Indian possessions; but should America go to war with her, she would use it none the less as a base of offensive operations, where she might gather and hurl upon any unprotected port all her gigantic naval

power.

We have asserted that England holds all the Southern points in which the continents of the world terminate. Examine this statement, and see how much it means. Take your map of the world, and you will find that the land-surface of the globe culminates at the south in five points, no more,-America, at Cape Horn, Africa, at the Cape of Good Hope, Asia, in Ceylon and the Malayan peninsula, and Australia in the island of Tasmania. Is it not surprising that these wedges which cut into the steady flowing stream of commerce, these choice points of mercantile and naval advantage, are all in the hands of one single power? Can this be of chance? Or rather, is it not the result of a well ordered purpose, which, waiting its time, seizing every favourable opportunity, has finally achieved success.

The topic is not exhausted, but the facts already adduced prove clearly enough that somewhere in the English government there has been sagacity to plant colonies, not only at convenient distances, but also in such commanding positions that they do their part to confirm and perpetuate her maritime supremacy. Can any one fail to see how immeasurably this system increases naval force? Of course such strongholds, wherever placed, would be of no use to a power which had not ships. They could not be held by such a power. But, given a fleet as powerful as ever rode the waves, given seamen gallant and skilful as ever furled a sail or guided the helm, and these depôts and havens, scattered, but not blindly, over the earth, quadruple the efficiency of the power which they could not create.

The number of the English colonies, their happy distribution, and, above all, their commanding position, furnish subjects of exceeding interest. But the patience with which England has waited, the skill with which she has seized the proper moment for success, and especially the fixed determination with which she has held her prizes, are topics of equal or greater interest.

The history of the rock of Gibraltar, one of the earliest of these prizes, supplies a good illustration. This had many owners before it came under British rule. But none of them seemed to know its true value. All held it with a loose grasp. Its surprise and capture by the sailors from Admiral Rooke's fleet, creditable as it was to its captors, who swarmed up the steep cliffs, as they would have swarmed up the shrouds and yards of their own frigates, leaping from rock to rock with fearless activity, was equally discreditable to its defenders, who either did not appreciate the worth of their charge, or else had not courage to hold it. But when England closed her strong hand upon it, nothing could open it again, neither motives of profit nor motives of fear. 1729 Spain offered no less than ten million dollars for its return. A great sum in those times, and offered to a people who had been impo

In

It is not absolutely true that England holds Cape Horn; for the region is unfit for the residence of civilized man. And were it not so, the perpetual storms leave no secure anchorage. But Great Britain does hold the nearest habitable land, the Falkland Islands, and notwithstanding the rudeness of the climate, Stanley, the principle settlement, does a considerable business in refitting and repairing ships bound round the Cape,

verished by long wars! But the descendants of those sea-kings, Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher, who had carried England's flag and England's renown into every sea, would not part with the brightest jewel in her crown, and for a price. Three times, too, the besieger has appeared before Gibraltar, and vainly. From 1779 to 1782 France and Spain exhausted all their resources in a three-years' seige, which is one of the most remarkable episodes in military history. By sea and by land, by blockade, by bombardment, by assault, was it pressed. But the tenacity of England was more than a match for the fire and pride of France and Spain, and it was ended in signal and disastrous failure.

