Spanish envoys, who to allay their apprehensions were told that expeditions were being despatched not against them but, in Sir John Popham's words, "in order to drive from here thieves and traitors to be drowned in the sea". The Spaniards affected to accept this explanation and Don Alonso de Velasco confirmed it when he wrote to Philip, "their principal reason for colonisation is to give an outlet to so many idle and wretched people as they have in England".2 Gondomar is in the same vein when he tells a story of "some who have preferred hanging to going to Virginia". "A few days ago, when they were about to hang some thieves, three of them, the soundest and strongest, were chosen to go to Virginia. Two of them accepted, but the third would not, and seeing the two returning to gaol he said, Let them go there and they will remember me! Then he urged the hangman to shorten his work, as if he were thus relieved of a greater evil, and thus it was done." It was in this somewhat complicated guise, therefore, that the question of the Plantations then presented itself. The pioneer must always be an adventurer, full of initiative and resource. At every hour of the day, at every step of the path, the qualities of leadership are essential to success. In the early stages of colonisation critical situations would often arise when the timorous commander would return to his base, or even to England, while the more adventurous would decide to press on. Later, when relations with native tribes were entered on, personal qualities, especially those of wariness and tact, would once more be all-important. Similarly, inside the growing settlement, it was only the born leader who could make the colonists work hard at preparing defence works and at food production, and, furthermore, restrain them from the tempting alternative of bartering away their weapons to the natives for corn. And there was room for neither democracy nor divided leadership in these young Plantations. Only a strong man could bind the divergent interests together and, above all, put down the factions and even plots which vexed the early communities. The council for Virginia had from the beginning insisted that "chiefly, the way to prosper and achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind for the good of your country and your own", but Wingfield, Ratcliffe, Martin, Yeardley, and many another could testify sadly to a contrary experience; while only a few, such as Sir Thomas Dale and perhaps Captain Smith, were able to overcome these obstacles "by wisdom, industry and valour", as Sandys said of Dale, "accompanied with exceeding pains and patience". Unfortunately men of this character were less often to be met with than either the selfseeking mischiefmakers or the well-meaning nonentities. Raleigh himself was fearless, knew what he wanted and was quick at making decisions, but had few opportunities of command: In 2 Ibid. 1, 476. 1 Brown, A., Genesis of U.S. 1, 46. Ireland and at Cadiz he was definitely in a subordinate position, and felt it keenly. When he was in command, his difficulties were generally great and his resources inadequate. In his first Guiana expedition he had to come back prematurely because of the tropical rains and the approach of winter. On his final voyage his crew, "some forty gentlemen excepted, were the very scum of the world"; in the end, his son was killed, his second in command committed suicide and his sailors mutinied. But his chief hindrance (before 1603) was his popularity with the Queen, who could seldom be induced to let her favourite leave her, even for a short period. Consequently his personal share in the discoveries was small and in the consequent settlement still less. It was his contribution to be an entrepreneur, to X organise the adventures of others, and to stimulate the imagination of his fellow-countrymen by suggesting to them that they should establish no mere trading depôts but permanent colonies where generations of Englishmen yet unborn could spread and multiply. But his schemes were vitiated in part by haste and lack of forethought and in part by his over-emphasis on gold, and when, as in Virginia, gold was not in the end forthcoming, there was, unfortunately, a general tendency to consider the colony a failure. On this vainglorious and petted Elizabethan fell the blight of Jacobean inconstancy. The result is well known--the accusation of treason and the travesty of a trial, followed by thirteen years of imprisonment in the Tower; "no man but my father", said Prince Henry, "would keep such a bird in a cage". But Raleigh used his enforced leisure to exercise his unrivalled mastery over the English language, producing many attractive "Discourses" as well as his magnum opus, the First Part of the History of the World. Then came the final phase, fourteen months of quiet freedom, leading up to the illstarred second