by Jan Morris
Nor were they ever without their self-critics. Liberalism was out of fashion in the 1890s, and the dying Gladstone was distressed to see politicians of every shade subscribing to the imperial heresy: but there had always been voices of restraint or modesty in England, men who pleaded for gentler values, or plainer ambitions, or who believed in the true equality of all peoples, or wondered if the British Empire really was constituted by divine appointment. Even in 1897 there were dissentients—men like Edward Fairfield of the Colonial Office, who was said to ‘look down upon the British Empire as a profound mistake’, or the poet Wilfrid Blunt, who fought the Empire vehemently on every front, or General William Butler of the Ring, by now a passionate anti-imperialist. The nation was never unanimous about anything, and although at the time of the Diamond Jubilee the New Imperialists had it all their own way, many a dissenting argument was in the formative stage, and Gladstone’s ideals, if discredited, were far from dead.
There were forebodings, too, even then. The British looked all-confident to the world outside, but the very frenzy of the imperial climax was revealing. For all her pomp and circumstance, Britain was more vulnerable than ever before: her population had doubled since 1837, and she was now dependent upon imported food for her survival. A few political scientists sensed that an Empire based upon autocratic resolution sat uneasily upon a democratic foundation. A few maverick economists were arguing that Empire was more trouble than it was worth, and that Britain would be in better condition if she had no overseas possessions at all. There were repeated attempts to give the Empire a tauter meaning: conferences of colonial premiers, proposals for common defence arrangements, institutions like the Colonial Society, the Imperial Institute, the Empire league. There was a trace of disquiet to it all, as though the imperialists knew by some unadmitted instinct that, however momentous the occasion and unexampled the glory, time was running short.
5
Still, it was a grand moment of history, and the world recognized it without rancour. Mark Twain, surveying the many-coloured pageant of imperial troops that poured into London for the commemorative parade, called it ‘a sort of suggestion of the Last Day’. During the sixty years of Victoria’s reign the Empire had grown by more than ten times, from a scatter of disregarded possessions to a quarter of the land mass of the earth, and a third of its population. It had changed the face of the continents with its cities, its railways, its churches, its myriad cantonments, and it had changed the manner of life of entire peoples, stamping its own values upon civilizations from the Cree to the Burmese, besides creating several fully-fledged new nations of its own. There had never been such an Empire since history began, and the Powers of the world, envious of its splendour, respectfully if reluctantly acknowledged its supremacy. Even the Kaiser congratulated his grandmother upon her glorious jubilee. Even Kruger released two English prisoners to mark the occasion. Even the New York Times conceded that the United States, that incorrigible republic of rebels, was really part of Greater Britain all the time.
Before she set out on her Jubilee procession, on the morning of June 22, 1897, Queen Victoria wait to the telegraph room at Buckingham Palace, wearing a dress of black moire with panels of pigeon grey, embroidered all over with silver roses, shamrocks and thistles. She pressed an electric button; an impulse was transmitted to the Central Telegraph Office in St Martin’s le Grand; in a matter of seconds her Jubilee message was on its way to every corner of the Empire. ‘From my heart I thank my beloved people,’ it said, speeding through the cables to Ottawa and Calcutta, Lagos and the Cape, Sydney and Christchurch, the fortress islands of the Mediterranean and the old slave colonies—to Lucknow where the flag still flew above the shattered Residency, to Winnipeg where Riel lay beneath his stone-clamped tomb, to Truganini’s Hobart, to Cakobau’s Fiji, to Eyre’s shabby Spanish Town, to Ashanti and Zululand and Dublin and Kampala—‘From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless them.’
1 And by 1899 the Kaiser was cabling Rhodes to congratulate him upon the successful defence of Kimberley against Kruger’s forces in the second Boer war.
2 Or since—9.5 million bottles, compared with 7.37 million in 1971.
1 A view of the English heritage shared, 25 years later, by Adolf Hitler, who identified the causes of English supremacy in the world as patriotism, racial segregation and masterful behaviour in the colonies. For a fuller picture of the climactic Empire, its motives, its emotions and its manners, perhaps I may be forgiven for suggesting the central volume of this trilogy, Pax Britannica (London and New York, 1968).
