BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH COLONIZATION 53 



It was in the midst of this conflict of ideas, tendencies, Ne%vfound- 

 colonies, and nations, that the new birth of the English colony permanent' 

 of Newfoundland took place. It was a product of the same ly recreat- 

 ideas ; some of its godfathers, notably Sir J. Popham, were ^ ' ' 

 the same as those of its sister colonies ; its re-birth and their 

 birth or re-birth occurred at the same time ; the same brief 

 effort was made to combine Londoners and Westerners in 

 one company ; and Anglo-French rivalry was an ever-present 

 source of dread or spur to action. 



Newfoundland differed from its sister colonies in the small- by tuest- 



ness of its stature, in its tendency to become for a century or jj^fj^^^Jiy^ 



more a preserve for men from the south-west of England — and by 



in spite of appeals to Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, and "^^ amZi^st^ 



Papists — in its comparative freedom from the felon's taint, in non-colo- 



its remoteness from the scene of war (at all events before '^^^^^^shermen ; 



and after 17 13), and, above all, in the secular strife which") 



Traged between disciples of the fishing and colonial schools/ 



Vid their respective representatives — the fishermen who came 



and went each year, and the settlers, who, by the irony of 



fate, were also fishermen, and depended for recruits on those 



with whom they strove. This strife began in 161 1, and 



went on indecisively for two centuries or so. Accordingly, {being 



tJicTC'foyc 

 soon after its re-birth, the English colony of Newfoundland ^ ^/^/^^^ 



began to go on its own insular way almost unaffected by its apart) 



continental neighbours on the south ; or, to borrow a classic 



simile, the Newfoundlanders began to dwell, as it were, in 



a cave of their own, and turned their faces towards the inner 



wall, on which they only saw from time to time the shadows 



of the actors in the great real world passing and repassing. 



Not but what they had some rude awakenings. 



There is a State paper of almost the same date as the althotigh 



charter of the East India Company, in which the colonization YanvThotv- 



of Newfoundland was advocated for purposes of trade, and, ed the 



of course, of the North-west Passage, but the King as well as V^*^^^^"^' 



the traders and the poor (but 'not the impotent poor') must 



