N ETH WANDS.
Great Britain.— No colonizing power has had a career of such uniform prosperity as Great Britain. The freedom of her institutions and the practical enterprise and self-reliance of her people peculiarly fitted her for the work of colonization and it has steadily advanced with her equally in peace and in war. Her in sular situation freeing her from the ambition of direct territorial aggrandizement and giv ing her the command of the seas enabled her in every war to strip her opponents of colonial possessions which were not unfrequently re tained as the price of peace. The only break in a career of prosperity which has resulted in the formation of an empire greater in ex tent of territory and of population than any other known to history was the revolt of her American colonies, which resulted in the for mation of a state destined ultimately to rival Great Britain herself in political and commer cial importance and in the freedom of its in stitutions. This state, too, by the successful re sult of the war of 1898 with Spain, itself en tered on a policy of colonial expansion.
The English made their appearance as a colonial power nearly at the same time with the Dutch, but at first with far inferior success. After many fruitless attempts to find a north east or northwest passage to the East Indies, English vessels found their way round the Cape of Good Hope to the East Indies in 1591. In 1600 Elizabeth granted a charter to the East India Company. Its commerce with India, how ever, was not at first important. It established only single factories on the continent, and at the beginning of the 18th century the posses sions of the English in the East were limited almost exclusively to Madras, Calcutta and Bencoolen. The ruin of the Mogul empire in India, which conunenced in internal disturb ances after the death of Aurungzebe (1707), and was completed by the incursions of Nadir Shah (1739), afforded the opportunity for the growth of British power, as the Bntish and French were compelled to interfere in the con tentions of the native princes and governors. The French, under Labourdonnais and Du pleix, appeared at first likely to maintain the superiority; but the British succeeded in ac quiring the ascendency in the Carnatic; and in the middle of the 18th century they greatly ex tended their dominions under Clive. By the de struction of Pondicherry they secured their superiority on the coast of Coromandel; and the victory of Clive at Plassey, 23 June 1757, laid the foundation of their exclusive sover eignty in India. By the Treaty of Allahabad, 12 Aug. 1765, Bengal was surrendered to the British by the titular Great Mogul; and the fall of the empire of Mysore, the dominions of Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sahib, may be consid ered as completely establishing the British su premacy in India. The Mahrattas, with whom the British waged war at intervals from 1775 to 1818, and the Sachs, subdued in 1849, were the last formidable enemies of the company. With the exception of a few dependent states the British territory now embraced nearly the whole of India, and this vast territory was still under the government of a chartered mercantile company, exercising many of the most import ant functions of an independent sovereignty. On the suppression of the Indian mutiny (1857 58) this state of things was deemed too haz ardous to last and the government of India was transferred to the Crown by act of Parliament in 1858. Ceylon was first occupied in 1795-96.
The discoveries of the Cabots, following soon after the voyages of Columbus, gave the English Crown a claim to North America, which in the reign of Elizabeth led to coloniza tion on a large scale. In 1606 James I divided the territory claimed by England into two parts — South Virginia, extending from Cape Fear to the Potomac; and North Virginia, from the mouth of the Hudson to Newfoundland. Two companies were formed for the colonization of America— the London Company, to which was granted South Virginia; and the Plymouth Company, to which was granted North Virginia. The region between thc Potomac and the Hud son was neutral ground. The London Com pany in 1607 founded the commonwealth of Virginia by building Jamestown on the James River, so called in honor of the king. A House of Burgesses for the new colony met for the first time on 19 June 1619, and thus was con stituted the beginning of representative govern ment in the British colonies of America. In 1614 Capt. John Smith, having examined the coast from the Penobscot to Cape Cod, named the country here New England. The next per manent settlement on the North Amencan coast was effected in this district by the body of Puritans, known as the Pilgrim Fathers, who sailed from England 6 Sept. 1620, in the Mayflozuer, and arrived 9 November in Massa chusetts Bay. The government of this colony was that of a religious oligarchy. Another col ony was established in New Hampshire in 1623, and in the same year Maine, which had pre viously been colomzed by the French, received its first permanent English settlement. New Jersey was colonized in 1634. Connecticut was colonized in 1635 by emigrants from Massachu setts. Rhode Island was settled in 1636. Sam uel Champlain, the French navigator, was the first European who entered the region now forming the State of New York (1609). In the same year Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the service of the Dutch East India Com pany, discovered the river to which his name has been given, where Dutch settlements were effected and gradually spread. The English, who claimed this territory as included in Ca bot's discoveries, finally seized the Dutch col ony of New Amsterdam by force in 1664, giv ing it the name of New York in honor of James, Duke of York (James II), to whom Charles II had made a grant of the province. In 1670 the charter of the Hudson's Bay Company was granted, by which ownership of all the regions whose waters discharge into Hudson Bay—a territory as large as the whole of Europe — was conferred on the company, the rights to which were only finally extinguished in 1869. In 1681 the terntory west of the Delaware was l'anted to William Penn, who colonized it with uakers, and founded Pennsylvania in 1682. he first settlement in Maryland was made in 1631 by a party from Virginia. In 1633 a col ony of Roman Catholics arrived here from Great Britain. The country south of Virginia was permanently settled in 1670 by a party of English colonists who landed at Port Royal and afterward removed to CharlestOn. The colony was called Carolina. Georgia, originally a part of Carolina, was granted by George II, after whom it was named, to a colony from England in 1732.