English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century (posth. 1895) deserve special mention. His numerous essays, collected into four series of Short Studies on Great Subjects (1867-83), comprise history as well as philo

sophy, theology, politics, and literature. Oceana (1886) and The English in the West Indies (1888) contain his colonial impressions and strongly advocate English imperialism.

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A natural right to liberty, irrespec15 tive of the ability to defend it, exists in nations as much as and no more than it exists in individuals. Had nature meant us to live uncontrolled by any will but our own, we should have been so constructed that the pleasures of one would not interfere with the pleasures of another, or that each of us would discharge by instinct those duties which the welfare of the 25 community requires from all. In a world in which we are made to depend so largely for our well-being on the conduct of our neighbours, and yet are created infinitely unequal in 30 ability and worthiness of character, the superior part has a natural right to govern; the inferior part has a natural right to be governed; and a rude but adequate test of superior35 ity and inferiority is provided in the relative strength of the different orders of human beings.

Among wild beasts and savages might constitutes right. Among reason40 able beings right is for ever tending

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to create might. Inferiority of numbers is compensated by superior cohesiveness, intelligence, and daring. The better sort of men submit willingly to be governed by those who are 45 nobler and wiser than themselves; organisation creates superiority of force; and the ignorant and the selfish may be and are justly compelled for their own advantage to obey a 50 rule which rescues them from their natural weakness. There neither is nor can be an inherent privilege in any person or set of persons to live unworthily at their own wills, when 56 they can be led or driven into more honourable courses; and the rights of man if such rights there be are not to liberty, but to wise direction and control. Individuals cannot be independent, or society cannot exist. With individuals the contention is not for freedom absolutely, but for an extension of the limits within which their 65 freedom must be restrained. The independence of nations is spoken of sometimes as if it rested on another foundation as if each separate race or community had a divine 70 title-deed to dispose of its own fortunes, and develop its tendencies in such direction as seems good to itself. But the assumption breaks down before the enquiry, What con- 75 stitutes a nation? And the right of a people to self-government consists and can consist in nothing but their power to defend themselves. No other definition is possible. Are geographical 80

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As little can a claim to freedom be made coincident with race language. When the ties of kindred 100 and of speech have force enough to bind together a powerful community, such a community may be able to defend its independence; but if it can not, the pretension in itself has 105 no claim on consideration. Distinctions of such a kind are merely fanciful and capricious. All societies of men are, in the nature of things, forced into relations with other societies of 110 men. They exchange obligations, confer benefits, or inflict injuries on each other. They are natural friends or natural rivals; and unite, or else find themselves in collision, when the 115 weaker is compelled to give way. The individual has to sacrifice his independence to his family, the family to the tribe; the tribe merges itself in some larger community; and the 120 time at which these successive surrenders of liberty are demanded depends practically on nothing else than the inability to persist in separation. Where population is scanty 125 and habits are peaceful, the head of each household may be sovereign be sovereign over his children and servants, owing no allegiance to any higher chief or law. As among the Cyclops

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Necessity and common danger drive families into alliance for self-defence; the smaller circles of independence lose themselves in ampler areas; and 135 those who refuse to conform to the new authority are either required to take themselves elsewhere, or, if they remain and persist in disobedience, may be treated as criminals.

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A tribe, if local circumstances are favourable, may defend its freedom against a more powerful neighbour, so long as the independence of such a tribe is a lesser evil than the cost 145 of its subjugation; but an independence so protracted is rarely other than a misfortune. On the whole, and as a rule, superior strength is the equivalent of superior merit; and 150 when a weaker people are induced or forced to part with their separate existence, and are not treated as subjects, but are admitted freely to share the privileges of the nation in 156 which they are absorbed, they forfeit nothing which they need care to lose, and rather gain than suffer by the exchange. It is possible that a nobler people may, through force of 160 circumstances, or great numerical inferiority, be oppressed for a time by the brute force of baser adversaries; just as, within the limits of a nation, particular classes may be tyrannised 165 over, or opinions which prove in the end true may be put down by violence, and the professors of such opinions persecuted. But the effort of nature is constantly to redress the 170 balance. Where freedom is so precious that without it life is unendurable, men with those convictions fight too fiercely to be permanently subdued. Truth grows by its own virtue, and 175 falsehood sinks and fades. An op

275 more prone to listen than to speak, more given to blows than to words, and determined only 'to do good service, or ligge in the ground for it'. Macmorris, though no less brave than 280 his companions, ready to stand in the breach while there were throats to be cut, or work to be done,' yet roars, rants, boasts, swears by his father's soul, and threatens to cut 285 off any man's head who dares to say that he is as good as himself.

