294 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



were tlie first to take the colonial field. The invention of the astro- 

 labe and the discovery of the magnet made distant voyages practi- 

 cable. All through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they 

 stretched ever farther the scope of their trade till they had annexed 

 the Atlantic islands, begun settlement at the southern cape, and 

 laid the foundations of those colonies their shadowy claims to which 

 (in Mashonaland) for some time resisted, a few years ago, the more 

 invincible assertion of British armed occupation. Columbus's great 

 voyage of discovery was but an extension of shorter trading voyages, 

 and one of his three ships was equipped by merchants. Dutch 

 colonies were still more an extension of Dutch commerce; they 

 were planted mainly under the auspices of chartered companies, and 

 while Spanish and French colonizers threw a glamour of religion 

 over their undertakings, and Swedish and English colonies were often 

 largely philanthropical, trade has ever been the chief, almost the 

 sole, object of Dutch colonization. The West India Company 

 founded l^ew York, which was for years no more than a place of 

 meeting where fur traders exchanged European commodities for 

 skins, and the commercial agent of the company was its first gov- 

 ernor. Canada was won for civilization by the same agency. Car- 

 tier's second expedition, which gave Canada to France, De Monts's 

 and Champlain's were fitted out, in whole or part, by Breton mer- 

 chants of St. Malo. Even the French Company of the Hundred 

 Associates, which set the seal on the colonization of Canada and 

 had Kichelieu and princes of the blood for figureheads, was financed 

 by merchants. Companies of the East Indies and the West, of the 

 ISTorth, the Levant, and Senegal were formed in France in rivalry 

 of those in England and Holland. The commercial conquest of 

 Algeria and Madagascar was attempted by such companies two cen- 

 turies before it was finally accomplished. But the tale of the foun- 

 dation of colonies by commerce would be too long to tell. ISTot 

 only the origin but the extension of colonial possessions are the 

 work of commercial enterprise. Africa is at this day being colo- 

 nized by chartered companies. Governments are deliberately col- 

 onizing and annexing to create markets. " Trade follow? the flag,'' 

 says Lord Salisbury. The French admit that no Platonic views 

 but the need of openings for trade lies behind their late-born 

 colonizing ambition; and Sehor Canovas del Castillo avowed that 

 Spain is making desperate efforts to keep Cuba and the Philippines 

 not only for historical and sentimental reasons, but as Spain's last 

 markets. What needs to be noted here is that the commercial col- 

 ony, like the adventurers' and the fisheries colonies, is at first mainly 

 asexual. The merchants who engineer them do not themselves go 

 out to them; the traders do not at first permanently settle; there are 



