England and Scotland. The insular situation of Ireland, removed to a considerable distance from Britain, gives her an indelible character of individuality. And though the English and their descendants have long had the ascendancy in Ireland, and English laws have been established there from a remote era, the Irish continue to be, in many respects, a peculiar people; so much so, that there is certainly less similarity between them and the English, than between the latter and the Scotch. The circumstance of the vast majority of the Irish being attached to the religion of Rome, while the English in Ireland profess the reformed faitli, explains some of the apparently anomalous features in the condition of the Irish people; but, exclusive of this, a vast variety of circumstances, some of the more prominent of which will be mentioned in the course of this work, have contributed to form the distinctive and peculiar habits and character of the Irish.

The British Isles, exclusive of those of Orkney and Shetland, lie between the 50th and 59th degrees of north latitude; and between the 11th degree of west and the 2d degree of east longitude. They are, consequently, opposite to the northern coasts of France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the southern part of Norway. The south-east extremity of Great Britain is separated from France by the Straits of Dover-a narrow channel, only 21 miles wide; but, as the British coasts recede from this point in a north-westerly direction, while the opposite Continental shores recede to the north-east, the intervening sea is of pretty ample dimensions. Ireland lies to the west of Great Britain, from which it is separated by St. George's Channel and the Irish Sea; its southern and northern extremities being nearly in the same latitudes as Bristol and Alnwick.

The insular situation of Great Britain and Ireland is productive of many advantages; -it renders them comparatively secure from hostile attacks, at the same time that it affords every facility for commerce; and though it subjects the climate to sudden changes, it makes it really temperate, exempting us from those comparatively lengthened and violent extremes of heat and cold experienced in the Continental countries under the same parallel of latitude.

The distance, in a direct line, from the Lizard point near Falmouth, in lat. 49° 57′ 30′′ N., long. 5° 13′ W., the southernmost land in England, to Dunnet Head in Caithness, in lat. 58° 42′ N., long. 3° 29′ W., is 608 miles. But a considerable portion of this line is water, inasmuch as it passes through the Bristol Channel, the Irish Sea, and the Moray Frith. The longest line, not intersected by any considerable arm of the sea, that can be drawn in Great Britain, stretches from Rye in Sussex, in lat. 50° 57′ 1′′ N., long. 0° 44′ E., to Cape Wrath in Sutherland, in lat. 58° 37′ N., long. 4° 59′ W., a distance of 580 miles. The longest line that can be drawn crosswise in Great Britain, is from the Land's End, in lat. 50° 4' 8" N., long. 5° 41′ 31′′ W., to a point near Lowestoffe, on the coast of Norfolk, in lat. 52° 29′ 10′′ N., long. 1° 45′ 14′′ E., a distance of 367 miles; but, in other places, the breadth from sea to sea is much less considerable, being sometimes under 40 miles.

The east coast of Great Britain, though marked by several prominences, of which the great triangular district terminating in Kinnaird's

Head is by far the most conspicuous, is, on the whole, pretty regular; and were a straight line drawn from Dover to Duncansby Head, the land cut off from the main body of the island would not be far from equal to the water included. The western coast, on the contrary, is exceedingly irregular. The principal encroachment of the sea is between the coast of Galloway and the island of Anglesea and the coast of North Wales; but, exclusive of this great basin, the whole west of Scotland is deeply indented with large bays; while Cardigan Bay and the Bristol Channel deeply mark the coast of Wales and the south-west part of England. There are several admirable ports, and some considerable bays, though none of them is on a very large scale, on the south coast of England, between the Land's End and the South Foreland.

PART I.

EXTENT, PHYSICAL CIRCUMSTANCES, AND CIVIL DIVISIONS, OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE.

CHAPTER I.-ENGLAND AND WALES.

SECT. 1.-Name and Extent.

Name.-THE term England is derived from the Angles, or AngloSaxons, a German tribe or nation, supposed to have occupied in the sixth century the country between the Elbe and the Eyder. This tribe, following the example that had been set by other tribes of the same race, invaded South Britain in 547, about 140 years after the subversion of the Roman power, and about a century after the invasion of Britain by the Jutes, or Saxons of Jutland. The Angles first landed in Northumberland; but not long after they took possession of Norfolk; and being the most powerful or predominant of the Teutonic tribes established in this part of Britain, it received from them the name of England, that is, the land or country of the English, or Angles.

