England

a Backward Nation

III

THE RISE OF ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Far into the second half of the sixteenth century Spain was supreme in the New World both on land and on sea and could prevent any nation from making settlements on the American continent. Before the end of the century England had become the mistress of the seas, and was free to plant colonies in any part of the world. How did England rise to this commanding position in the world?

ENGLAND PUSHES OUT UPON THE SEAS

There was no rush of emigrants from Europe to the newly discovered world. Not as many came in a century as now come in a single year. England was especially slow in going out to make settlements in America. Nearly a hundred years passed before she attempted to take possession of the continent discovered by Cabot and claimed as her own. For this slowness there was good reason. At the opening of the sixteenth century England was a weak and backward nation. Her population was small, her commerce and industries were unimportant, her resources in general were limited. Especially was she weak on the seas, the very place she would have to be strong if she should dare to defy the power of Spain and undertake to plant her colonies in America. Had England in the days of Henry VII sent out ships to the New World Spain would have swept them from the sea, and had she tried to make settlements on the coast of America the Spaniards would have destroyed them as they destroyed the little French settlement in Florida.

But while England was neglecting America she was in the meantime growing stronger as a nation. Her industries were increasing, her commerce was expanding, her middle class was growing rapidly in wealth and in numbers. Above all, she was England's adding strength to her navy. Henry VIII, who has been called the father of the English navy, encouraged ship-building in every way he could, and during his reign (1509-47) ships were

Navy

built larger and stronger, were manned with better crews, and were armed with heavier guns. As a result there was trained a race of bold and hardy English seamen to whom no land was uninhabitable and no sea unnavigable.

THE CLASH BETWEEN SPAIN AND ENGLAND

Hawkins

In the latter half of the sixteenth century the sea-dogs of England began to challenge the claims of Spain in the New World and to defy her power. In 1562 John Hawkins, a sea- John man of Devonshire, England, sailed from the Guinea coast to the West Indies with a cargo of negroes who had been captured in the wilds of Africa. The negroes were sold as slaves to Spanish settlers in Haiti. In the act of taking the negroes from their native soil and selling them into slavery Hawkins saw no wrong whatever. Indeed, he rather felt that Providence smiled with favor upon the business of the slave-trade. Once he was The attacked by some negroes whom he was trying to enslave, and he Trade barely escaped with his life. When writing of this incident he piously reflected "that God worketh all things for the best and by Him we escaped without danger." Nor was the conscience of Hawkins any worse than the conscience of Christendom at large; in no country was the voice of public opinion raised against negro slavery. Hawkins found the profits on the first cargo of slaves so great that he was encouraged to make other voyages and bring over more negroes.

Slave

Monopoly

West

The voyages of Hawkins marked the beginning of the English traffic in slaves, and it also marked the beginning of one of the most momentous conflicts in the history of the world. Spain, Spain's desiring all the trade of the West Indies for herself, regarded in the men like Hawkins as "pirates, rovers and thieves." So, in 1570, Indies in order to preserve completely his monopoly, Philip II, the king of Spain, forbade outsiders to trade in the West Indies on pain of death. This decree, which meant that foreigners trading in the West Indies would suffer the pirate's fate, was a heavy blow to Englishmen who had tasted of the forbidden trade.

Hostility between

England and Spain at this time pretended to be at peace with each other, but in reality they were at each other's throats. The Spain and

England

Drake's Voyage around

the World

The

people of England, like the people of most of the countries of western Europe, were divided into Catholics and Protestants. Philip II was the warm friend of the Catholics and the bitter foe of the Protestants. It was thought that he had it in his mind to crush the Protestant party in England and dethrone Queen Elizabeth, who was a Protestant. Elizabeth therefore distrusted Philip profoundly and was only too glad to take the side of her merchants. She did not declare open war against Spain, but she let loose in the West Indies a swarm of English buccaneers who ruthlessly plundered the Spanish coasts and robbed Spanish vessels and thus "touched the King of Spain in the apple of his eye, for they took away the treasure which is the sinew of war."

The leader of these English buccaneers was Francis Drake. This terrible corsair-the Dragon, the Spanish called him, playing on his name-not only plundered the West Indies, but struck Spain on the western coast of South America. In September, 1577, setting sail from Plymouth in England, he began his famous voyage on which he became "the pioneer of England in the Pacific" and with which he "put a girdle round the world." Coasting along the east main of South America and passing through the Strait of Magellan, he swept up the western shore of South America and took the seaports of Chile and Peru. Here he carried away treasure in jewels and silver amounting to more than one million pounds sterling. From Peru he sailed north as far as California and Oregon. Then he turned to the west and sped homeward by the Cape of Good Hope, arriving at Plymouth in November, 1580. Queen Elizabeth had secretly helped Drake to make the great voyage, and so when the freebooter returned she received him with favor and placed in her crown one of the jewels that had been taken as plunder. The Spanish ambassador to the English court protested and threatened that if such outrages did not cease "matters would come to the cannon."

Soon matters did come to the cannon, and England was in a Invincible death-grapple with the mightiest of European powers. In 1588 Philip II began to collect a large army and prepare an immense

Armada