Page 316 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

316 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST
belonged. In 1720—to take a year a little beyond the
period at which our narrative in the main closes—there
was sold “ by public outcry” at Anjengo, the birthplace
of Sterne’s Eliza, the following books belonging to dif-
ferent persons: Coles’ English and Latin Dictionary, The
Worthies of Devon, Tillotson’s Works, Government of the
Tongue, Atkinson’s Epiphany, The History of the World,
2nd volume of The Toiler, Art of Self Government, The
Present State of England, Ccesar’s Commentaries and Moll’s
Geography. Here is a decidedly miscellaneous list, far
removed for the most part from the reading of the ordinary
Englishman of to-day who lives in the East. It must be
remembered, however, that when these books were sold
Pamela had only just been born, that Clarissa Harlowe
was still to arrive—that, in fact, the modern novel had
yet to be created.
It is difficult to part with the old era without a pang
of regret. It was a spacious age in which great things
the face
were accomplished with scanty means and in
of enormous difficulties. Only men of the finest fibre could
heroes did, successfully through
have passed, as most of our
the ordeals which marked their careers. Though all were
traders, intent on commercial gain, they could at times
rise to the loftiest heights of self-abnegation in the interests
of their country. We cannot in these days, perhaps,
realize to the fullest extent the sacrifice that most of them
made. Expatriation to the East had an added terror in
that period when the voyage was oftentimes an odyssey of
disease and misfortune and when a comparatively small
proportion of those who went out to fill assigned positions
of the luxuries
ever returned home. There were none
! tolerable to the
which now make life in the tropics
1
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
f
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 dom­
inion 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, Oxen-
den, Aungier and Charnock were worthies whose achieve­
ments we cannot overlook in appraising the human forces
which assisted to build
up the British-Indian Empire.