voyage to Guiana, the return, the immediate arrest and the almost immediate execution, based on the verdict of guilt given fifteen years before. But in an age of unfettered individualism, attention should not be confined to any one person, however brilliant. Of other leaders the most interesting is the self-confident Captain John Smith, whose life, however, belongs rather to the history of the Virginia Company. Beside him stand John Pory, himself no mean explorer and, for four years, secretary in Virginia; Captain John Martin, "the only man to protest against the abandonment of Virginia on the memorable morning of June 7, 1610";1 Thomas Hariot, Raleigh's mathematical and engineering adviser; John Rolfe, who married Pocahontas and brought her over to England; Elfrith, "the man who carried the first rats to the Bermudas and the first negroes to Virginia";2 Sir Edwin Sandys, the promoter of the Free Trade Bills of 1604; Nicholas Ferrar, of Little Gidding fame; Samuel Argall, who discovered the 1 Brown, A., Genesis of U.S. п, 944. 2 Ibid. п, 886. CHBE I 8 direct route to Virginia as against the earlier way via the Canaries or the Azores; and noblest amongst them Richard Hakluyt. To few men does the Empire owe more than to the stay-at-home clergyman who, by his enthusiastic and industrious editing of the voyages of others, did so much to inflame interest and point out the way of the future. "The time approacheth, and now is, that we of England may share and part stakes (if we will ourselves) both with the Spaniard and the Portingale in part of America and other regions as yet undiscovered." Nor was his a narrow influence. He saw clearly that "the advancing of navigation, the very walls of this our island" was no less important than colonisation itself, and he pressed for the establishment of a Readership in the art of Seamanship to be set up either at London or Bristol; furthermore he advocated investigation into the causes and cure of tropical diseases, and was himself a shareholder in the Company of Merchants which took over Raleigh's Virginia patent in 1588, and in many other companies. The first volume of his Principal Navigations appeared in the following year, while so early as 1584 he had, at Raleigh's suggestion, written and presented to the Queen his stimulating Discourse of Western Planting. It is hard for us to realise the extent of his labours, but "the ardent love of my country devoured all difficulties"; and, as his fame grew, not a sailor or explorer left these shores but reported to him on his return anything of interest that had occurred, Raleigh being, as Hakluyt acknowledges in his Preface, a particularly valuable source of information. When he died (in 1616) England's colonial empire was still nascent, but it was Hakluyt's patient labours and glowing pen which had kept alive the interest and curiosity of his fellow-countrymen during a difficult period of discouragement and failure. It was the atmosphere created rather than the results achieved which was of importance, and the warrant of ultimate success, as has been pointed out, lay in "those long and dull lists of unknown names of merchant promoters, gentlemen adventurers, intending colonists and ships' companies which give so business-like an air to Hakluyt's pages".1 II. NATIONAL SECURITY AND EXPANSION, 1580-1660 For their new oceanic career the English people possessed great natural advantages. In the sea-hemisphere their position was central, as contrasted with that of Spain, whose fleets were partly in the Mediterranean, partly in the Atlantic, besides having often to convey troops and money by sea to the rebellious Netherlands. Over against these scattered possessions and diverse interests stood England, → compact, self-sufficing and strategically dominant so long as the Dutch successfully resisted Spanish rule. The two Protestant peoples soon perceived their strength. First the Dutch, then the English, preyed on 1 Raleigh, W., English Voyages (1910), p. 193. GEOGRAPHICAL AND POLITICAL FACTORS 115 Spanish succours as they straggled along the English Channel. The Dutch revolt revealed the inherent weakness of Spain, which, as will duly appear, received its crowning illustration in the campaign of the Armada. And while the two maritime peoples harried her in the Narrow Seas, they also raided her overseas empire. Never were there greater temptations to privateering, the Spaniards being unable to observe the main ports whence our seamen stole forth to the Indies. England's strategic advantages over France were less marked, until, for political reasons, Richelieu stationed part of the French Navy at Toulon, where it was isolated from the main body in the Atlantic ports. On the other hand, the English Navy could quickly concentrate to command the Narrow Seas. Facing the Dutch and Germans, the British Isles stretch like a gigantic barrier reef barring