If, in spite of this, the domestic situation became too much for him he could always take a ship and go to sea, and there seek or impose the peace which the Papal Legate, or the Mediaeval Trade Union, or a profligate Chancellor of the Exchequer denied to him at home. And thus, gentlemen — not in a fit of absence of mind* — was the Empire born. It was the outcome of the relaxations of persecuted specialists — men who for one cause or another were unfit for the rough and tumble of life at home. They did it for change and rest, exactly as we used to take our summer holidays, and, like ourselves, they took their national habits with them. For example, they did not often gather together with harps and rebecks* to celebrate their national glories, or to hymn their national heroes. When they did not take them both for granted, they, like ourselves, generally denied the one and did their best to impeach the other. But, by some mysterious rule-of-thumb magic, they did establish and maintain reasonable security and peace among simple folk in very many parts of the world, and that, too, without overmuch murder, robbery, oppression, or torture.
An assement voiced by eminent historian Sir John Seeley in 1883, and echoed by George Santayana during the Great War: see The Absent Minded Conquerors and The Englishman. Adam Smith, writing back in 1776, had taken a position similar to that of Kipling. He reminded readers that the passengers on the Mayflower had gone to North America in 1620 not to take English government to the benighted peoples of the world, but to get away from it. See Great Mother of Men.
* A rebec(k) was a mediaeval stringed instrument (typically with three strings) played with a bow. It was played like a violin, but the body was pear-shaped like a viol.