THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



tion, and the gradual entanglement of England in a 

 death-struggle with Spain are developments intimately 



The North connected with the voyages to the North West. Many 



West Foy ages. r ^i 



■^ ^ or the seamen, 



^ Feared by their breed and famous by their birth/ 

 who were to be the terror of the Spaniards upon the 

 high seas, had their hard training in this forlorn hope. 

 When England found herself baffled in her efforts to 

 escape from her ring-fence by way of the North, she 

 struck Southwards ; timidly at first, then, surprised and 

 elated by her own success, with ever increasing vigour, 

 until, after a few years, the small barks that cruised 

 to Greenland and Labrador gave way to armed fleets, 

 prepared to assert a right of way and a right of conquest 

 in all the seven seas. 



The suddenness and rapidity of this development 

 might well surprise the world. The English naval 

 power, like the English drama, seemed to be the growth 

 of a single night. In either case, hidden causes had 

 been at work ; the power that startled Europe had long 

 been nurtured in the quiet. Yet these causes are so 

 obscure, and seem so inadequate, that it is difficult to 

 put off the language of miracle. Fuller frankly invokes 

 a special Providence. ' Observe, by the way,' he says, 

 in narrating the death of Captain Edward Fenton, in 

 Queen 1603, some days after Queen Elizabeth's, 'how God 



Elizabeths ^^^ ^p ^ generation of military men, both by sea and 

 land, which began and expired with the reign of Queen 

 Elizabeth, like a suit of clothes made for her, and 

 worn out with her; for Providence designing a peace- 

 able prince to succeed her (in whose time martial men 

 would be rendered useless), so ordered the matter, that 



24 



men 



