more easy; or the discovery of steam power, and the acquisition of
a colonial empire, create at once a fresh demand for human beings
and a fresh supply of food for them. Britain, at the beginning of
the nineteenth century, was in an altogether new social situation,

At the beginning of the great French war; and, indeed, ever since
the beginning of the war with Spain in 1739--often snubbed as the
"war about Jenkins's ear"--but which was, as I hold, one of the
most just, as it was one of the most popular, of all our wars;
after, too, the once famous "forty fine harvests" of the
eighteenth century, the British people, from the gentleman who led
to the soldier or sailor who followed, were one of the mightiest
and most capable races which the world has ever seen, comparable
best to the old Roman, at his mightiest and most capable period.
That, at least, their works testify. They created--as far as man
can be said to create anything--the British Empire. They won for
us our colonies, our commerce, the mastery of the seas of all the
world. But at what a cost!


Their bones are scattered far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.


Year after year, till the final triumph of Waterloo, not battle
only, but worse destroyers than shot and shell--fatigue and
disease--had been carrying off our stoutest, ablest, healthiest
young men, each of whom represented, alas! a maiden left unmarried
at home, or married, in default, to a less able man. The
strongest went to the war; each who fell left a weaklier man to