[Sidenote: The Straits Settlements]
[Sidenote: Australia]
In the years immediately following the War of American Independence occurred two other important extensions of British power. One was the occupation of the "Straits Settlements" which gave Great Britain control of the Malay peninsula and of the Straits of Malacca through which the spice ships passed. But more valuable as a future home for English-speaking Europeans, and, therefore, as partial compensation for the loss of the United States, was the vast island-continent of Australia, which had been almost unknown until the famous voyage of Captain Cook to Botany Bay in 1770. For many years Great Britain regarded Australia as a kind of open-air prison for her criminals, and the first British settlers at Port Jackson (1788) were exiled convicts. The introduction of sheep-raising and the discovery of gold made the island a more attractive home for colonists, and thenceforth its development was rapid. To-day, with an area of almost 3,000,000 square miles, and a population of some 4,800,000 English-speaking people, Australia is a commonwealth more populous than and three times as large as were the thirteen colonies with which Great Britain so unwillingly parted in 1783.
ADDITIONAL READING
BRITISH COLONIAL POLICY. A very brief survey: J. S. Bassett, A Short History of the United States (1914), ch. viii, ix. The most readable and reliable detailed account of mercantilism as applied by the British to their colonies is to be found in the volumes of G. L. Beer, The Origin of the British Colonial System, 1578-1660 (1908); The Old Colonial System, 1660-1754, Part I, The Establishment of the System, 2 vols. (1912); British Colonial Policy, 1754-1765 (1907); and The Commercial Policy of England toward the American Colonies (1893), a survey. From the English standpoint, the best summary is that of H. E. Egerton, A Short History of British Colonial Policy (1897). Other valuable works: C. M. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (1904), Vol. V of the "American Nation" Series; O. M. Dickerson, American Colonial Government, 1696-1765 (1912), a study of the British Board of Trade in its relation to the American colonies, political, industrial, and administrative; G. E. Howard, Preliminaries of the Revolution, 1763- 1775 (1905), Vol. VIII of the "American Nation" Series; Reginald Lucas, Lord North, Second Earl of Guilford, 2 vols. (1913); and the standard treatises of H. L. Osgood and of J. A. Doyle cited in the bibliography to Chapter IX, above.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. Sir G. 0. Trevelyan, The American Revolution, 4 vols. (1899-1912), and, by the same author, George the Third and Charles Fox: the Concluding Part of the American Revolution, 2 vols. (1914), scholarly and literary accounts, sympathetic toward the colonists and the English Whigs; Edward Channing, A History of the United States, Vol. III (1912), the best general work; C. H. Van Tyne, The American Revolution (1905), Vol. IX of the "American Nation" Series, accurate and informing; John Fiske, American Revolution, 2 vols. (1891), a very readable popular treatment; S. G. Fisher, The Struggle for American Independence, 2 vols. (1908), unusually favorable to the British loyalists in America; Cambridge Modern History, Vol. VII (1903), ch. v-vii, written in great part by J. A. Doyle, the English specialist on the American colonies; J. B. Perkins, France in the American Revolution (1911), entertaining and instructive; Arthur Hassall, The Balance of Power, 1715-1789 (1896), ch. xii, a very brief but suggestive indication of the international setting of the War of American Independence; J. W. Fortescue, History of the British Army, Vol. III (1902), an account of the military operations from the English standpoint.
THE REFORMATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. A good general history: M. R. P. Dorman, History of the British Empire in the Nineteenth Century, Vol. I, 1793-1805 (1902), Vol. II, 1806-1900 (1904). On Ireland: W. O'C. Morris, Ireland, 1494-1905, 2d ed. (1909). On Canada: Sir C. P. Lucas, A History of Canada, 1763-1812 (1909). On India: Sir Alfred Lyall, Warren Hastings, originally published in 1889, reprinted (1908), an excellent biography; G. W. Hastings, Vindication of Warren Hastings (1909), the best apology for the remarkable governor of India, and should be contrasted with Lord Macaulay's celebrated indictment of Hastings; Sir John Strachey, Hastings and the Rohilla War (1892), favorable to Hastings' work in India. On Australia: Greville Tregarthen, Australian Commonwealth, 3d ed. (1901), a good outline, in the "Story of the Nations" Series; Edward Jenks, A History of the Australasian Colonies (1896), an excellent summary; Edward Heawood, A History of Geographical Discovery in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1912); Arthur Kitson, Captain James Cook (1907).
CHAPTER XI
THE GERMANIES IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE IN DECLINE
[Sidenote: Backwardness of the Germanies]