English Colonization of America
Elizabeth of England died in 1603. There came to the English throne James
Stuart, King of Scotland, King now of England and Scotland. In 1604 a
treaty of peace ended the long war with Spain. Gone was the sixteenth
century; here, though in childhood, was the seventeenth century.
Now that the wars were over, old colonization schemes were revived
in the English mind. Of the motives, which in the first instance had
prompted these schemes, some with the passing of time had become weaker,
some remained quite as strong as before. Most Englishmen and women knew
now that Spain had clay feet; and that Rome, though she might threaten,
could not always perform what she threatened. To abase the pride of Spain,
to make harbors of refuge for the angel of the Reformation--these wishes,
though they had not vanished, though no man could know how long the peace
with Spain would last, were less fervid than they had been in the days of
Drake. But the old desire for trade remained as strong as ever. It would
be a great boon to have English markets in the New World, as well as in
the Old, to which merchants might send their wares, and from which might
be drawn in bulk, the raw stuffs that were needed at home. The idea of a
surplus population persisted; England of five million souls still thought
that she was crowded and that it would be well to have a land of younger
sons, a land of promise for all not abundantly provided for at home. It
were surely well, for mere pride's sake, to have due lot and part in the
great New World! And wealth like that which Spain had found was a dazzle
and a lure. "Why, man, all their dripping-pans are pure gold, and all the
chains with which they chain up their streets are massy gold; all the
prisoners they take are fettered in gold; and for rubies and diamonds they
go forth on holidays and gather 'em by the seashore!" So the comedy of
"Eastward Ho!" seen on the London stage in 1605--"Eastward Ho!" because
yet they thought of America as on the road around to China.
- Virginia and the southern colonies
- Plymouth and the New England colonies
- The Middle Colonies
- British Imperial Policy and Navigation Acts
- Life in the English Colonies
- The Literature of the Colonial Period
- Benjamin Franklin - The Greatest Colonial Figure
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