THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND 259 



pire. His history reads like a romance. With a few men he was able 

 to crush entirely the French power in India. It seemed in 1755 as if 

 France was much more likeh' to stay in India than England, but 

 France lost India just as she lost America. The great battle of Plassey, 

 fought by (Uive just after the tragedy of the Black Hole of Calcutta 

 and other battles almost miraculous in their results, b}'^ which Clive 

 laid permanently the foundations of the British empire in India, is 

 familiar history. Warren Hastings succeeded Clive. He was the 

 first real Governor-General of India, and whatever criticisms may 

 be brought against liim, he was one of the most efficient administrators 

 the modern world has seen. 



Precisel}' coincident with the capture of India by England and the 

 rise of the United States of America was the great career of Ca])taiu 

 Cook, which more than anything else gave England her great southern 

 possessions in Australia and New Zealand; and now the histor}' of 

 England in South Africa begins. Captain Cook sailed those southern 

 seas, and his reports startled England with a sensation hardly less 

 than that with which Columbus startled Europe. In Jul}'', 1776, 

 the same month as that of our Declaration of Independence, Cook 

 sailed on his last voyage. Australia, New Zealand, and the great 

 southern colonies of England have all grown up within the century. 



IMPHOVEMRN'T OF THIi GOVERNMENT OF THE COLONIES COINCIDENT 

 WITH THE GREAT REFORMS AT HOME 



I mentioned Washington as the expander of England. He taught 

 England the great lesson necessary to her expansion. He first taught 

 it, but it was only under Lord Durham that she truly learned it. 

 Lord Durham was one of the greatest Englishmen in the whole liistory 

 of the expansion of England. He was a modern Englishman, who 

 stood shoulder to shoulder with Peel in the great effort for reform in 

 18ol. It was full of the spirit of that great reform movement that he 

 came out as Governor-General of Canada. He found still a central 

 govermnent, ahnost as tyrannical as that of the old rfgimr which Park- 

 man has exposed to us. He said, and said in a way that made Eng- 

 land see and helieve it, that if she would hold her colonies she must 

 give them real self-government, and give up that habit of over-govern- 

 ing which had cost France her American possessions. Lord Durham's 

 career in Cana<la was a short one, but l^ord Elgin took up his woik 

 and carried it on. r^ord Durham's idea spread, and Knglan<l has con- 

 tinued to hold her vast i)osses.sions, and has fouml them loyal and 



