6. Possessing these qualities he has been able to conquer his foes and afterwards to gain their good-will. When, for instance, the brave Sikhs of India were thoroughly beaten, they readily took service under our flag and helped us to put down the Sepoy Mutiny. To make the men you have conquered follow you gladly; that is the secret of empire. England's success in colonizing and ruling the native races within the borders of her realm is also largely due to the fact that she has avoided that common fault of most other nations in dealing with their colonies—over-governing, treating them as children needing precise rules and many restrictions. England, on the other hand, has seldom kept her colonies in leading-strings longer than it was necessary.
7. Much, however, of Britain's success in the management of her colonies is the result of experience, and the outcome of repeated failure, which is always ready to yield lessons of wisdom to those who are willing to learn. We did not learn all at once to set a true value on colonies. Their worth was measured, at first, by the amount of gold or silver that could be got out of them. It took some time for the truth to be clearly seen that the richest land is that which can feed most people.
8. If we wish now-a-days to ascertain the value of any colony to the motherland, we ask ourselves one or two such questions as these: Is it a country where our surplus population may make new permanent homes and bring up healthy families? Is it a country that offers a good field of commerce for our merchants? We usually find that "trade follows the flag." Where the Union Jack flies, there, as a rule, the people trade mostly with the home-country. In New Zealand, for instance, seven-tenths of the total trade is done with the United Kingdom.
9. We have thus learned to value our colonies chiefly as places for the reception of our surplus products and population. And our success in keeping them attached to the motherland and loyal to the old flag, that has "braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze," arises from the fact, that we leave them as free as possible to manage their own affairs and to spend their own money in their own way. And this is only right, for a colony has a great deal to do for itself which has been done for us in the old country by our forefathers. A young colony, like a young householder, has to furnish and set its house in order. It has, for example, to provide roads and bridges, railways, and telegraphs; it has to bank the rivers, drain the marshes, and clear the forests. It is, therefore, only right that no attempt should be made to tax our colonies or to restrict their trade for the benefit of the mother-country.
1. Sir Walter Raleigh made strenuous efforts, in the reign of Elizabeth, to found a colony in Virginia, but the men who first consented to go as emigrants, were not true colonists, but mere adventurers on the hunt for gold. Failing in their search for gold, they returned to England, taking with them a sample of the strange herb they had learnt from the Indians to smoke. Two further attempts made by Raleigh to colonize Virginia ended in failure and disaster.
2. The first offshoot of the English race destined to take root in America, sailed from England in the third year of James I.'s reign. After a tedious voyage the expedition entered Chesapeake Bay too late in the season for the seed they had brought with them to be sown that year (1607). Ascending a stream which they called the James River, they chose for the site of their settlement a peninsula about forty miles from its mouth, where they built a village of rude huts to which they gave the name of Jamestown, and which proved the first permanent settlement of the English in the New World.
3. It cannot be said that these emigrants deserved to succeed any better than those who preceded them. We can only wonder, after the sad experience already bought at such a heavy cost, that men of the same stamp should still be sent over as colonists. Most of the present company were mere idle adventurers and worthless fellows who had never done an honest day's work at home. The new colony, consequently, was soon in danger of extinction. In six months half of the settlers were swept away by disease, wretched food, and other hardships. The remnant owed its escape to the resource and energy of one of their number, John Smith, who is entitled to the honour of being the first to plant the English race within the borders of what is now the United States.
4. Smith was a true Briton in many things besides the name, a man who would "stand no nonsense," who on being chosen leader soon made it plain that no drones should live in the hive. He soon proved himself the head and heart of the whole colony. Having provided a plenteous store of deer's flesh, wild-fowl, and maize-bread for the winter—"for he was more wakeful to gather provisions than the covetous to find gold"—he left the camp to explore the country round. Whilst thus engaged, Smith had the misfortune to fall into the hands of Indians.
5. "I was brought," he says, "to the village where the great chief Powhatan has his spacious wigwam. There they performed a war-dance around me, every one in the ring brandishing his weapons. One of my captors having been wounded, I cried out that at Jamestown I had some medicine to cure him. They would not let me fetch it; but I was permitted to send a letter, in which I asked my friends to put what I wanted under a great rock outside the town. To the astonishment of the Indian messengers who delivered my letter, the things I had promised were found by them the next day at the appointed place. On their return every one was full of wonder because of the 'talking-leaf.'"