The Struggle for Sea Power (Story of the World, Vol 4)
By M. B. Synge (1903)
The dramatic era of maritime empire and revolution: Peter the Great founding St. Petersburg, Captain Cook mapping the Pacific, George Washington and the American Revolution, Nelson at Trafalgar, and Napoleon's retreat from Moscow.
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Ch. 1: The Story of the Great Mogul
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet."
—KIPLING.
The wonderful story of England's conquest of India reads, even to-day, like some fairy legend of the Old World.
It is the story of how one small island, away in the Northern seas, conquered an empire ten times its own size, at a distance of 6000 miles. In the ages of long ago, when the Egyptians were building their pyramids, when the Phœnicians were sailing to the Pillars of Hercules, when the Greeks were adorning Athens and the Romans were spreading their empire far and wide, this England was still sleeping on the waves of the boundless sea.
It was not till after the Roman Empire had fallen, not till the Portuguese had found their way across the Sea of Darkness to India, not till the Spaniards had discovered the New World, that England awoke to a sense of the great possibilities that lay before her. Slowly and surely, from this time onwards, she stretched forth her arms over the broad seas that had once been her barriers, until, by her untiring energy, she won for herself an empire "on which the sun never sets."
Her first great conquest was that of India or Hindostan—the land of the Hindoos. It is a country cut off from Asia by a lofty range of mountains known as the Hima-laya, or snow abode. Here are some of the highest peaks in the world, never scaled by man. Here, too, rise the largest rivers in India—the Indus and the Ganges, on which most of the large towns are built. Most of the country lies within the tropics. Hence it is a land of wondrous starlight and moonlight, a land of whirlwind and tempest, of pitiless sun and scorching heat. Here to-day, as of old, are men with dark faces and long beards, dressed in turbans and flowing robes—men for the most part Mohammedans, praying at intervals throughout the day, with their faces toward Mecca.
At the time that Alexander the Great entered India,—327 years before the birth of Christ,—the land was parcelled out into a number of small kingdoms, each under the government of its own Raja. Each Raja had a council known as the Durbar. When a Raja conquered other Rajas he was known as a Maha-raja or Great Raja, and all these words are used in India to-day.
In the sixteenth century a race of Mongols or Moguls swept into India from Central Asia and founded an empire in the north. Marco Polo had heard a great deal about these Mongols when he was at the court of the Great Khan. The first of the Mogul emperors was called Baber, or the Tiger; but he was succeeded by a yet more famous grandson called Akbar, whose power is spoken of still in India to-day. Akbar added to the Mogul Empire until it became the most extensive and splendid empire in the world. In no European kingdom was so large a population subject to a single ruler, or so large a revenue poured into the treasury. The beauty and magnificence of the buildings, the huge retinues and gorgeous decorations, dazzled the eyes of those accustomed to the pomps of Versailles.
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Table of Contents
47 ChaptersEvery chapter below is pre-indexed for oral narration and easy 1-click scheduling into your weekly Charlotte Mason lesson plan.
Ch. 1: The Story of the Great Mogul
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 2: Robert Clive
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 3: The Black Hole of Calcutta
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 4: The Struggle for North America
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 5: George Washington, Soldier and Patriot
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 6: How Pitt Saved England
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 7: The Fall of Quebec
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 8: "The Great Lord Hawke"
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 9: The Boston Tea-Ships
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 10: The Declaration of Independence
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 11: Captain Cook's Story
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 12: James Bruce and the Nile
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 13: The Trial of Warren Hastings
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 14: Marie Antoinette
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 15: The Fall of the Bastile
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 16: The Flight to Varennes
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 17: A Reign of Terror
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 18: Napoleon Bonaparte
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 19: Horatio Nelson
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 20: The Adventures of Mungo Park
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 21: The Travels of Baron Humboldt
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 22: The Beginning of the Struggle
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 23: The Battle of the Nile
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 24: Copenhagen
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 25: Napoleon, Emperor of the French
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 26: The Battle of Trafalgar
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 27: The Death of Nelson
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 28: A Second Charlemagne
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 29: The Rise of Wellington
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 30: At the Cape of Good Hope
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 31: The First Australian Colony
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 32: Story of the Slave-Trade
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 33: The Defence of Saragoza
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 34: Sir John Moore at Coruna
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 35: The Victory of Talavera
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 36: The Peasant Hero of the Tyrol
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 37: The Empire at its Height
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 38: The Shannon and the Chesapeake
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 39: Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 40: Wellington's Victories in Spain
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 41: Spain for the Spaniards
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 42: The Fall of the Empire
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 43: Story of the Steam-Engine
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 44: The Congress of Vienna
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 45: The Eve of Waterloo
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 46: Waterloo
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
Ch. 47: The Exile of St Helena
The Struggle for Sea Power — 18th Century, Revolutions & Napoleonic Wars
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