CHAPTER XVIII.

Disorder still the popular fad:  General admixture of pretenders, religion, politics, and disgruntled monarchs

[Illustration:  The death of Mary revived the Hopes of the friends of James II., And conspiracies were formed.]

[Illustration:  Duke of Marlborough.]

[Illustration:  George Fox.]

[Illustration:  General bankruptcy and Ruin followed the closing of the exchequer or treasury by Charles II. (1672).]

[Illustration:  Charles II.]

[Illustration:  Duke of Monmouth imploring forgiveness of James II. (1685).]

CHAPTER I.

INVASION OF CAESAR:  THE DISCOVERY OF TIN AND CONSEQUENT ENLIGHTENMENT OF BRITAIN.

[Illustration:  Bust of Caesar.]

From the glad whinny of the first unicorn down to the tip end of the nineteenth century, the history of Great Britain has been dear to her descendants in every land, ’neath every sky.

But to write a truthful and honest history of any country the historian should, that he may avoid overpraise and silly and mawkish sentiment, reside in a foreign country, or be so situated that he may put on a false moustache and get away as soon as the advance copies have been sent to the printers.

The writer of these pages, though of British descent, will, in what he may say, guard carefully against permitting that fact to swerve him for one swift moment from the right.

England even before Christ, as now, was a sort of money centre, and thither came the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians for their tin.

[Illustration:  The discovery of tin in Britain.]

[Illustration:  Caesar crossing the channel.]

These early Britons were suitable only to act as ancestors.  Aside from that, they had no good points.  They dwelt in mud huts thatched with straw.  They had no currency and no ventilation,—­no drafts, in other words.  Their boats were made of wicker-work plastered with clay.  Their swords were made of tin alloyed with copper, and after a brief skirmish, the entire army had to fall back and straighten its blades.

They also had short spears made with a rawhide string attached, so that the deadly weapon could be jerked back again.  To spear an enemy with one of these harpoons, and then, after playing him for half an hour or so, to land him and finish him up with a tin sword, constituted one of the most reliable boons peculiar to that strange people.