received with a shout of joy which was heard in the streets below and was instantly answered by huzzas from many thousands of voices. The Lords and Commons then reverently retired from the banqueting house and went in procession to the great gate of Whitehall, where the heralds and pursuivants were waiting in their gorgeous tabards. All the space as far as Charing Cross was one sea of heads. The kettledrums struck up; the trumpets pealed; and Garter king at arms, in a loud voice, proclaimed the Prince and Princess of Orange king and queen of England, charged all Englishmen to bear, from that moment, true allegiance to the new sovereigns, and besought God, who had already wrought so signal a deliverance for our Church and nation, to bless William and Mary with a long and happy reign.

PART VI

THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND

CHAPTER I

MOTIVES FOR COLONIZATION

Ar the opening of the sixteenth century, while the Portuguese were enriching themselves by the trade of the East, and the Spaniards were carving out new dominions in Mexico and Peru, it looked as if England was destined to be a small insular power. But it was not to be so, for within three or four generations, English ships were in every sea and Englishmen were embarking on commercial and colonial enterprises which were in time to outrival those of every other nation. As a result of this, the international politics of Europe for the last three centuries can be understood solely in the light of the economic interests engendered in the race for markets and territorial dominion. English activities spread to the four corners of the earth, and within England interests and policies were developed which transformed that country from a feudal into an industrial state. It therefore becomes imperative that one should study the industrial and commercial forces which have been so predominant in the modern age. The fullest and most scholarly account of these great interests is to be found in Dr. Cunningham's Growth of English Industry and Commerce, from which this analysis of early motives for colonization is taken.

§1. Questionable Advantages of Colonization 1

Much had been done, before the seventeenth century opened, in developing the maritime power of England, but the process 1 Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce (1904), Vol. II, Part I, pp. 331 ff. By permission of Dr. Cunningham and the Cambridge University Press.

of settling in distant lands had hardly begun. The foundations of our colonial empire were laid during the reigns of the Stuarts. At the accession of James I, Englishmen had not established their footing either in Asia, Africa, or the American continent. Their hold upon Newfoundland, with a share in the fisheries off its coast, gave them their only sphere of influence in distant regions; for their attempts to plant in Virginia had not so far been crowned with success. But within ninety years there was a marvellous change. At the Peace of Ryswick, England was secure in the possession of more or less extensive territories in Africa, in North and in South America. The East India Company and Hudson's Bay Company had several valuable factories for trade, and St. Helena, the Bahamas, Bermudas, Jamaica, and other West Indian islands had also been acquired. There is no side of economic life in which the progress during this period was so marked as in colonization; it is the new and characteristic contribution of this century to the development of England's material greatness.

There has been much discussion at various times as to the benefit which colonies confer on the mother country; Whigs in the eighteenth, and the Manchester School in the nineteenth century, were inclined to disparage them as a mere encumbrance, and would not have been unwilling to be rid of them altogether. We have completely outlived that feeling; but the fact that the advantage or disadvantage of developing colonies abroad continued for so long to be a subject of dispute, makes it necessary to inquire carefully into the reasons which weighed with the men who acted as the pioneers in the expansion of England. The difficulties which they had to face were enormous; the distance of the colonists from the mother country, and the irregularity of communication, exposed them to serious perils; while their ignorance of the climate, and the uncertainty of their relations with the natives, proved nearly fatal to more than one enterprise.

We must also bear in mind that there was in many quarters a feeling not merely of indifference, but of positive antagonism to these undertakings. Like the distant trade of the East India Company, these settlements seemed to divert labor and capital that could be usefully employed on English soil, without any compensating advantage. The decrepit condition of Spain, despite her enormous American possessions, gave some color to the opinion that colonies were a drain on the mother country rather than a source of wealth. If Philip II, it could be asked, had derived so

little benefit from the richest lands of the New World, what advantage was there in spreading over the less coveted regions which she had left untenanted? There were, however, various motives, political, religious, and economic, which combined to induce undertakers and emigrants to engage in colonial enterprise, and influenced the government to view it with favor.

§ 2. Political Aims in Colonial Operations

Political aims were obviously operating in the various schemes of plantation which were floated during the reign of James I. The task was undertaken in Ireland, with the hope of introducing some sort of stable government into that unhappy country, where the crown had entirely failed to establish effective authority over the native population. The statesmen of the day came to the conclusion that the only hope of reducing the island to order lay in abandoning the attempt to adapt Irish institutions to the purposes of government, and in seriously attempting to create a new system. They came to the conclusion that this could be best accomplished by settling it with Englishmen, who would hold the land on some secure form of tenure, and would maintain their own language and laws uncontaminated by contact with Irish neighbors.

It was necessary to deport many septs in order to give this scheme a trial, and only to admit a small portion of the native population. Sir Arthur Chichester and Sir John Davies hoped that by promoting immigration they might diffuse a respect for the authority of the crown in all parts of the island, and secure the presence of men on whose help they could rely for the various purposes of local government. Under James I and Charles I the settlements had a highly military character, as it was not merely necessary for the colonists to be able to hold their own against Irish raids, but also to be ready to defend the country, in the not improbable event of a Spanish invasion. From the time of Cromwell there was less need for fortifications and strongholds; he subjugated the island so entirely that English law and language became dominant, and material progress on English lines seemed possible. The native Irish were collected in Galway, between the Shannon and an inhospitable coast, where they could do little to assist the Spaniards or French in any attack they might make. In the early part of the seventeenth century, plantation was necessary as a step towards consolidating the political and administrative system of the British Isles. Immigration to Ireland was encouraged, with the object

of improving the efficiency of government in an island that had long formed part of the dominions of the crown.

Political aims were also kept in view in all the schemes for colonizing beyond the Atlantic. It was hoped that these plantations would tend to restrict the overweening power of Spain in the New World, and might even serve as a basis for attacking it. Deep-seated hostility to the Spanish type of civilization was combined in the minds of many Englishmen with dread at finding so much wealth and power concentrating in a single monarchy. The sense of antagonism to the Spanish system first awakened in the minds of Englishmen a consciousness of their duty and destiny to plant free institutions in the lands beyond the sea. Till the seventeenth century no serious effort had been made to Anglicize Ireland; Englishmen had been satisfied to live their own life in their own island. The discovery of America, and the development of maritime power under Elizabeth, had, however, provided an opportunity for diffusing English civilization in the New World. The men of the seventeenth century threw themselves eagerly into the task. England recognized and accepted her vocation.

83. The Religious Motive in Colonization

The inner reasons for the antagonism to Spain, which had so much to do with shaping the colonial ambitions of Englishmen, were rather religious than political. The rule of the most Catholic majesty, with the scope it gave for the Inquisition, was abhorrent to Protestants. Interference in America was a defiance of the authority claimed by the pope to partition out the newly discovered lands between Portugal and Spain. The planting of a New England across the seas was an idea that appealed strongly to men of a religious temperament, as well as to those who were moved by considerations of political expediency. Religious and pecuniary motives had been intimately blended in the Crusades, and in this respect English colonization resembled them at the

outset.

The plantation of Virginia was regarded by Hakluyt and some other men, who formed a London company with this object in 1606, as not only a commercial but also a missionary enterprise. They set about their adventure in the hope that it would "hereafter tend to the glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian religion, to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God, and