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ECONOMIC AND RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTIES

137

Europe deprived England of markets for the sale of her cloth, upon the manufacture of which so large a proportion both of her town and country population depended. In every direction men felt prevented from helping themselves by irritating restrictive regulations and privileges that survived from an earlier time and were too strait a jacket for a growing nation. The older sources of revenue were insufficient to support the expenses of the Crown and Government, partly because of inefficient collection but mainly owing to the fall in the value of money. The representatives of the nation in Parliament were not yet prepared to supply the ordinary needs of Government by regular taxation, and the King and his ministers were therefore compelled to supply the need by a drastic exaction of the traditional royal dues. The device usually adopted for their collection was to place them in farm at a competitive rent. Syndicates were formed among the richer London merchants who had command of fluid resources of capital to take up the farms, and it was their interest to manage the collection efficiently. The Government benefited because the rents demanded and offered at the periodical tenderings were calculated upon the average produce of the farms during the preceding term. The subjects, who were hard pressed in the economic struggle, found intolerable grievances in the extortionate demands of the speculative syndicates who had had to bid high for their grants and were determined to make profits. Men naturally associated these financial grievances with other causes of complaint against the Government, and economic difficulties thus merged with political struggles against established authority. The contest between the rights of the subject on the one hand and privilege and prerogative on the other had a profoundly disturbing psychological effect. Men's minds were prepared for adventures that in quieter times they would never have contemplated, and the one perennial motive for emigration, the desire to make a better living, found an unusually favourable field in which to work.

Along with this economic and political unrest there was widespread dissatisfaction with the government of the Church, and this, especially in London and the eastern and southern counties, was of compelling force. The bulk of the laity and lesser clergy had come to accept the Elizabethan settlement of religion as a matter of course. Within its definite prescriptions in matters of Church government and ceremonial they found much doctrinal liberty, and, down to the later years of James I, the system worked with comparative smoothness. But just at the period when economic distress became most acute and governmental insistence on traditional prerogatives most irritating, the supreme influence in the Church passed to a group of the higher clergy who were not prepared to accept as sufficient a mere outward show of conformity but were determined to curb depart from their standard whether in doctrine or in practice. So in Ch

matters as in civil there was an irritating and narrow control and an exaction of compliance with rigid regulations that did much to add to the prevailing unrest, to diminish respect for established authority and to loosen traditional ties.

In the settlement of Virginia and the Bermudas, which was accomplished without Spanish interference, we see no direct influence of foreign policy on colonial development. In fact until 1618 the more actively Protestant party in the Privy Council had little opportunity to influence foreign affairs, but James was inconstant and touchy, and from time to time when he was offended with Spain, they were encouraged to move. Anti-Spanish feeling was much stronger in the country than at court or among the leading merchants, and there came about an association between those who favoured a return to the aggressive policy of Elizabeth's reign and the lesser merchants and interlopers who were attacking the privileges and monopolies of the great chartered companies. Foreign policy lay outside the province of Parliament, but the general dislike of the King's partiality for Spain found its outlet in debates on trade wherein the affairs of the colonies were frequently concerned. The voicing of colonial grievances thus often fell to the spokesmen of those who were opposed to the policy of the court in other matters, and they have sometimes been unduly credited with an exclusive interest in colonial expansion. When Spain's intervention in Germany was making it increasingly difficult for James to maintain his old policy of an Anglo-Spanish alliance, the opportunity of the anti-Spanish party arrived, and they began to further openly designs such as they had previously concealed. The first moves were in Guiana, and since the foundation of English colonies in the Caribbean arose from those efforts it is to them that we must turn our attention. It was the temporary ascendancy of the anti-Spanish party after the fall of the Howards that set Raleigh free to organise his last expedition, and his backers included two of its most powerful members, the Earl of Southampton and Sir Robert Rich, afterwards Earl of Warwick, who between them typify the transition between two eras. Southampton was the most prominent surviving member of the war party of Elizabeth's days, while Rich lived to advise Cromwell on the preparation of his "Western Design". The former had often been in disfavour for his persistent enmity to Spain and was frequently associated with privateering enterprises under foreign flags. Rich's father, the second Lord Rich, had long been suspected of using his great wealth in semi-piratical ventures, and the public career of the foremost patron of colonisation for thirty years began with a privateering expedition that he set forth under the flag of the Duke of Savoy.1 A sign of the King's momentary change of policy in 1618 was the elevation of Lord Rich to the Earldom of Warwick, to which Sir Robert succeeded a year later. Thenceforward his