Captain Jamie never mentions Scotland: we learn his country from his dialect, and from what others say 290 of him. Fluellen, a Welshman to the last fibre, yet traces his Welsh leek to the good service which Welshmen did, 'in a garden where leeks did grow,' at Crecy, under the English 295 Edward. He delights in thinking that all the waters of the Wye cannot wash his Majesty's Welsh blood out of his body. Macmorris, at the mention of his nation, as if on the 300 watch for insults from Saxon or Briton, blazes into purposeless fury. 'My nation! What ish my nation? Ish a villain, and a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal? What ish my 305 nation? Who talks of my nation?'

Had William fallen at Hastings instead of Harold, and had the Norman invasion failed, it is likely that the Lowland Scots would have fol310 lowed the example of Northumberland, and have drifted gradually into combination with the rest of the island. The Conquest made the difficulty greater; but if the Norman 316 kings had been content to wait for the natural action of time, increasing intercourse and an obvious community of interest would have probably antedated the Union by several centuries. 820 The premature violence of Edward the First hardened Scotland irrecoverably into a separate nationality. The determination to to defend their in

dependence created the patriotic virtues which enabled the Northern 325 Britons to hold at bay their larger rival. The Union, when it came about at last, was effected on equal terms. Two separate self-governed peoples entered slowly and deliber- 380 ately into voluntary partnership on. terms of mutual respect. The material wealth which Scotland contributed to the empire was comparatively insignificant; but she introduced into 385 it a race of men who had been hammered to a temper which made them more valuable than mountains of gold; and among the elements of greatness in the country known to 340 later history as Great Britain, the rugged Scotch resolution to resist conquest to the death, tried in a hundred battles, holds a place second to none.

The Lowland Scots were Teutons; 345 the language of the Lothians was not distinguishable from the language of Northumberland; and the Union. with Scotland might have seemed so far an easier feat than the Union 350 with Wales. On the other hand, the Welsh were fewer in number, less protected by situation, less able to obtain help from other quarters. They were neither slaves nor cowards. 356 They loved their freedom, they fought for it long and desperately, rising again and again when civil wars in England offered them a gleam of hope. When resistance became ob- 360 viously hopeless, they loyally and wisely accepted their fate. They had not to suffer from prolonged severity, for severity was unnecessary. There was no general confiscation, no violent 365 interference with local habits or usages. They preserved their language with singular success, and their customs so far as their customs were compatible with English law; while in 870 exchange for independence they were admitted to the privileges of English

citizenship in as full measure as the English themselves. They continued 375 proud of their nationality, vain with true Celtic vanity of pedigrees which lose themselves in infinity. Yet, being wisely handled, restrained only in essentials, and left to their own way 380 in the ordinary current of their lives, they were contented to forget their animosities; they ceased to pine after political liberty which they were consciously unable to preserve; and find385 ing themselves accepted on equal terms as joint inheritors of a magnificent empire, the iron chain became a golden ornament. Their sensibilities were humoured in the title of 390 the heir of the crown. In bestowing a dynasty upon England they found a gratification for their honourable pride. If they have contributed less of positive strength than the Scots 395 to the British empire, they have never

been its shame or its weakness; and the retention of a few harmless peculiarities has not prevented them from being wholesome and worthy 400 members of the United Commonwealth.

Ireland, the last of the three countries of which England's interest demanded the annexation, was by 406 nature better furnished than either

of them with means to resist her approaches. Instead of a narrow river for a frontier, she had seventy miles of dangerous sea. She had a 410 territory more difficult to penetrate,

and a population greatly more numerous. The courage of the Irish was undisputed. From the first mention of the Irishman in history, faction 415 fight and foray have been the occupation and the delight of his existence. The hardihood of the Irish kern was proverbial throughout Europe. The Irish soldiers, in the regular 420 service of France and Spain, covered

themselves with distinction, were ever

honoured with the most dangerous posts, have borne their share in every victory. In our own ranks they have formed half the strength of our 425 armies, and detraction has never challenged their right to an equal share in the honour which those armies have won. Yet, in their own country, in their efforts to shake off 430 English supremacy, their patriotism has evaporated in words. No advantage of numbers has availed them; no sacred sense of hearth and home has stirred their nobler nature. An 435 unappeasable discontent has been attended with the paralysis of manliness; and, with a few accidental exceptions, continually recurring insurrections have only issued in absolute 440 and ever disgraceful defeat.

Could Ireland have but fought as Scotland fought she would have been mistress of her own destinies. In a successful struggle for freedom, she 445 would have developed qualities which would have made her worthy of possessing it. She would have been one more independent country added to the commonwealth of nations; and 450 her history would have been another honourable and inspiriting chapter among the brighter records of mankind. She might have stood alone; she might have united herself, had 455 she so pleased, with England on fair and equal conditions; or she might have preferred alliances with the Continental powers. There is no disputing against strength, nor happily 460 is there need to dispute, for the strength which gives a right to freedom, implies the presence of those qualities which ensure that it will be rightly used. No country can win 465 and keep its freedom in the presence of a dangerous rival, unless it be on the whole a well and justly governed country; and where there is just government the moral ground is ab- 470