Glance for a moment at the history of the seizure of Malta. For generations the value of this citadel had been known. All the strong nations of Europe had looked with covetous eyes upon it. But it was a difficult thing to find any pretext of its capture. It was held by the Knights of St. John, the decrepit remnant of an order whose heroism had many times been the shield of Christendom against the Turk, and whose praise had once filled the whole earth. They were now as inoffensive as they were incapable. Their helplessness was their true defence,-and their good deeds. At last, in 1798, Napoleon on his way to Egypt, partly by force and partly by treaty, obtained possession of it. So strong were its fortresses, that he himself acknowledged that the knights needed only to have shut their gates against him to have baffled him. Two years after, the English, watching their time, by blockade starved out the French garrison. Its new owners held it with their usual determination. Rather than surrender it, they deliberately entered upon a ten-years war with France. The indignation which Napoleon felt, and the language which he used, show that he knew the value of the prize for which he was struggling. "I would rather," said he, "see you in possession of Montmartre than in possession of Malta." "Malta gives the dominion of the Mediterranean; I thus lose the most important sea in the world, and the respect of Europe. Let the English obtain a port to put into ; to that I have no objection; but I am determined that they shall not have two Gibraltars in one sea,-one at the entrance, and one in the middle." Nevertheless he was forced to yield to destiny stronger than his own iron will. Eleven years more found him in sad exile, and the British flag still waving over Valetta.

Hong Kong furnishes another illustration. Most, no doubt, are familiar with the general outline of the first Chinese War: how England stormed, one after the other, the ill-constructed and worse defended Chinese forts, until the courage and insolence of the Lord of the Central Flowery Kingdom alike failed. Why, now, did not England retain military possession of Canton, or some other important commercial town? That would have given her much trouble and little advantage. She chose rather to retain only one sterile island of a few miles in diameter, whose possession would awaken nobody's jealousy, but which would furnish a sufficient base for operations in any future wars.

One more example. Until about the beginning of the present century, Ceylon and Cape Colony were Dutch possessions. This is the history of their loss. Soon after the French Revolution broke out, Holland, with the consent of a portion of her people, was incorporated, if not in name, yet in reality, into the French Empire. During the long wars of Napoleon, she shared the fortunes of her master, 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 to 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 and completes the great peninsula of which it may be considered to be a part, furnished 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 harbours, with dock-yards, machine shops, and arsenal complete. 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 towards the control of the commercial waters of the earth, some of whose footsteps we have now traced, reveals the existence of a steady 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. Behind its history, and creating its history, there must have been a clear, calm, persistent policy, a policy which has always regarded appearances, but which has also managed to accomplish its 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 mightest naval power in the world. And well she may be. 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 inexhaustable stores of iron, copper, and coal. Her Highland hills are covered with forests of oak and larch, growing while men sleep. Her borders are crowded with workshops, and her skies are are dark with the smoke of their chimneys, and the air rings with the sound of their hammers. Her docks are filled with ships, and her watchful guardians are on every sea. Her eyes are open to profit by every invention. And her strong colonies, overlooking all waters, give new vigour and a better distribution to her naval resources. A mighty naval power she is, and for good or evil, a mighty naval power she is likely to continue. The great revolutions in warfare, which in our day are proceeding with such wonderful rapidity, may for a time disturb this supremacy; but in the end, the genius of England, essentially maritime, and as clear and strong on the sea as it is apt to be weak and confused upon the land, will enable her to stand on her own element, as she has stood for centuries, with no superior, and with scarcely a rival.

VOL. I.-No. 9.

2 G

A CONVERTED GUAGE R.

A Tale of Ireland.

BY JACOB TERRY.

CHAPTER VI.-MULLAN'S STORY.

"If there is one pleasure in life in which my fellow-countrymen take a greater delight than another," resumed Mullan, "it is in the manufacture of the commodity called whiskey."

"I dissent: I protest again," quoth our host.

"Except," added Mullan slyly, "it is the drinking of it." The host's face beamed with pleasure: and Mullan, drawing his chair nearer the fire continued: "Our mutual friend Terry, here, has evinced a becoming appreciation of our national beverage, and he has likewise seen something of its manufacture, but he has no idea of the risk the poor fellows run who try to keep up the national spirits at the expense of the revenue. I'll tell you a story of what happened in the other side of the county, and it would have been finished now but for your interruptions.