There is more difficulty as to the term Wales. It was the name given by the Saxons to the principality to which it is still applied; and also to Devonshire and Cornwall, which were called West Wales. Etymologists differ as to the origin of the name, Sumner supposes

that it is derived from the Saxon weallen, to wander; and that the Saxons meant by it to specify the countries to which they and the other German tribes compelled part of the Britons to resort, as fugitives and wanderers, from the richer and more level country to the eastward of the Severn and the Exe.-(Campbell's Political Survey, vol. ii. p. 310.)

Figure and Extent. The figure of this grand division of great Britain is triangular: the base of the triangle being formed by a line drawn from the South Foreland in Kent, to the Land's End in Cornwall; the eastern side by a line drawn from the South Foreland to Berwick; and the western, or longest side, by a line drawn from

Berwick to the Land's End. It is bounded on all sides by the sea, except on the north, where it unites with Scotland; from which it is separated partly by the river Tweed, and partly by a waving and not very well defined line, drawn from near Coldstream to the bottom of the Solway Frith, in a south-westerly direction.

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Geographers and writers on political arithmetic, have differed very widely in their estimates of the area of England and Wales. According to the most ancient and traditional opinion, they contained 29,000,000 statute acres. Dr. Beeke remarks, that this nearly coincides with the extent of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, and he believes that it may be traced back to that period. Probably," says he, "it was not the result of any geographical inquiry, though the times in which I suppose it to have originated were by no means so incompetent to such an inquiry as may be imagined; but was a computation made from the returns to the royal treasury. The mode of levying the revenue of the Anglo-Saxon kings led to a more minute investigation of the extent and cultivation of their territory than has recently been attempted. The celebrated Domesday Book of the Norman conquerors was evidently formed on a more ancient register of the same kind, to which it continually refers."-(Observations on the Income Tax, 2d ed. p. 10.)

The admeasurement of the maps of the seventeenth century, inaccurate as they were, would have sufficed to prove that England and Wales contained more than 29,000,000 acres. It is singular, therefore, that Sir William Petty should have estimated their area at only 28,000,000 acres. Dr. Beeke thinks it probable that he may have calculated by 60 miles to a degree of latitude; and if so, his estimate would nearly correspond with the area deducible from Morden's map, the best that was then published.

Gregory King estimated the area of England and Wales at 39,000,000 acres; but the first estimate to which much attention is due, is that framed by Dr. Halley. Taking the best maps then extant for the basis of his calculation, he found, measuring the counties separately, the entire area of England and Wales to amount to 39,938,500 acres. Unfortunately, however, the maps to which Dr. Halley was obliged to resort were very inaccurate, particularly as respected the southern counties. The operations connected with the Ordnance survey have shown that the distance between the South Foreland and the Land's End had been exaggerated by about half a degree! But for this extraordinary error, Dr. Halley's estimate would not have been very wide of the mark.

It is needless to specify in detail the various estimates given by Grew, Templeman, Arthur Young and others; they vary from 31,648,000 to 46,916,000 acres! The last, which is the number given by Mr. Young, in his "Travels in France," was adopted by Mr. Pitt, in his estimate of the probable product of the income tax; by Mr. Middleton, in his Survey of Middlesex, and by other authorities.

The first approach to a more correct computation was made by Vol. i p. 286. Mr. Young had previously given a more accurate estimate in the second part of his "Political Arithmetic," p. 26.

1

Dr. Beeke, in his elaborate tract on the income tax. Availing himself of later and more correct observations, by which the true distance between several of the principal points had been determined, he computed the area of England and Wales at 38,498,572 acres; but more recent investigations have shown that even this computation is about 1,400,000 acres too great. According to the results deduced from Arrowsmith's map, which, as it was principally founded on the Ordnance survey, could not involve any very material error, the area of England was set down, in the remarks prefixed to the census of 1821, at 50,535 square miles, and that of Wales at 7,425, making together 57,960: but in the late census, Mr. Rickman has reduced the area of England to 50,387 square miles.* It is, however, worthy of remark, that the area of the different counties, obtained by adding together the areas of the parishes and hundreds contained in each, as given in the Population Returns, does not correspond in any instance with their aggregate measurement. The area of England and Wales, as deduced from them, only amounts to 49,641 square miles, being 746 square miles less than the other. No attempt is made, in the official papers referred to, to explain this discrepancy. We subjoin

A TABLE

Exhibiting the Area of the Counties of England and Wales in Square Miles and Statute Acres, as deduced from the aggregate Measurement of each; the Acres in each, as deduced from the Particulars in the Population Returns for 1831; and the Fractional Part of the entire Area of England and Wales, supposing it to be represented by 1,000, contained in each County, according to its aggregate Mea