Over the last 400 years, what power has done the most to spread the ideals of limited government,

an independent judiciary, certain inalienable rights and free markets? That power would be the

British Empire. It was Britain that gave these ideals to the United States. It was the British

Empire, the largest empire of the world has ever known, which made these ideals global aspirations.

It was the British Empire, along with America, that defended these ideals in two colossal world

wars. Freedom was an Englishman's right, and wherever he went, he took that right with him,

whether he was an English colonist in America, governing himself through a locally elected

assembly, or an English adventurer, like Sir Stanford Raffles, creating the free market

city-state of Singapore, or an English officer, like T.E. Lawrence, leading Arab tribesmen

against the Turks. The British always thought of themselves as liberators, as bringers of freedom.

The British believed the final and necessary justification of their empire was a moral one.

The British kept the peace. They brought sound, honest administration, and the insisted that

basic moral standards were honored. The British did not try to nation-build in the way we think of it

now. They were under no illusions about making Arabs or Afghans or Zoolos into Englishmen.

They were more than content to leave people alone, to let them be themselves, to govern them

with the lightest possible hand. In American history, we remember this when we think of the British

empire so-called benign neglect. We can see it throughout the history of the British empire.

Think about the vast territory of the Sudan. It was governed by 140 British civil servants.

Even Gandhi praised the British empire, paraphrasing Jefferson, saying that he believed the best

government was the government that governed least, and that he found that the British empire

guaranteed his freedom, and governed him, least of all. In the defensive freedom,

the empire drew moral lines. No power did more to abolish slavery, and the slave trade of the

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