ABSTRACT
‘RING out the old, ring in the new,’ say the historians when in 1783 the old Mercantile Empire breaks in twain and when in 1815 England emerges from the Napoleonic Wars with a new Empire won. It was indeed an Empire of new lands—though not entirely new; but the mere fact that the British Empire as an institution was two centuries old was a potent influence upon British colonial policy. The old colonial system was still alive, both as a piece of political tissue and as a spirit working upon the minds of men.