"Two or three years ago, it doesn't matter for a season or two, there was a change of supervisors in the Dunfanaghy and Milford district; and as new brooms sweep clean, sure enough the new supervisor meant sweeping all before him. There was nothing but still hunts and seizures, and at last two decent boys were arrested and committed to take their trial at the Lifford assizes. Transportation was their due, because they ventured to distil their own barley, instead or paying twelve shillings a-gallon to the English exchequer for leave to drink another man's whiskey, besides paying a profit all round on it.

"The whole country was up in arms against the supervisor, and even the revenue policemen would not have been sorry if he had come to grief some fine morning, as they had neither rest nor peace for a day with him. What was to be done to get off the boys, was the question. Many a plan was hit on, but none of them would do. Mr. O'Spry was not to be easily caught, and it was generally felt that so soon as he 'switched the primer' in the witness box it was all up with the smugglers.

"At last one morning about eight days before the Assizes were to come off, Pat Carey, a noted smuggler, made his way into O'Spry's house by the back door, as if he was terribly afraid of being seen, and touching his hat to the supervisor in a mannerly way, says he, 'I'd like to have a private word wi' your honor.'

"What do you want with me, Mr. Pat ?" says he, sniffing with his nose as if he thought Pat had a keg of "wee still" with him. "What do you want with me ?" says he,

"Your honor's a good judge of the stuff they say," edged in Pat, looking across his nose at his man.

And they say right," said the other.

do you mean?"

"But who says it? and what

"Oh to be shure every one says it; and what an illegant gentleman your honor is. An'-an';" and here Pat fumbled in his corduroys, pushing his hand well down the thigh to get to the bottom of a pocket that seemed bottomless.

"And what? What is it you want ?" said Mr. O'Spry never catching what Mr. Carey would be at, but a little impatient at the delay. He was dreaming of a seizure, and thought Pat might be turning informer.

"By your lave, sir; but my pocket's bad intirely. I ax pardon, but I want your honor's judgment on that," producing a ginger beer bottle which had reposed unobserved in the loose wrinkles of Pat's corduroys.

The supervisor tasted the stuff; and smacked his lips approvingly. He replaced the cork in the neck, and handed it to Pat, who motioned it away, saying, "I'm shure what every one says is true. Your honor's an illegant judge of the stuff, and may be you'll say its better if you try it again. You've not had the taste of your mouth."

Again Mr. O'Spry applied the neck of the ginger beer bottle to his mouth; again there was a gurgling sound, a long drawn breath, and an appreciating smack of the lips, and the bottle was handed back to Pat, whose eyes twinkled. There was a sensible diminution in its contents. After a pause the supervisor looked hard at Pat, and says he, as if wishing to make an impression; says he, "Mr. Carey, that's whiskey." "I know that your honor; and real honest stuff it is too."

"Pat," says he, "I have half a mind to lay in a stock myself. Do you think we could trade for a lot?"

"Its joking ye are. You never mean it, bekase ye see it has never been christened by the gauger." The supervisor laughed: his face was flushed, but although Pat thought he was tipsy, the whiskey had only brightened his wits. "But if I thought you were in earnest, I could road you to a lot," resumed Pat.

"That's the very thing I want. And now about the price. Suppose we take it as a job lot, and not by the gallon. It will save a deal of trouble to both of us."

"Your honor's in the right; but I'm thinking of the quantity. There's three ten gallon stills at work, and there's three potale barrels full, and-"

"Well, say no more about it; I'll trade. Will a fiver do you ?"

Pat Carey shook his head. "A fiver for all that stuff; and then the risk! Your honor might turn informer;" and Pat laughed at his own joke. "Make it an even ten pounds, and have it carried away at night, and I'll let you have it."

"I'll do nothing of the kind," said Mr. O'Spry. “I like the stuff, and I'll deal if you're reasonable; but having made up my mind, I'll have it without pay, if you don't take a liberal offer. Here's five sovereigns at your service (laying them on the table); take them or leave them, all the same to me. I have made up my mind to have the stuff, and you can't cheat me once the scent's up."

Pat looked first at the money, then at the guager; again at the money and again at the guager. He saw appeal was hopeless, and he