
policy tends is always one and the same: to enlarge England's commercial
resources, and to build up side by side with this peaceful strength a
naval power which shall keep untarnished her proudest title,--"Mistress
and sovereign of the seas."

* * * * *

With justice England is called the mightiest naval power in the world. And
well she may be. She has every element to make her mighty. The waves which
beat upon all her coasts train up a race of seamen as hardy, as skilful,
as courageous as ever sailed the sea. In her bosom are hidden
inexhaustible stores of iron, copper, and coal. Her Highland hills are
cover