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Rh stake in the Indies, she took no serious part in the politics of the European Peninsula. British sea-power, however, also enveloped the great world promontory which ends in the Cape of Good Hope, and, operating from the sea-front of the Indies, came into rivalry with the Russian-Cossack Power, then gradually completing its hold on the Heartland. In the far north the Russians descended the great Amur River to the Pacific Coast before the Crimean War. It is usual to attribute the opening of Japan to the action of the American Commodore Perry in 1853, but the presence of the Russians in the island of Sakhalin, and even as far south as Hakodate in Yesso, had done something to prepare the way. In regard to Britain, the most immediate Russian menace was, of course, beyond the North-West Frontier of India.

In the nineteenth century Britain did what she liked upon the Ocean, for the United States were not yet powerful, and Europe was fully occupied with its wars. Shipping and markets were the objective of the Nation of Shopkeepers under the régime of the Manchester School of political thought. The principal new markets offering were among the vast populations of the Indies, for Africa