54 
better sailors than the Spaniards. Richard Hawkins said the 
Spanish were never good sailors. They had not the natural 
aptitude of Drake and Raleigh. Columbus stumbled on America. 
He sailed with the idea of getiing to India. Whoever possessed 
the Eastern trade had always been rich. It was the Eastern trade 
passing up the Levant that enriched the Italian cities, and the 
Portuguese when they found their way round the Cape of Good 
Hope, they got rich. The great object was to get to India and to 
have their share of the great Indian trade. The English thought 
there was a passage to the North-West, and for a long time their 
North-West passage was the great object of all English explorers. 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert was the first man who ever thought of 
planting colonies, and he wrote a treatise to prove there was a 
North-West passage to Cathay in China. He obtained a Charter 
from Queen Elizabeth, and sailed to plant colonies in Newfound- 
land, but died in his attempt to promote the glory of his country. 
The Queen would never colonize, but she had no objection to her 
subjects, and especially rich ones, spending their money on 
colonizing schemes, and gave them a great deal of cheap encour- 
agement. When Sir H. Gilbert sailed away she gave him an 
anchor, which was a great comfort for him. Raleigh called 
Virginia after the Queen, but people said the Queen was a stingy 
god-mother for her child. Raleigh, with all his sagacity and 
strength of mind, shared the old illusion that there was a North- 
West passage—just a strip of land which separated the Atlantic 
from the Pacific. He made heroic efforts, and deserved to 
succeed, but failed, in his first attempt to plant a colony. He 
spent a fortune of £40,000 of his own private money to establish 
a colony in Virginia, and it failed. The people of Elizabeth’s 
reign had dreamed dreams and seen visions of an EH] Dorado, and 
all their glamour had to die down. 
When James I. came to the throne a new face of things was 
seen. Men started with different prospects. The one man 
who is always looked upon as the founder of Virginia was Jolin 
Smith, but all they knew of him was what he told himself, 
The Lecturer gave an interesting series of Smith’s stories 
and romantic exploits. Tobacco, he said, grew there so 
well that ‘they would plant nothing else, even though they 
were actually dependent on the Indians for corn. ‘The very 
streets of Jamestown were planted with tobacco, and tobacco 
became the medium of exchange. Men were fined in tcbacco. 
In 1619 it was thought Virginia would be better if the men 
were married, and so the Company at home sent out a supply of 
wives—all invoiced. There were ninety widows and young 
women. ‘They were not to be forced to marry, but whoever did 
marry had to pay £120 for tobacco. A description of the scenes 
