European, and there were few of the plain comforts which to-day are regarded as absolutely indispensable to healthy existence. It was for many a life of dull heart-breaking monotony, varied only by the visitations of disease or the vicissitudes incidental to the precarious relations in which the English stood to the native powers in whose territory they resided.
This work has been written in vain if it does not show how much Britain owes to these men and more especially to the leaders, who by their devotion and heroic self-sacrifice gave such a splendid impetus to the cause of national expansion. Lancaster, Courthope, Jourdain, Middleton, Downton—these are names worthy to rank with those of the seamen of the earlier generation who won fame on the Western main, and they will compare not unfavourably with the naval heroes who in a later age secured for Britain the mastery of the sea and with it the consolidation of her overseas possessions. They are of the immortal company of whom Tennyson sang in his memorable lines:—
"We sail'd wherever ship could sail; We founded many a mighty state; Pray God our greatness may not fail Through craven fear of being great."
And of the prominent figures who played their part on land in this overture to the great drama of British dominion in the East may we not also say that they too are of the body of the elect—true Empire builders? Though their deeds were not so spectacular as those of the great administrators and soldiers of subsequent centuries, Oxenden, Aungier and Charnock were worthies whose achievements we cannot overlook in appraising the human forces which assisted to build up the British-Indian Empire.