1 Cal. St. Pap. Venetian, 1615-17, no. 631.

THE AMAZONS COMPANY

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name was associated with almost every colonial scheme of importance until the Interregnum. He had been one of the founders of the Bermuda Company, and some of his clients went out to Virginia under the régime of Sir Thomas Smythe. About 1617 he began to take an active part in the affairs of the Virginia Company, and in 1618 he gave his patronage to Sir William St John in the promotion of a new Company for African trade. This "Company of Adventurers trading to Gynney and Bynney" built the first English fort on the River Gambia and made attempts to follow the new enterprises of the Dutch and begin a trade in negro slaves.1 The first negroes sold in Virginia came in one of Warwick's ships, but the venture proved unprofitable, and St John's Company turned instead to privateering. Among the officers of Raleigh's last disastrous expedition was Roger North, brother of Lord North, a member of the anti-Spanish faction at court, who was so much impressed with the opportunities of profitable colonisation in South America that he warmly pushed it among his friends after his return. He succeeded in enlisting Warwick's support, and with his influence, in April, 1619 he obtained the consent of the Privy Council to the incorporation of a company styled "The Governor and Company of Noblemen and Gentlemen of the City of London Adventurers in and about the River of the Amazons", with title to explore and colonise a territory between the mouth of the Wiapoco and the delta of the Amazon, stretching right across the continent from sea to sea after the fashion of the Virginia patent of 1609. This grant was not, like that of Harcourt of 1613, confined to the "Wild Coast" which had never been in Spanish occupation, but boldly laid claim to a slice of territory extending to the South Sea, although it was known to contain many Spanish posts. The Spaniards at once demanded the cancellation of the patent as a wilful challenge to their rights, and the state of public feeling was such that the question was regarded as a tussle between the anti-Spanish party and the powerful ambassador, the Count of Gondomar, for influence with the King. It excited attention far beyond the circle of those who were usually interested in colonial enterprises. In the meantime North slipped away with the connivance of certain officials and settled a post of a hundred men in the Amazon delta to begin planting tobacco and to trade with the Indians. Without risk of a complete breach it was impossible to maintain the Guiana patent in face of the evidence of effective Spanish occupation that Gondomar laid before the Council, and a royal proclamation was therefore issued denouncing North's attempt against a friendly Power. Warwick was ordered to bring up the patent for cancellation, and in May 1620 he had to make his humble submission.

Meanwhile Warwick had become actively interested in Virginia as a possible base for attacks against the Spanish Indies if the breach

