THE SPREAD OF 

 ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 



CHAPTER I 



THE SPREAD OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES 



DURING the past three centuries the spread of 

 the English-speaking peoples over the world's 

 waste spaces has been not only the most striking 

 feature in the world's history, but also the event 

 of all others most far-reaching in its effects and its 

 importance. 



The tongue which Bacon feared to use in his 

 writings, lest they should remain forever unknown 

 to all but the inhabitants of a relatively unimportant 

 insular kingdom, is now the speech of two conti- 

 nents. The Common Law which Coke jealously 

 upheld in the southern half of a single European 

 island, is now the law of the land throughout the 

 vast regions of Australasia, and of America north 

 of the Rio Grande. The names of the plays that 

 Shakespeare wrote are household words in the 

 mouths of mighty nations, whose wide domains 

 were to him more unreal than the realm of Prester 

 John. Over half the descendants of their fellow 

 countrymen of that day now dwell in lands which, 

 when these three Englishmen were born A held not 



(is) 



