TRADE AND MARKETS. 141 



and partly by what has been at all times recognised as giving a 

 title to the occupant, priority of discovery. At this epoch 

 too, France was attempting to establish a colonial system, 

 both in the islands and the mainland. The Crown too began 

 to grant charters to the American settlers, occasionally giving 

 proprietary rights to those who founded a colony at their own 

 expense. In these colonies the king generally appointed a 

 governor and a council, whose acts should be revised by the 

 Privy Council in England. New England, or Massachusetts 

 Bay, was incorporated in 1629 ; Maryland in 1632. Very soon, 

 the cultivation of tobacco in Virginia and Maryland developed 

 a commerce of considerable importance. 



It is said by writers of the time that the Revolution of 1640, 

 by which John of Braganza succeeded in again severing Portugal 

 from Spain, had a beneficial effect on English commerce. In 

 consequence of this movement, Spain lost the Portuguese 

 possessions in India, and with them the power of supplying her 

 American possessions with necessary articles. This trade we 

 are told fell into the hands of the English and Dutch, and in 

 some degree came to Hamburgh and the French. Shortly 

 afterwards an advantageous treaty of commerce was negotiated 

 between England and Portugal, by which the former secured 

 the most-favoured-nation clause. 



There can be no doubt that the Thirty Years' War was in 

 some degree a gain to England. Spain had again quarrelled 

 with Holland, and was finally and irretrievably ruined, to say 

 nothing of the policy of Philip III in the expulsion from Spain 

 of nearly all its industrial population. And though the Dutch 

 West India Company paid vast dividends out of the prizes 

 which they constantly made of the Spanish treasure fleets, the 

 cost of war loaded the United Provinces with debt, a debt 

 which amounted in the single province of Holland to 153 

 millions of guilders in 1650. France, through the greatness of 

 its resources, and its power of recovery from loss, had gained 

 at the expense of Germany, whose progress was thrown back 

 for two centuries. England it is true had been engaged in 



