EXERCISES.

1. What things now to be seen may have existed when the Romans were here? What did the Saxons leave? What sort of buildings were raised at first after the Normans came ?

2. What sort of private buildings were raised after the wars of the Roses? Of what age are there more numerous mansions than those of the Tudor age? Where were houses fortified to a late period? Describe generally the effect of the progress of civilisation on the domestic architecture of the country.

3. What do our towns possess now which they did not formerly possess? Describe the dangers that generally beset people going through the streets of London of old. Mention circumstances which show the extent of robbery and murder in former days.

4. What means are there for people finding their way in towns which did not formerly exist? Describe the way in which tradesmen tried to make their shops conspicuous. When were improvements made, and what did they consist in? Mention circumstances showing the progress made in lighting the streets.

5. In what has the face of the country been altered besides buildings? Give a general account of what Mr Macaulay says about the difference of its present and past appearance. What is the nature of the railway system? What methods of conveyance were used formerly? Give an account of the railway traffic.

6. Describe the nature of the change made by steam on sea voyages. What changes have been lately made in the post-office system? What was the franking privilege? What number of letters passes yearly through the post-office? What sum of money passes through the money-order office? What estimates have been made of the quantity of the precious metals in private use? In what does the real wealth of the country consist?

7. What classes have profited by the progress of wealth? What has been the effect of the Union on Scotland? What was the state of the Scottish nobility? Mention some exceptions to the general progress. State some things which show that the lower class was formerly more numerous than at present.

8. What circumstances show improvement in the working classes? How do the past and the present consumption of animal food stand to each other? State some particulars as to the consumption of articles by the aristocracy and the working classes? What amount per head is deposited in the sav ings banks?

9. Mention the area of the British islands, and the amount cultivated and uncultivated. Give an account of the woollen manufacture. Describe the progress of the cotton manufacture. Give some account of the following manufactures,-1st linen, 2d silk, 3d hardware, 4th leather, 5th glass.

10. What are the principal raw materials produced in this country? To which of them do our manufactures chiefly owe their rise? Mention two metals besides iron worked in this country. Mention some facts which show the great increase in commerce. What does the money of the country consist in? What is the proportion of paupers to the population of England?

11. Give some account of the wealth of the religious bodies of England and the numbers attached to them. Do the same as to Ireland: And as to Scotland. What is the amount of the revenue of the empire? What are the chief sources of it? What are the chief charges on it?

12. What is the nature of the English crown or sovereignty? Give s constitutional maxim, and explain its practical working. What is the nature of the coronation? What things are done in the name of the sovereign ?

13. What rights does the sovereign possess? State a constitutional maxim as to his acts, and describe its practical effect. How is the country protected by official responsibility? What is the main protection of the people from unconstitutional acts? What are the sovereign's functions as to parliament? How is the sovereign the fountain of power?

14. Describe the difference between peers spiritual and temporal. How does it operate? Who are the temporal peers? In what way does the House of Lords act as a court of law?

15. How are the members of the House of Commons classified? Describe an ancient privilege of the commons, and the way in which it was used. What is an adjournment of the house? What is a prorogation? How is parliament dissolved?

16. What three great features characterize the administration of justice in Britain? Give an account of jury trial. How are the judges made independent? How are the English courts for administering civil justice divided? Give an account of them. How is civil justice administered in Scotland and Ireland?

17. What is the court of highest criminal jurisdiction in England? What other courts are held for the trial of offences? What is the method of proceeding? How does the system of criminal justice in Scotland differ from that in England?

CHAPTER XLI.

THE COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES.

1. It was of old a boastful expression of the Spaniards that on their king's dominions the sun never set. This may be truly said of the dominions of the British crown. When sinking from our view in the western ocean, the orb of day is rising on our colonies in the new world; and as the settler in Australia or the wearied soldier on the parched plains of India watches his receding rays, he may picture them glancing brightly on the dewy hills of his native home. Extensive as are the lands swayed by the British sceptre, it is rarely, in comparison with the acquisitions of other states, that they have been gained to satisfy the mere lust of conquest. Even in that fabled soil of "barbaric wealth," great as were the crimes that stained the earlier days of English weakness and insecurity, so soon as those perilous moments were past, the native of Hindostan for the first time learnt the blessings of good government, first cultivated his patch of ground in tranquillity, and first enjoyed the privileges of impartial law. It is true that the best efforts have not enabled us to colonize barbarian countries without some hardships to the natives. Even where there is neither slaughter nor plunder, the very presence of the industrious civilized man, ploughing and building, renders the land no longer fit for the idle savage who feeds on the roots and wild animals of the wilderness.

