xviii FEOM THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE West Indian slaves, and to create a fresh field of na- tional activity in Christian missions. A close monop- oly as long as England believed in exclusive com- merce, India now exhibits the extreme application of the English doctrine of free trade, and it forms the corner-stone of the new imperialism of Greater Britain. These two volumes recount magnificent deeds done by Englishmen in Asia. Yet history cannot rank the generalship of Clive above that of Albuquerque, or the constructive genius of Warren Hastings above that of Jan Pieterszoon Coen. It is enough for a great man to be the express image of the greatness of his country in his time. .The national spirit has been the dominant factor alike in our fortunes and in those of our rivals in the East. As the Cape route was discovered for Portugal before Da Gama hoisted sail in the Tagus, and as the Spice Archipelago would have passed to the Dutch without any tragedy of Amboyna, so Bengal must have become a British province although on some other field than Plassey, and the Mutiny would assur- edly have been put down, even had no Lawrence stood in the gap in that great and terrible day of the Lord. In this volume and the next there is presented a narrative of events in India's history since the country came into contact with the nations of modern Europe. In such a narrative the internal history of India, and its wondrous diversity of races, religions, and types of intellectual effort, forms not the least instructive chap-
