THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



The founding 

 of Colonies. 



Hakluyt and 

 Virginia. 



that our English nation led them the dance, brake the ice 

 before them, and gave them good leave to light their 

 candle at our torch.' Again and again his pride in his 

 country, and admiration for her valorous seamen, make 

 themselves apparent in the warmth and eloquence of 

 his speech. 



But the gain of these last happy years can be made 

 good, he holds, in one way only, by claiming and 

 settling the lands of the New World. It does not fall 

 to Hakluyt to record any successful English attempt 

 at colonisation. None the less, it is this that is the 

 very sea-mark of his utmost sail. The history of his 

 active life begins with the colonising schemes of Gilbert, 

 Sidney and Raleigh ; it ends with the colonisation of 

 Virginia achieved at last, and the offer to himself of the 

 living of James Town, which he prudently supplied by 

 a curate. From first to last he preached the benefits of 

 colonising for the furtherance of trade and the honest 

 employment of the people. Statesmen and economists, 

 from Sir Thomas More onwards, had complained of the 

 multitude of loiterers and idle vagabonds in England, 

 thrown out of work by the enclosure of land. Hakluyt 

 adds his testimony, and offers a remedy. ' Our prisons 

 are pestered and filled,' he says, 'with able men to serve 

 their Country, which for small robberies are daily hanged 

 up in great numbers, even twenty at a clap, out of one 

 gaol (as was seen at the last Assizes at Rochester).' 

 We should lead these people forth into the temperate 

 and fertile parts of America, ' which, being within six 

 weeks sailing of England, are yet unpossessed of any 

 Christians, and seem to offer themselves unto us, stretch- 

 ing nearer unto her Majesty's dominions than to any 



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