This slight sketch may perhaps be sufficient to indicate the leading incidents of a struggle in which men of British origin, circumstances of no ordinary difficulty, gradually ac The discovery of gold. quired credit, prosperity, and power. But it must not be forgotten that, as the colonists were acquiring influence and importance, an unforeseen event added largely to the strength of their position. Australia had been regarded as a pastoral country. Its wealth was supposed to consist in its flocks and herds. But in the middle of the century it was suddenly found that it was invested with great mineral wealth. In 1848 it was discovered that it was rich in copper. In 1851 it was found that it was still more rich in gold.1 Some mention has already been made in this work of some of the consequences which proceeded from the discovery of gold in Australia. They were no doubt increased by the almost simultaneous discovery of gold in California. In the next twenty years the production of gold in these two countries exceeded on an average £25,000,000 a year; and these two countries alone probably yielded from that time nearly as much gold as the whole of the world had produced in the previous decade. There are few things which are more difficult to determine than the exact effect of this prodigious increase in the supply of the metal by which the value of most commodities is usually measured. To the present writer it seems probable, or even certain, that it terminated for the time the fall of prices which was in steady progress. When gold became more common, more gold was given for other articles, and prices in consequence rose. But, whatever may have been the effect of this discovery on the world at large, there can be little doubt of the impetus which it gave to Australian progress. In 1850 New South Wales contained 265,000 persons. In 1881 it had been divided into three 1 The chapter in Rusden's Australia, vol. ii. pp. 601-748, on the discovery of gold may be referred to by those who wish for more detailed information on the discovery and its consequences. For the previous discovery of copper, ibid., p. 411. great colonies which contained respectively 862,000, 751,000, and 226,000 persons.1 The reader who appreciates the significance of these figures, and of the events which have been imperfectly and rapidly sketched in this chapter, will have no difficulty in accepting the author's conclusion that, just as the great fact in the history of England during the eighteenth century was the rise of the United States, so the great fact in the history of England in the nineteenth century is the progress of Australia. The inhabitants of this small group of islands have shown a capacity for founding new kingdoms which no other race in the world has hitherto displayed. The day may possibly arrive when some inhabitant of New Zealand may take his seat on the broken arches of London Bridge and realise the prediction of a great historian by sketching from that standpoint the ruins of St. Paul's. But, should that day come, it is no idle boast to predict that the artist will be sprung from the British and not from the Maori race-for the last Maori will have met with the fate which has already overtaken the last Tasmanian -and, if he be either a wise or just man, his thoughts will turn from the decaying monuments around him to the mighty empires inhabited by men of British origin in other hemispheres; and, recognising greatness even in decay, he will pronounce his unhesitating verdict, "Truly this was a mighty people." 1 Rusden's Australia, vol. iii. pp. 56, 60. the nineteenth century, CONCLUSION. I HAVE now finished the task, which I set myself more than twelve years ago, of writing the history of this great country The growth during the forty years which followed the conclusion of Britain in of the Napoleonic wars. I do not think it desirable to carry the narrative any further. But I should hardly accomplish the full object which I have had in view if I did not devote a little space to the consideration of the main lessons deducible from the story. These lessons, in my opinion, are very different from those which are usually drawn from the history of the nineteenth century. The great fact in the history of this period, which the student should never overlook, is the growth in numbers of the British people. It is far more important to realise this fact, and to understand its causes, than to obtain the most accurate knowledge of all the legislation and of all the wars of the century. He who has not grasped this circumstance in all its bearings will never understand the history of modern England. The historian who ignores it may possibly please he will never instruct his readers. Stated broadly, at the conclusion of the great war the British Islands contained 19,000,000 persons. In 1861 (forty-five years afterwards) they had 29,000,000 inhabitants. Three persons were living where two had lived before. The King of Brobdingnag was of opinion that "whoever could make two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind and do more essential service to his country than the whole race of politicians put together." What would he have thought of a country which had added fifty per cent. to its people in forty-five years? 380 It is true that this fact, important as it is, is eclipsed by another of still greater significance. The growth of the English-speaking race has far exceeded the growth and of of the English people in the British Islands. At Englishspeaking races. the conclusion of the great war there were not probably 30,000,000 persons in the world who were English in race and language. In 1861 there were nearly 70,000,000. The English-speaking races of the world have been doubling and are doubling their numbers in every thirty-three years. If anything like this progress continue, the English-speaking races at the close of the century will probably number 150,000,000 persons. Before the close of the twentieth century, they may comprise almost as many persons as are living now on the surface of the globe. This prodigious increase in the number of English-speaking people is not merely the chief fact in the history of the nineteenth century, it is the most important circumstance in the history of the world. Nothing like the expansion of the British race has occurred since the invasion of Europe by the Goths. And the incursions of the Goths had far less influence than the emigration of the British. The Goths swept over the smallest of continents, and they came to destroy. The British have swept over the largest portion of the world, and they have brought light instead of darkness in their wake. So far as it is possible to see, their progress is only bounded by considerations of climate, and wherever the Briton can live and multiply, there he will go. There are men who view with alarm the advance of Russia; but Russia has never advanced with the rapidity of the Briton. There are men who regard with anxiety the multiplication of the Russians; the multiplication of the Russians is as nothing compared with the increase of the British. This history, however, is concerned with the smaller and not with the larger fact-the increase of the British at home, not their expansion abroad. Speaking broadly, the British at home increased from 19,000,000 persons in 1816 to 29,000,000 in 1861. It is this fact which the student must endeavour to realise, and which he will do well to examine. The growth confined to Great In the forty-five years in question all parts of the United Kingdom had not added equally to their numbers. The population of England and Wales had increased from of the people 11,000,000 to 20,000,000; the population of Scotland from rather less than 2,000,000 to rather more than 3,000,000; while the population of Ireland had decreased from about 6,000,000 to rather less than 5,800,000. The population of England and Wales increased, therefore, at the rate of nearly 90 per cent. ; the population of Scotland at the rate of 50 per cent. ; while the population of Ireland did not increase at all. It is worth while to investigate at the outset the reason of this difference. Drummond, who was Irish Secretary under Normanby, and who is regarded by Irishmen as one of the best officials whom the English ever sent to govern Ireland, estimated, when he was drawing up the report of the Railway Commissioners, that the population of Ireland amounted to 2,010,221 in 1731, to 4,206,602 in 1791, and to 6,801,827 in 1821. If these estimates are correct, the population of Ireland was more than doubled in the sixty years ending 1791, and was much more than trebled in the ninety years ending 1821. It is probable that England and Wales contained in 1731 6,500,000, while it is certain that they had in 1821 almost exactly 12,000,000 persons. If Drummond, therefore, be right, the population of Ireland increased in the ninety years ending 1821 by 240 per cent., while the population of England and Wales only increased during the same period by a little more than 80 per cent. It is clear, therefore, that, while in the eighteenth century there was a vast increase in the population of Ireland, there was only a slight increase in the population of Great Britain. The causes which led to the increase of the population of Ireland in the eighteenth century have already been indicated in this history. The introduction of the potato enabled the soil of Ireland to support an increased number of persons, and |