1 Which is spick and span to this day, under the care of the same charitable trust. Though Ishree Bagh is fenced and overgrown, there is still a caretaker in the circular cottage, and cherries flourish in the orchard. The well was the first of several commissioned by emulative Maharajahs.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The following friends and colleagues most kindly read parts of my manuscript for me, saving me from many errors and stupidities: Mrs Mildred Archer, Mrs Joan Craig, Professor John Gallagher, Mr J.G. Links, Professor Christopher Lloyd, Major-General James Lunt, Miss Mary Lutyens, Professor F. S. L. Lyons, Mr Leo Marquard, Dame Margery Perham, Mr L. T. C. Rolt, Professor A. G. L. Shaw, Professor Jack Simmons and Sir Ronald Wingate. Finally Mr Donald Simpson, librarian of the Royal Commonwealth Society, read the whole book in proof placing me greatly in his debt.
Mr Denys Baker, as usual, drew the maps. Mr Julian Bach, as always, made possible the necessary travel. The Editors of Horizon, New York, and Encounter, London, have allowed me to reproduce passages first published in their magazines. It is entirely due to my indulgent publishers, on both sides of the Atlantic, that I have been able to devote so much time to the imperial subject.
Index
Abbas, Ghulam, 1
Aberdeen, Lord, 1
Aberigh-Mackay, George, 1n.
Aborigines Protection Society, 1, 2
Abu Klea, Sudan, 1
Addiscombe, Surrey, 1
Aden, 1
Afghanistan, 1, 2 as a frontier to India, 1
British retreat from, 1
restoration of Shah Shuja, 1
uprising in Kabul, 1
Africa Association, 1
Afrikaners, see Boers
Agnew, Peter Vans, 1
Agra, India, 1
Ahsanullah, Hakim, 1
Akhbar Khan, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5n.
Akyab Peninsular, 1
Albania, 1, 2
Albany, Australia, 1
Albert, Prince, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Albert, Lake, 1, 2
Aldershot, Hampshire, 1
Alexandria, Egypt, 1, 2, 3
Aliwal, India, 1
American Civil War, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
American Revolution, 1
Andaman Islands, 1
Anderson, William, 1
Anokye, Okomfu, 1
Ansari, Hasan, 1
Ansted, D. T., 1, 2
Antigua, 1
Arabi Pasha, 1, 2
Arakan, 1, 2
Argostoli, Cephalonia, 1, 2, 3
Armstrong, Sir William, 1
Army of the Indus, 1
Arnold, Matthew, 1
Arnold, Thomas, 1
Arthur, George, 1
Arundell, Isabel, see Burton, Isabel
Ascension Island, 1
Ashanti, 1, 2
Atkins, Rev. Thomas, 1
Auckland, Lord, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9n., 10
Auckland, New Zealand, 1
Austen, Jane, 1
Austin, Alfred, 1
Australia, 1, 2, 3 exploration, 1
federation, 1
settlers, 1, 2
travel, 1, 2
Avondale, Ireland, 1, 2
Aylmer, Rose, 1
Aylward, Alfred, 1
Bacon, John, 1
Bagehot, Walter, 1, 2
Bahadur Shah Zafar, King of Delhi, 1, 2, 3, 4, and n., 5
Bahamas, 1, 2
Baker,
Sir Samuel, 1, 2
Baker, Rev. Shirley, 1
Balfour, Arthur, 1
Ball, Sir Alexander, 1
Ballingarry, 1
Bangweolo, 1
Bannu, India, 1
Baptist Missionary Society, 1
Baring, Evelyn, 1, 2, 3, 4
Barrackpore, India, 1
Barry, Charles, 1
Bates, Henry, 1
Bath, Jamaica, 1
Bath, Somerset, 1, 2
Baudin, Nicholas, 1
Baynes, Lambert, 1, 2
Beach, Sir Michael Hicks, 1
Bechuanaland Republic, 1, 2
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1
Benin, 1
Bentinck, Lord William, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5n.
