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In this way did Spain and Portugal become the 

 proud possessors of the fairest and wealthiest portions 

 of the world, and through the enterprise and daring 

 of their mariners, coupled, of course, with almost 

 incredible suffering, wealth incalculable poured into 

 the homelands, and did its demoralizing work. The 

 minds of all men were fixed upon these strange new 

 regions oversea, from whence flowed in a golden 

 stream such abundance of treasure as intoxicated the 

 intellect, and made the steady cultivation of home 

 industries seem too paltry for consideration. Every 

 argosy that put forth appeared to those remaining 

 behind as the germ of a golden harvest, the dreadful 

 toil, the sacrifice of life, and the entire uncertainty 

 attendant upon every venture being quite forgotten. 

 The ocean was indeed becoming not merely the uni- 

 versal highway, but the royal road to wealth beyond 

 man's wildest desires. 



But meanwhile in the north of Europe there were 

 two little nations, at that time hardly considered 

 worth reckoning with, who were steadily acquiring 

 sea-lore also Britain and Holland, both informed 

 with the spirit of the ancient Vikings, and both being 

 driven by their poverty on land to seek participation 

 in the spoils of which they had heard such glowing 

 reports. It is a common platitude that history repeats 

 itself, and here the truth of the saying was made 

 abundantly manifest, for as the Greeks and Romans 

 of old hired the Phoanician mariners to rear their 

 naval forces, and the Italians made use of the Moorish 

 navigators, so did the British and Dutch hire the 

 Italians and Portuguese seamen to educate them in 

 this grand new way of becoming wealthy. It must 



