not until the time of Henry VIII. that the navy was looked upon as a distinct service. Even so, very much was left to private enterprise. The ships that crushed the power of Philip II., and that explored the northern and western seas, did not all, by any means, belong to the Crown. Many of them were built, equipped, or chartered at the expense of private owners like Drake, Gilbert, and Raleigh. Charles Kingsley, whose romance of "Westward Ho!" may be profitably read in this connection, went so far as to say that England owed her commerce, her colonies, her very existence, to the public spirit of such men.

Sir Humphry Gilbert seems to have been the first Englishman to form any practical scheme of colonization; and it is to be noted that he was influenced by exactly the same reasons as his successors. He dreamed of gaining wealth, of extending the trade of England, of finding some place in which needy persons who were a burden to the community might settle down. The only practical result of his efforts was, that in 1583 he took possession of Newfoundland in the name of the Queen. He perished on the voyage home.

Sir Walter Raleigh had an interest in that voyage. He, too, cherished the idea of settling a colony in America, and he equipped an expedition at his own cost, which we may regard as the first serious attempt to found a Greater England beyond the seas. A portion of the mainland was taken possession of, and called Virginia, in honour of the Queen. Although Raleigh was not successful in founding a permanent colony, yet his name is of the very greatest importance in the history

of English colonization. According to one of his biographers, "he was a pioneer in a multitude of paths which have converged at length in the greatness of Britain. In the history of Britain at large there are not many greater names than his. In the history of British America there are none. His Virginian enterprise had failed; but his perseverance in it had sown broadcast the seeds of eventual success. Raleigh is the virtual founder of Virginia and of what has grown thereout." Indeed, we may almost say that he trained the men who first colonized America.

The first permanent English settlement in America. was made at Jamestown, in 1608, by the Virginia Company, a body founded in 1606 for carrying out schemes of colonization in a practical fashion. The motives that led men to look favourably on such schemes are not far to seek. There was the desire for wealth. There were the stimulus to trade, and the improvement of the trader's position, derived from the working of mines and the sale of the various natural commodities found in the new countries. Next, communication with settled colonies would render imperative an increase in the power, importance, and numerical strength of the navy, and thus the nation's prestige would be enlarged. Settled colonies, moreover, would provide a means of dealing with the surplus population of England; they would allow for the expansion of the empire of England, and would offer opportunities for spreading the true evangel. But these early colonies were not a success. It is not necessary

to discuss here the causes of failure; they are perhaps

b

to be sought in the eager desire of the government at home to make as much money as possible out of the products of the colonies, and in the fact that the greater number of the colonists were men who had hardly succeeded in their careers at home.

By 1620 a new element, and one of permanent strength, that was to form the real basis of England's first colonial empire, had entered into the scheme of things. A band of men and women who departed from the practices of religion in the Established Church of England, removed in 1608 to Leyden, in Holland, in order to pursue there unmolested the severely Puritan form of religion that seemed to them the only right one. A town life did not suit them, and in 1620 they determined to seek their fortunes in a new land across the sea. They had at first thought of Virginia, but realizing that a colony of traders was unlikely to have much sympathy with their religious aspirations, these Separatists, as they came to be called, decided to plant a colony of their own. Accordingly, in September, 1620, a small company, known as the Pilgrim Fathers, and consisting of about a hundred and twenty men, women, and children, set sail for the New World from Southampton in the Mayflower. After a stormy and adventurous voyage, they landed at Cape Cod in November, and proceeded to found the important colony of Massachusetts in New England. Hemans wrote, in her stanzas on their landing

"Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod,

They have left unstained what there they found,
Freedom to worship God."

Felicia

The colonists who had started with such aspirations had many difficulties to contend with, many hardships to endure; but perseverance, and the firm belief that they were furthering the glory of God and the honour of their country, brought them triumphantly through.

Under Charles I. England's colonies consisted of Virginia, New England, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Bermuda Isles. They were considered chiefly as places where dissenters from the Established Church might find a refuge, and as a means of increasing the shipping and trade interests of England. But England had now to learn the meaning of rivalry and opposition. The Dutch and the French were also seeking to plant colonies in America, and the beginning of the struggle between France and England for the supremacy in America may be placed at this period. The most satisfactory incident in our colonial history under Charles I. was the settlement of Barbadoes in the West Indies. The place had been occupied by the English in Elizabeth's reign. Possessing a good harbour and a fertile soil, it soon became a prosperous colony. We may deduce the growing importance of the colonies in the eyes of the mother country from the fact that it was considered necessary to inform them officially of the change of government consequent on the execution of Charles I. It was further evident from the Navigation Ordinance of 1651, and the Navigation Act of 1661, that England meant to keep a firm hold on her colonies, and to use them for the extension of her shipping and for the increase of her trade. Those statutes enacted that no English or colonial goods should be imported into

England or any of her colonies except by English ships. Cromwell had great imperial ideas, and did much to lay the foundations of our Empire by raising the naval and military standing of England, and by employing the naval and military forces of the mother country to extend the territory of the colonies. But the only notable events in our colonial history under Cromwell were the conquest of Jamaica from the Spaniards in 1655, and the reorganization of the East India Company in 1657.

Under Charles II. the significance of the colonies rose still higher. Lord Clarendon has recorded how he endeavoured "to bring his Majesty to have a great esteem for his plantations, and to encourage the improvement of them." The Navigation Act was renewed in 1661, and its scope somewhat enlarged. Certain articles of commerce were forbidden to be shipped to any place except England and her colonies. Moreover, we owe to Charles II. the incorporation of the first body of men whose duty it was to look after colonial business. That body was formed of a Committee of the Privy Council and was named the Council appointed for Foreign Plantations. The instructions issued by the king to the members were full and clear: the Council was to inform itself of the government of each colony, its complaints, wants, abundance, growths, and commodities; of every ship trading there and its lading, so that "a more steady judgment and balance may be made for the better ordering and disposing of trade and of the proceed and improvements of the plantations." Its members were also required to apply themselves to all prudential means to render those