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British History: Unifying Factors. The divisions in British life-divisions of nationality, region, dialect, and class —are worth dwelling on because they are important to British people. However, when the British people are threatened with an external danger, as they were in 1940, they show an extraordinary sense of unity, which is equally a result of their history. Britain has not experienced a civil war or revolution for centuries, and the blessing of civil peace covers the country like an eiderdown. Political divisions do not run so deep as some politicians would like to pretend.The National Portrait Gallery, adjoining this (on Charing Cross Road) shows you the great and the charming of British history and life for the past few centuries. Would you like to see the Bronte Sisters, Robert Browning, his face fringed with prim whiskers, Nell Gwynn, looking very lovely and provocative, Lady Hamilton, Henry James, as a naturalized British subject, Inigo Jones, Mrs. Sarah Siddons, Sir Christopher Wren? They are all here, and hundreds more.
During the French colonial period from 1608 to 1763 (see section 6. History), some 10,000 French immigrants came to New France, but only about 6,000 to 7,000 stayed. It was from this small number that the population grew, reaching 65,000 when the colony passed under British rule. After 1760, all French immigration ceased, and it was due solely to their own fecundity that the French Canadians of Quebec were not submerged, despite the influx of British settlers after 1815 and the heavy emigration from the province to the United States. |
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