1 Vide infra, p. 438.

for which he and Southampton hoped could be brought about. Such designs, dating as far back as the French colony in Florida in 1563, had never been forgotten by some members of the Company, and though to advertise them was impolitic, in 1614 Richard Martin, the counsel for the Company, incautiously referred to "such matters of high moment" before the House of Commons and spoke of Virginia as "a bridle for the Neapolitan courser if our youth of England are able to sit him, for which they will give him golden spurs".1 Probably his censure by the House was attributed as much to this reference to foreign relations as to the general tone of his speech which was the nominal cause of complaint. Southampton and other Opposition peers were present when the speech was made, and Martin's apologists were those members of the Commons, like Sir Edwin Sandys, who were notorious for their anti-Spanish feelings. Sir Thomas Smythe, treasurer of the Virginia Company and governor of the Somers Islands Company, was on the other hand prominently interested in the regulated Company for Spanish trade and averse from any policy that would endanger its commerce. He was also leader of the merchants who had control in the great exclusive companies, so that he was regarded by the interloping merchants as their chief opponent. In 1618 Rich and Southampton lent their aid to the faction in the Virginia Company that was antagonistic to Smythe, and they compelled him to decline re-election to the treasurership. He was succeeded by Sandys, who had been the spokesman in the House of Commons of the "free traders", and whose election marked the beginning of an acute schism in the Company that became a public scandal. It also affected the Somers Islands Company, for the rival factions were represented in its Courts. They were opposed on a variety of grounds, and the dispute bristled with personal accusations on both sides. The great nobles and the politicians who were concerned made use of the opportunity to consolidate a party of opposition to the King's Spanish policy and thus made colonial affairs an issue in national politics. The disputes lasted for more than six years and will demand our attention later.

The momentous changes that were taking place in the international situation aided the designs of Warwick and the war party. The twelve years' truce between Spain and the United Provinces came to an end in 1621, and the war reopened with increased bitterness. There was at first little hope of winning decisive victories on the land front, but sea war and attacks upon the Spanish colonies had proved so profitable that the Dutch resumed them with zest. They at once took up the threat that had extorted peace from Spain in 1609, and concentrated their efforts against the American colonies in the hands of a single great West India Company organised to follow the same methods as their East India Company was employing against the

1 Commons' Journals, 1, 487.

THE BREACH WITH SPAIN

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Portuguese. Efforts were made to secure the assistance of other Powers by the promise of high profits, but neither England nor France could be persuaded to take action. The States did not relinquish their plan and awaited a more propitious moment that was not long delayed. In October 1623 Prince Charles and Buckingham returned from their Madrid adventure determined on war with Spain and they soon forced the King to abandon his old policy. Buckingham placed himself at the head of the war party, and the country welcomed the change with enthusiasm. When Parliament was summoned in February 1624 to hear a formal account of the breaking-off of the Spanish marriage treaties, it at once appeared that the policy of Elizabeth's time had not been forgotten. During the years of peace the supporters of colonising schemes at the expense of Spain had been frowned upon and checked, but now their advocates like Warwick were in the ascendant, and at Buckingham's instigation theirs was the policy commended to the Commons by Sir Benjamin Rudyerd, the spokesman for the Government. Plans for the recovery of the Palatinate by war in Germany were put in the background, and it was determined to use land forces only on a limited scale for the assistance of the Dutch in Flanders and Brabant. According to Elizabethan precedent the war was to be one of limited liability, and effort was to be directed to the stimulation of privateering attacks upon Spanish commerce and against the islands and towns of the Indies.1 The King should be petitioned, said Rudyerd, “whensoever he intends to make war for the Palatinate, to make it by way of diversion to save charges, whither every younger brother that had but £20 in his purse may go stocked for a profession and course of life; and where the Low Countries, no doubt, will be willing and ready to assist us for their own interest".2 The Commons were already convinced that this was the right policy to pursue, and it was in the assurance of its adoption by the Government that they voted subsidies with unwonted readiness.

The Dutch saw their opportunity and tried once more to get English assistance for their West India Company, but they could secure nothing more than an agreement for a defensive alliance. In these negotiations the idea of permanent annexations in the West Indies in place of mere raids was brought for the first time within the range of practical politics, for the Dutch offered the inducement to England that all conquests that were made jointly should be left in English occupation. Early in the session of 1624 the Commons considered a project for the formation of a West India Association regulated and established by Act of Parliament, and thenceforward for twenty years it was repeatedly advanced as the best means of bringing about the downfall of Spanish power and adding to English wealth. 1 See Gardiner, S. R., Hist. of England, v, 190. 2 St. Pap. Dom., Jas. I, CLX, no. 8.

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