Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong. Britain’s bullying policy throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century did not actually do much good. As regards spreading Western civilisation, by the end of the century Edmund Burke was complaining that British rule in India had done little more for the people than an orangutan might have done: see A Dereliction of Duty. As regards Britain’s own profits, the East India Company itself and the country as a whole were both facing crippling debts. Lessons had not been not learnt, and the crowning folly was the The First Opium War of 1840, which led William Gladstone to weep for our dishonoured flag: see Banner of Liberty.
Introduction
The wisdom in the 1720s was that the Government and its wealthy partners should use their superior financial and military resources to shape global trade in the British interest; so they bribed, bullied and bombarded foreign lands and peoples into working for us instead of themselves. Wars spread, debts mounted, and ‘Cato’ wondered what happened to sane men when they joined the Cabinet.
NOTHING is more certain than that Trade cannot be forced; she is a coy and humorous* Dame, who must be won by Flattery and Allurements, and always flies Force and Power; she is not confined to Nations, Sects, or Climates, but travels and wanders about the Earth, till she fixes her Residence where she finds the best Welcome and kindest Reception; her Contexture* is so nice* and delicate, that she cannot breathe in a tyrannical Air; Will and Pleasure are so opposite to her Nature, that but touch her with the Sword and she dies: But if you give her gentle and kind Entertainment, she is a graceful and beneficent Mistress; she will turn Deserts into fruitful Fields, Villages into great Cities, Cottages into Palaces, Beggars into Princes, convert Cowards into Heroes, Blockheads into Philosophers, will change the Coverings of little Worms into the richest Brocades, the Fleeces of harmless Sheep into the Pride and Ornaments of Kings, and by a farther Metamorphosis will transmute them again into armed Hosts and haughty Fleets.
* ‘Humorous’ here means whimsical, prey to sudden changes of mood. Mediaeval theorists held that the human body had four cardinal humours: blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and melancholy (black bile). Ideally, these were in balance.
* That is, constitution.
* Finely balanced, precisely engineered. See also Jane Austen on All Things ‘Nice’.
Précis
Writing in the early 1720s, ‘Cato’ warned that international trade would not favour Britain so long as our Government used the Royal Navy to bully other countries. Trade, he said, was delicate and easily discouraged; left to herself she had the power to effect astonishing transformations in our standard of living, but any kind of violence was a mortal blow. (60 / 60 words)
Writing in the early 1720s, ‘Cato’ warned that international trade would not favour Britain so long as our Government used the Royal Navy to bully other countries. Trade, he said, was delicate and easily discouraged; left to herself she had the power to effect astonishing transformations in our standard of living, but any kind of violence was a mortal blow.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, because, despite, may, otherwise, unless, until, whereas.
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