CHAPTER III 



THE FIEST BEGINNINGS OF A PERFECT ENGLISH 

 COLONY IN NEWFOUNDLAND 



THE colonial impulse towards North-east America came Ike second 

 over England in two waves. What Frobisher, Gilbert, and^J^f 

 Ralegh tried to do, belonged to the first broken wave ; tion was a 

 Gilbert's doings shining like foam upon its crest, ' one ^g?f J 

 moment white, then gone for ever.' Nor is the wave 

 intelligible, unless we look beneath it at the Western Powers 

 of Europe solidifying into nationhood, and at the friction, 

 fret, and ferment, which accompanied the process. The 

 second wave, which swept across the Atlantic in the early 

 seventeenth century, resembled the first wave in its origin 

 and nature, but was less stormy, and bore along with it 

 a different group of men, animated by a different set of 

 ideas, and adopting different methods. It, too, was a single 

 wave, and the recolonization of Virginia and Newfoundland, 

 and the actual or attempted colonization of New England 

 and New Scotland, were parts of one policy which must be 

 studied as a whole. 



In passing from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century (i) of great 

 we pass from an age of great men and little Companies to an gJjP**^ 5 ' 

 age of little men and great Companies. The incorporation ships (hence 

 of the East India Company on December 31, 1600, laid the 

 foundation-stone of our Indian Empire, and amongst other 

 things stimulated the growth of the Royal Navy. Long 

 voyages still meant big ships and skilful sailors, and the East 

 India Company began to construct i,ioo-tori ships which 

 were as big as the biggest Queen's vessels, and were nearly 

 three times as big as the biggest merchantmen, which fought 

 Spain in 1588. The standard of size changed, and fishing- 

 ships became of little use for purposes of serious war. Even 



