Strait, she holds Singapore, a little island, mostly covered with jungles and infested by tigers, which to this day destroy annually from two to three hundred lives,—­a spot of no use to her whatever, except as a commercial depot, but of inestimable value for that, and which, under her fostering care, is growing up to take its place among the great emporiums of the world.  Half-way up this sea is the island of Labuan, whose chief worth is this, that beneath its surface and that of the neighboring mainland are hidden inexhaustible treasures of coal, which are likely soon to be developed, and to yield wealth and power to the hand that controls them.  At the upper end of the sea is Hong Kong, a hot, unhealthy, and disagreeable island, but which gives her what she wants, a depot and a base from which to threaten and control the neighboring waters.  Clearly the Chinese Sea, the artery of Oriental commerce, belongs far more to England than to the races which border it.

Even in the broad and as yet comparatively untracked Pacific she is making silent advances toward dominion.  The continent of Australia, which she has monopolized, forms its southwestern boundary.  And pushed out from this, six hundred miles eastward, like a strong outpost, is New Zealand; itself larger than Great Britain; its shores so scooped and torn by the waves that it must be a very paradise of commodious bays and safe havens for the mariner; and lifted up, as if to relieve it from island tameness, are great mountains and dumb volcanoes, worthy of a continent, and which hide in their bosoms deep, broad lakes.  Yet the soil of the lowlands is of extraordinary fertility, and the climate, though humid, deals kindly with the Anglo-Saxon constitution.  Nor is this all; for, advanced from it north and south, like picket-stations, are Norfolk isle and the Auckland group, which, if they have no other attractions, certainly have this great one, good harbors.  And it requires no prophet’s eye to see, that, when England needs posts farther eastward, she will find them among the innumerable green coral islets which stud the Pacific.

Turn now your steps homeward, and pause a moment at the Bermudas, “the still vexed Bermoothes.”  Beautiful isles, with their fresh verdure, green gems in the ocean, with airs soft and balmy as Eden’s were!  They have their homely uses too.  They furnish arrowroot for the sick, and ample supplies of vegetables earlier than sterner climates will grant.  Is this all that can be said?  Reflect a little more deeply.  Here is a military and naval depot, and here a splendid harbor, land-locked, amply fortified, difficult of access to strangers,—­and all this as near to the whole Southern coast as Boston and New York are, all this within three or four days’ sail of any one of the Atlantic ports North or South.  England keeps this, no doubt, as a sort of halfway house on the road to her West Indian possessions; but should we go to war with her, she would use it none the less as a base of offensive operations, where she might gather and hurl upon any unprotected port all her gigantic naval power.