<P> In a speech on 31 July 1827, Rev. R.P. Buddicom said, "It had been said that the sun never set on the British flag; it was certainly an old saying, about the time of Richard the Second, and was not so applicable then as at the present time ." In 1821, the Caledonian Mercury wrote of the British Empire, "On her dominions the sun never sets; before his evening rays leave the spires of Quebec, his morning beams have shone three hours on Port Jackson, and while sinking from the waters of Lake Superior, his eye opens upon the Mouth of the Ganges ." </P> <P> Daniel Webster famously expressed a similar idea in 1834: "A power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drumbeat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England ." In 1839, Sir Henry Ward said in the House of Commons, "Look at the British Colonial empire--the most magnificent empire that the world ever saw . The old Spanish boast that the sun never set in their dominions, has been more truly realised amongst ourselves ." By 1861, Lord Salisbury complained that the £ 1.5 million spent on colonial defence by Britain merely enabled the nation "to furnish an agreeable variety of stations to our soldiers, and to indulge in the sentiment that the sun never sets on our Empire". </P> <P> From the mid-nineteenth century, the image of the sun never setting can be found applied to Anglophone culture, explicitly including both the British Empire and the United States, for example in a speech by Alexander Campbell in 1852: "To Britain and America God has granted the possession of the new world; and because the sun never sets upon our religion, our language and our arts ...". </P> <P> By the end of the century, the phrase was also being applied to the United States alone . An 1897 magazine article titled "The Greatest Nation on Earth" boasted, "(T) he sun never sets on Uncle Sam". In 1906, William Jennings Bryan wrote, "If we cannot boast that the sun never sets on American territory, we can find satisfaction in the fact that the sun never sets on American philanthropy"; after which, The New York Times received letters attempting to disprove his presupposition . A 1991 history book discussion of U.S. expansion states, "Today...the sun never sets on American territory, properties owned by the U.S. government and its citizens, American armed forces abroad, or countries that conduct their affairs within limits largely defined by American power ." </P>

Who said the sun never set on the british empire