1853. French annexation of New Caledonia.
1854. Crimean War.
1859. Colony of Queensland established.
1860. Lincoln, President of the United States.
TERRE NAPOLEON.
INTRODUCTION.
PART 1.
A continent with a record of unruffled peace.
Causes of this variation from the usual course of history.
English and French colonisation during the Napoleonic wars.
The height of the Napoleonic empire and the entire loss of the French
colonies.
The British colonial situation during the same period.
The colony at Port Jackson in 1800.
Its defencelessness.
The French squadron in the Indian Ocean.
Rear-Admiral Linois.
The audacious exploit of Commodore Dance, and Napoleon's direction to
"take Port Jackson" in 1810.
Australia is the only considerable portion of the world which has enjoyed
the blessed record of unruffled peace. On every other continent, in
nearly every other island large in area, "war's red ruin writ in flame"
has wrought its havoc, leaving evidences in many a twinging cicatrice.
Invasion, rebellion, and civil war constitute enormous elements in the
chronicles of nations; and Shelley wrote that the study of history,
though too important to be neglected, was "hateful and disgusting to my
very soul," because he found in it little more than a "record of crimes
and miseries." A map of the globe, coloured crimson as to those countries
where blood has flowed in armed conflicts between men, would present a
circling splash of red; but the vast island which is balanced on the
Tropic of Capricorn, and spreads her bulk from the tenth parallel of
south latitude to "the roaring forties," would show up white in the
spacious diagram of carnage.