Thus, unfortunately, in the vast territory of Australia, as well as in other places, the natives have fallen victims to the evils of civilisation, or have wandered into unexplored wilds. But they were few in number, and to compensate for this evil, we have the thousands who are there living by improvement and industry, and reaping a legitimate harvest from those fertile coasts, along the whole extent of which new settlements are yearly bursting into existence, combining all the activity of youth with the steadiness of purpose of mature age. From a mere speck of land off the coast of China, we may hope that erelong the example of a higher state of civilisation, of a purer morality, and of a holier religion, will exercise its influence upon that mighty empire, which had for ages been a forbidden country to the people of the West. In Borneo the standard of European civilisation has been raised by the chivalrous enterprise of a single individual, and rivers once the retreat and stronghold of the pirate, may erelong be the great arteries of wealth and peaceful commerce. Occupying nearly the same position in the southern hemisphere as Britain does in the northern, the islands of New Zealand, no longer the sole abode of men whose chief delight was war, and who celebrated their victories by devouring the bodies of their victims, welcome a host of emigrants to their now hospitable shores, where a wider field of exertion is opened to them than they can find at home, and where they seek to revive the nobler parts of long-tried institutions. The natives, once far more terrible than the burning volcano which towers high above their heads, are gradually softening down, and from the admixture of the races a nation may possibly arise far superior in energy and endurance to any that the world has ever seen.

2. AMERICA. Towards the close of the fifteenth century, a new route had been opened to India, and another continent had offered its treasures to the adventurous sons of Europe. The Spaniards and the Portuguese were the first to avail themselves of this discovery; but the British were not left far behind. A small squadron sailing from Bristol in the reign of Henry the Seventh was the earliest to catch a glimpse of the coast of North America; but the British did little before 1588 towards the foundation of their colonial dominion. In the reign of Elizabeth, Sir Walter Raleigh formed a settlement, to which he gave the name Virginia, in honour of his sovereign. Under the patronage of James I. two companies

were formed, one consisting of London merchants, the other of traders of Plymouth and other seaports, to colonize all the known parts of North America. This territory was divided into two equal portions; that which retained the name of Virginia fell to the London company, the other was called New England. The former prospered to such a degree that in 1619 a general assembly of the inhabitants was convened, to which eleven towns sent representatives, and the constitutional forms of the mother-country were adopted.

Massachusetts was first settled by a small body of presbyterians, who sought freedom of worship on those distant shores, where six years afterwards they founded the city of Boston. The disordered state of England drove great numbers of the oppressed puritans across the Atlantic; then came crowds of Roman-catholics; and finally the outbreak of the civil war impelled many lovers of peace and order to seek those blessings beyond the western main. These states gradually grew in wealth and strength, and when they were able to secure themselves from foreign enemies, they began to feel the burden of the commercial and other restrictions imposed upon them by the home government. Their endeavours to be placed on a more favourable footing ended, as we have seen, in a contest which eventually led to the dismemberment of the colonies, and the establishment of their independence as the United States of North America.

The English colonies in the West Indies did not begin to flourish until the early part of the seventeenth century. In 1625, private merchants established factories in Barbadoes and Saint Christopher's; but they were of little importance until the sugar-cane, which had been transplanted from Brazil in 1641, began to be successfully cultivated. The conquest of Jamaica, during the protectorate of Cromwell, opened a new source of wealth to the commerce and enterprise of Great Britain.

The West Indian Islands, with Honduras and British Guiana, the oldest of our colonies, are nearly 170,000 square miles in extent, and contain a population of about 900,000 inhabitants. Their exports to the value of about five millions of pounds consist chiefly of sugar, coffee, tobacco, rum, cotton, mahogany, logwood, spices, fruits, dyes, and drugs. They purchase from the mother-country manufactured cottons, linens, woollens, clothing, &c., to the amount of about two millions. Jamaica, the largest of the West

Indian Islands, contains a population of nearly 380,000, of whom only 30,000 are whites, the rest being negroes, who were almost all slaves until emancipated in 1838 under an act of parliament that had been passed in 1833. Since that time those colonies have continued to prosper, their exports increasing every year. Jamaica was the only exception, where from various causes there existed much discontent, which culminated in an insurrection of the negroes at. Morant Bay in August 1865. The riot, for it was really little more, was quickly suppressed, but with such severity and lawlessness, that Mr Eyre, the governor, was recalled, a royal commission was sent out to investigate the matter, and by the voluntary act of the legislature, the constitution was surrendered to the crown, so that the island has ceased to enjoy the privilege of self-government.

Several attempts were made in England in 1867 and 1868 to bring Governor Eyre to trial for alleged illegalities committed by him or his agents while putting down the insurrection; but they all failed, the grand-jurors apparently holding that he was not actuated by malice, and that if he committed errors, he had been sufficiently punished by deprivation of office. The prosecutions were of great importance in a constitutional light, as giving the Lord Chief Justice an opportunity of affirming authoritatively that martial law was not recognised by the English constitution, and was applicable only to soldiers actually under arms and in the field, according to the terms of the Mutiny Act.

That vast extent of territory, the United States, originally colonized by English settlers, having secured its independence in 1782, the British possessions on the continent of America lie with a very trifling exception to the north of the river St Lawrence and the great chain of lakes to the straits of San Juan. Extending into regions covered with perpetual ice and snow, and traversed only by the wandering Esquimaux, or the scarcely less savage trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company, much of this territory produces little else than hides and furs: from the more genial portions we derive timber, wheat, ashes, fish, turpentine, and other articles. These colonies, including Newfoundland, &c., have an area of about 3,600,000 square miles, with a population of about 4 millions, of whom the majority are of British origin; in Lower