208 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



to grasp control seemed few and feeble, but the period of prepara- 

 tion was past. The mighty forces that were to urge on the most 

 stupendous movement of mankind in human history had already 

 received their direction. The time was ripe for the real conflict to 

 begin, and it had its momentous beginning when the chief of the 

 Mohawks fell before the arquebus of Champlain at Ticonderoga. 



The conditions which limited the powers and directed the pur- 

 poses of the various countries of Europe in the early years of the 

 seventeenth century made it inevitable that the .struggle for Ameri- 

 can control should ultimately become a single combat between 

 France and Great Britain. 



It is true that Spain had overturned the tribal government of 

 the Aztecs and held possession along the northern shores of the 

 Gulf of Mexico, a vantage ground from which she might well have 

 pressed to the northward successful plans of occupation. But 

 Spain had no such plans. When the search for treasure had failed, 

 and it was plain that no more Perus and Mexicos were to be found, 

 the dark forests of the north Atlantic offered no attractions to the 

 Spanish Conquistadores w^bo sought the spoils of conquest rather 

 than the rewards of labor. 



With the death of PhiHp the Second the decline of Spanish power 

 had already begun. His successors were feeble and incapable. The 

 stern, repressive and despotic control over body and soul effected 

 by the union of military and rehgious organization during the first 

 century of United Spain was accompanied by a marvelous efficiency 

 and energy that made Spain for a time the foremost maritime and 

 colonizing power of the world. The price of that efficiency, how- 

 ever, was the loss of the only permanent source of national energy, 

 the independence and free initiative of individual character among 

 her citizens. Thenceforth Spain was no longer to sway the rod 

 of empire, but holding it weakly in feeble hands w^as to lose one 

 by one the world-wide possessions of Charles the Fifth and Philip 

 the Second, until the time when the penalty of her national sin 

 against civil and religious freedom should have been paid and the 

 native strength and mobility of her character should be able tO' reas- 

 sert themselves in a period of renewed growth and reestablished 

 power and prosperity ; a time which we hope and trust has already 

 come. 



Portugal, still clinging to the fruits of her explorers' genius, and 

 sturdy Flolland, strong in her newly won freedom, were looking 

 not to North America but to Brazil and to the Orient for their 

 opportunities to expand, and the future colony of New Amsterdam 



