THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



Spanish power was stronger on the seas than it had been 

 before the Armada. So far the record is one of failure. 

 But on the other side of the account there is an item 

 The zvarrant which cannot be neglected. It is to be found in those 

 oj success. \QXig and dull lists of unknown names, of merchant 

 promoters, gentlemen adventurers, intending colonists, 

 and ship's companies, which give so business-like an air 

 to Hakluyt's pages. It may be true, as someone has 

 said, that these detailed summaries 'leave as little im- 

 pression of excitement or emulation upon our minds 

 as so many almanacks.' But they held in them the 

 promise of Empire. The ideas of colonial expansion and 

 of the command of the sea had captured the nation ; the 

 seeds had been scattered, and were germinating in tens 



The island q{ thousands of minds. From the sea England had 



and the sea. , i j i_ • c *. - - 



been peopled by successive waves or conquest or immi- 

 gration ; to the sea, after a long interval, she gave back 

 a race who had learned that there and there alone could 

 her safety be secured and her name upheld. As a 

 people — to borrow a phrase from the poetry of common 

 speech — we follow the sea; it will be an ill day for us 

 when the tides that wash the world run their ancient 

 courses, and we may not follow. 



Walter Raleigh. 

 September^ 1904. 