Beresford, Lord William, 1
Berlin Conference, 1884, 1
Bermuda, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Bharatpore, 1
Biggar, Joseph, 1
Bindhachal, India, 1
Birr, Ireland, 1
Bismarck, Otto von, 1, 2, 3
Bithur, India, 1, 2
Black Jack, 1n., 2
Blake, William, 1
Blanco, Pedro, 1
Bligh, Captain, 1, 2
Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, 1
Blore, Edward, 1n.
Blue Nile, 1, 2
Blunt, Wilfred, 1
Bob, General, 1
Boers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Bogle, Paul, 1, 2, 3 and n., 4
Bokhara, 1, 2
Bombay, 1
Bonaparte, Louis, 1
Booth, Sir Robert Gore, 1
Boru, Brian, 1, 2
Boswell, James, 1
Bowdich, Edward, 1
Boycott, Charles, 1
Boyd, Hugh, 1
Boyd, Mrs, 1
Brand, Henry, 1
Brand, Johannes, 1
Bristol, 1
British Army, 1 and East India Company army, 1
organization, 1, 2
reverence for colours and guns, 1
British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1
British Columbia, 1, 2
British Guiana, 1
British Honduras, 1
British South Africa Company, 1, 2, 3
Brittan, Rev. Frederick, 1n.
Broadfoot, George, 1n.
Broadfoot, James, 1n.
Broadfoot, William, 1 and n.
Bromhead, Gonville, 1
Bronkhorst Spruit, Transvaal, 1
Brooke, James, 1
Brougham, Lord, 1
Bruce, James, 1, 2
Brunel, Isambard Kingdom, 1
Brydon, Dr, 1, 2 and n.
Buganda, 1, 2
Bull, Rev. Charles, 1
Buller, Charles, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Buller, Redvers, 1
Bumbiri, 1
Bunyoro, 1
Burgers, Thomas, 1, 2
Burke, Thomas, 1
Burma, 1, 2, 3
Burnes, Sir Alexander, 1, 2, 3, 4
Burnes, Charles, 1
Burney, James, 1
Burton, Isabel, 1, 2, 3, 4
Burton, Richard, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Buthelezi, Gatsha, 1n.
Butler, Elizabeth, 1, 2 and n., 3n., 4
Butler, William, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and n., 8, 9, 10n., 11, 12, 13, 14
Butt, Isaac, 1, 2
Byron, Lord, 1, 2, 3
Caffyn, Commander, 1, 2
Cairo, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Cakobau, Fiji, 1, 2
Calcutta, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Caledon, South Africa, 1 and n.
Cambrai, 1
Cambridge, Duke of, 1, 2, 3
Campbell, Colin, 1, 2
Canada, 1, 2, 3 federation, 1
founding of Manitoba, 1
and self government, 1, 2, 3
settlement in, 1
travel and transport, 1, 2, 3, 4
and U.S.A., 1, 2
see also Hudson’s Bay Company
Canadian Pacific Railway, 1, 2
Canning, Lord, 1, 2
Canterbury, New Zealand, 1
Cape Coast Castle, 1, 2, 3, 4
Cape Colony, 1
Cape of Good Hope, 1, 2, 3
Cape Town, 1, 2
Cape Town Castle, 1
Cardew, Dr, 1
Cardwell, Edward, 1
Carlyle, Thomas, 1, 2, 3, 4
Carnarvon, Lord, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Carrotts, 1
Cascade Mountains, 1
Cashel, Ireland, 1
Castleton, Jamaica, 1
Castletownshend, Ireland, 1and n.
Cavendish, Lord Frederick, 1
Cavendish, Lady Frederick, 1
Cawnpore, India, 1, 2, 3
Cephalonia, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Cetewayo, King of Zululand, 1, 2, 3, 4 and n., 5, 6
Ceylon, 1, 2, 3
Chamberlain, Joseph, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Chard, John, 1
Charles II, King of England, 1
Charnock, Job, 1
Chartists, 1, 2
Chelmsford, Lord, 1, 2, 3
Chimo, Canada, 1
China, 1 and n., 2, 3, 4
China War, 1, 2
Chippewa Indians, 1
Christchurch, New Zealand, 1
Churchill, Randolph, Lord, 1
Churchill, Winston, 1
Cinchona, Jamaica, 1
Clapham Sect, 1, 2
Clarendon, Lord, 1
Clark, Robert, 1
Clarke, Marcus, 1
Clay, James, 1
Clive, Robert, 1
Clontarf, Ireland, 1
Clunies-Ross, John, 1
Cobden, Richard, 1, 2
Cochrane, Lord, 1
Cockerell, Charles, 1
Cockerell, Sir Charles, 1
Cockerell, Samuel Pepys, 1
Cocos Islands, 1
Cole, J. J., 1
Colenso, Bishop, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Colley, George, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Collins, Governor, 1
Comoro Islands, 1
Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime du Suez, 1, 2, 3
Company of Adventurers of England Trading into Hudson’s Bay, see Hudson’s Bay Company
Congress of Berlin, 1878, 1
Connell, Paddy, 1
Conolly, Arthur, 1n.
