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But her strong fortifications, by which she was girt and linked to her principal haven, gave her, in those ages, almost all the advantages of an insular position. Pericles had made her trust to her empire of the seas. Every Athenian in those days was a practised seaman.
Bennett, in his work entitled "Ceylon and its Capabilities," describes the island in the most florid terms, as "the most important and valuable of all the insular possessions of the imperial crown." Again he speaks of "its fertile soil, and indigenous vegetable productions," etc., etc. Again: "Ceylon, though comparatively but little known, is pre-eminent in natural resources."
Among these insular possessions, Sardinia was the largest and most important, and was the commercial depot of Southern Europe. Hence the various wars with Syracuse. The Carthaginians and Greeks were the rivals for the sovereignty of this fruitful island, the centre of the oil and wine trade, the store-house for all sorts of cereals.
A copy of the conditions is herewith transmitted. Of Porto Rico it is only necessary to say that the prosperity of the island and the wisdom with which it has been governed have been such as to make it serve as an example of all that is best in insular administration.
In form and features he might be pronounced English, though even there one caught a dash of something Gallic; but he had no English shyness: he had learnt somewhere, somehow, the art of setting himself quite at his ease, and of allowing no insular timidity to intervene as a barrier between him and his convenience or pleasure.
And maiden and matron still claim their insular exemption from the foibles of their sex.
By the terms of this treaty, the United States, Great Britain, France, and Japan agreed "to respect their rights in relation to their insular possessions and insular dominions in the region of the Pacific Ocean," and in case of any dispute arising out of any Pacific question to refer the matter to a joint conference for consideration and adjustment.
That England was able to develop this form of government may have been due in part to her insular position, her constitutional traditions, and the ill-advised conduct of the Stuart kings, but most of all it was due to the great commercial and industrial development which made her merchant class rich and powerful enough to demand and secure a share in government.
They guessed and drawled like any buckskin from Virginia, superadding to their accomplishments their insular peculiarity of always shutting one eye when they spoke to you. They are all Yankees at bottom; and if they could get their 365 Islands so they call the large stones on which they live under weigh, they would not be long in towing them into the Chesapeake.
They are, like ourselves, always taking stock, examining themselves to see what they have on hand. From time to time they will, say, accuse themselves of being insular, and then, suddenly, they invite themselves to be continental, to be French, to be German, to be Italian, to be Bulgarian, or whatever; and for a while they believe that they have become so.
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