he sixteenth century
continued in the nineteenth by the naval power and the Colonial
possessions of England. "England" with him meant not merely that
part of Great Britain which lies south of the Tweed, but all the
dominions of the Sovereign, the British Empire as a whole. What
Seeley called the expansion of England was to him the chief fact of
the present, and the chief problem of the future. Events since his
death have vindicated his foresight. He urged and predicted the
Australian Federation, which he did not live to see. To the policy
which impeded the Federation of South Africa he was steadily
opposed. The moral which he drew from his travels in Australasia,
and in the West Indies, was the need for strengthening imperial
ties. Lord Beaconsfield's Imperialism was not to his taste, and he
disliked every form of aggression or pretence. While he dreaded the
intervention of party leaders, and desired the Colonies to take the
initiative themselves, he thought that a common tariff was the
direction in which true Imperialism should move. Whether he was
right or wrong is too large a question to be discussed here. That
matter must make its own proof. But in raising it Froude was a
pioneer, and, though a man of letters, saw more plainly than
practical politicians what were the questions they would have to
solve. He despised local jealousies, and took large views. Many men,
perhaps most men, contract their horizon with advancing years.

Froude's vision seemed to widen. Through the storms and mists of
passion and prejudice which blinded the eyes of Liberals and
Conservatives fighting each other at Westminster, he looked to the
ultimate union of all British subjects in an England conterminous
with the sovereignty of the Crown. It was that England of which he
wrote the history. It was knowledge of her past, and belief in her
future, that inspired the work of his life.

THE END

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