the way to the ocean—a fact which goes far to explain the results of naval wars with those peoples from 1652 to 1918. Such were the geographical facts largely determining the course of the world-struggle which became certain in the year 1580. Two events then occurred which sharpened the tension between England and Spain. In September Drake's sole surviving ship, the Golden Hind, cast anchor in Plymouth Harbour, ballasted with the gold and silver of Spain's vast and hitherto intact Pacific preserve. At the close of the year Philip II of Spain followed Alva's conquering troops to Lisbon, and assumed control over Portugal and her vast overseas empire, extending from Brazil to Macao. The one event emboldened Englishmen to challenge the might of Spain; the other empowered her to take up their impudent challenge. To continental statesmen the attitude of the English sea-dogs, and finally of Elizabeth, seemed mere folly. They deemed her the illegitimate queen of "half an island", in danger from hostile or suspicious Scots and openly rebellious Irish. The four millions of English were but a handful beside the great peoples ruled by Philip II of Spain in his Iberian, Italian, Burgundian, Netherland and overseas domains. Her revenue was a precarious half-million sterling: his was bounded only by the power of the officials of New Spain to extort and of English "pirates to intercept. His shipbuilding resources in Europe far exceeded hers, vessels being also obtainable in the Spanish Indies, where wood and iron abounded; and in 1580 his fleet, with the Portuguese and Italian contingents, was deemed far more powerful than hers, which comprised only twenty-five capital ships. Accordingly, when Drake boasted that, with his own few ships, he could impeach the whole Spanish fleet, Arundel roundly rebuked him, adding that Philip alone could war against all the world united. In truth, Spain was the only 4 3 World Power; and the prospect of the distracted French, the schismrent English or the exhausted Dutch rebels, ever seriously challenging her across the oceans seemed the wildest of fancies. Yet Drake's boast was far from empty. The forthcoming struggle between England and Spain must be decided almost entirely at sea; and on that element the English had begun to assert their superiority. Since the time of Henry VII the English Royal Navy had been an efficient force, long under eclipse, but now, in the third decade of Elizabeth, rapidly recovering its former efficiency. The people were more and more taking to the sea. Since the year 1550, when the foreand-aft sail came into general use, our seamen had steadily improved their craft, gradually adapting them to oceanic voyages. The increase of the Levantine trade alone would demand thoroughly sea-going ships. But in and after 1576 the voyages of Frobisher and Davis for "the discovering of a passage by the north to go to Cataia [Cathay]" showed the need for stoutly built ships and dauntless seamanship. Even before Drake's return shipbuilding was brisk: "They are daily building more (wrote Mendoza to Philip II on 20 February 1580); but the moment the Spanish trade fails them and they are not allowed to ship goods to Spain, they will stop building, as they have no other trade so profitable".1 Never was there a worse forecast. After Drake's return, the wealth of both the Indies acted as an irresistible lure. When the adventurers, including Elizabeth, received £47 dividend on every £1 invested, ordinary trade profits seemed humdrum.2 Shipbuilding became a veritable craze. Mendoza urged Philip to issue orders "that no foreign ship should be spared in either the Spanish or Portuguese Indies, but that every one should be sent to the bottom....This will be the only way to prevent the English and French from going to those parts to plunder; for at present there is hardly an Englishman who is not talking of undertaking the voyage, so encouraged are they by Drake's return". The policy of spurlos versenken was in vain. Joint-stock companies of a privateering turn satisfied both the patriotic feelings and the sporting instincts of the race, so that dull honest enterprises, such as the founding of colonies, \suffered; the expenses of planting each colonist being reckoned at £40, prospects paled beside those of privateering, where profits had touched 4700 per cent.4 Therefore the privateering boom continued unabated. Whereas in 1578 there were computed to be in England only 135 vessels of more than 100 tons, the official survey (exclusive of Northumberland) ordered in 1582 by the Lord High Admiral, showed a total of 223 ships of more than 80 tons; and in 1588 there were 363. Of seamen 1 Cal. St. Pap. Spanish, 1580-6, p. 8. 2 Corbett, 1, 410. 3 Cal. St. Pap. Spanish, 1580-6, p. 55. 4 Scott, W. R., Joint Stock Companies, 1, 86-8, 446. • Naval Tracts of Sir W. Monson (Navy Records Society), III, 187-92. |