ADDRESSES 173 



sisting every encroachment upon their liberties, and so inde- 

 pendent that all laws affecting them have first to be passed 

 upon and approved by their own States before becoming 

 valid, they yet are the most loyal of subjects and tena- 

 cious in their support of the crown. The last of the great 

 French possessions united to England when William the 

 Conqueror crossed the Channel and overthrew the Saxon 

 dynasty, they have remained through all these years 

 unshaken in their fidelity to the representatives of their 

 hereditary sovereigns. Race, language, contiguity of terri- 

 tory, would seem to have allied them to Norman France; 

 yet so slight was the bond that held them, that shortly after 

 the separation we find this added petition in their litany: 

 "From the fury of the Norman, good Lord deliver us." 

 Undoubtedly in bygone ages, before subsidence had taken 

 place, these islands formed a part of the continent, and were 

 actually joined to France; but now they stand like sentinels, 

 lone outposts, surrounded by rushing tides and raging seas, 

 which in their ceaseless action have eaten out and swept 

 away the softer and more friable rocks, leaving only a "fret 

 work of those harder barriers that still resist attack, and are 

 enabled to present a bold and serried front against their 

 relentless enemy." 



The Channel Islands are six in number, namely, Jersey, 

 Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Jethou and Herm, and lie one 

 hundred miles south of England and fifteen from the shores 

 of France, being well within a line drawn parallel to the 

 coast, from the end of the peninsula on which Cherbourg is 

 built. The two largest of these — Jersey and Guernsey — 

 are the ones with which we shall concern ourselves to-night. 

 Small in area, mere dots on the surface of the globe, they 