Constable, John, 1
Cook, Captain, 1, 2
Cook, Thomas, 1
Cook Islands, 1
Corfu, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Corn Laws, 1, 2, 3, 4
Corry, Montague, 1
Cradock, South Africa, 1n.
Cree Indians, 1, 2, 3
Creoles, 1
Crewe, Lord, 1n.
Crimean War, 1 and n., 2, 3
Croke, Archbishop, 1
Crompton, R. E. B., 1n.
Crosthwaite, Sir Charles, 1
Crowther, Bishop, 1
Crystal Palace, 1, 2, 3, 4
Cuba, 1
Cumberland House, 1
Cutler, Lyman, 1
Cyprus, 1, 2, 3, 4
Dalhousie, Lord, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Daniell, Thomas, 1, 2
Darjeeling, 1, 2 and n., 3
Darwin, Charles, 1, 2, 3, 4
Davy, Sir Humphry, 1
De Courcy, John, 1
Delagoa Bay, Portuguese East Africa, 1, 2, 3
Delhi, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Denman, Joseph, 1
Dennie, Colonel, 1, 2
De Quincey, Thomas, 1
Derby, Lord, 1, 2, 3, 4
Deschambeault, George, 1
De Vere, Aubrey, 1
Dickens, Charles, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Dilke, Sir Charles, 1, 2, 3
Dingaan, King of the Zulus, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Dinkas, 1
Disraeli, Benjamin, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18
Donkin, Elizabeth, 1
Doornkop, South Africa, 1
Dost Mo
hammed Khan, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7n., 8, 9
Douglas, Captain, 1
Douglas, Sir James, 1, 2
Dublin, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Dunn, John, 1 and n.
D’Urban, Sir Benjamin, 1
Durban, Natal, 1, 2, 3, 4
Durham, Lord, 1, 2, 3, 4
Durham Report, 1, 2, 3, 4
Durrell, Lawrence, 1n.
Dutch East India Company, 1
Duthie, Captain, 1
East India Company, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 armed forces of, 1
and Indian religions, 1
and invasion of Afghanistan, 1
organization, 1
trade monopoly in India, 1
Eden, Eleanor, 1
Eden, Emily, 1, 2and n., 3n., 4, 5, 6, 7
Eden, Mary, 1
Edward VI, King of England, 1
Edward VII, King of England, 1, 2
Edwardes, Herbert, 1, 2
Edwardes, Michael, 1n.
Egypt, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and Sudan, 1
Ejinasi, 1
Lord, 1
Ellenborough, Lord, 1
Ellice Islands, 1
Elmina, 1, 2
El Obeid, Sudan, 1, 2
Elphinstone, William, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5n., 6
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1
Engels, Friedrich, 1
Enniscorthy, Ireland, 1
Enosis, 1, 2, 3
Eritrea, 1
Erne, Lord, 1
Esquimault, Canada, 1, 2, 3
Etawah, India, 1
Eugénie, Empress, 1
Evans, Baldwin, 1
Evans, J., 1
Evans, Rev. James, 1 and n.
Exeter Hall, London, 1, 2, 3, 4
Eyre, Edward John, 1, 2
Fairfield, Edward, 1
Falkland Islands, 1
Falmouth, Jamaica, 1
Fanti, 1
Fawcett, Mr, 1
Fenians, 1, 2
Feringheea of Gwalior, 1
Fernando Po, 1
Ferozepore, India, 1
Fiji, 1, 2