To us, familiar with the history of modern movement in 

 the world's masteries, it seems strange that the Norman 

 element in English blood, so prone to see an opportunity, 

 and some might say so prompt to seize an advantage, did 

 not follow up England's claimed priority of discovery by 

 earliest occupancy of the new Atlantic shores. But know- 

 ing also as we do, the audacity of the mingled strains in 

 the old French blood, we do not wonder that it was this 

 which took the forefront and held on till its last foothold 

 was drowned in its last red tide. 



Occupancy by settlement was slow. A charter was 

 granted to Sir Humphrey Gilbert by Queen Elizabeth in 

 1578, but it was not until 1583 that he began a settlement 

 in Newfoundland at what he called St. John's. But that 

 high spirit who declared, ''We are as near heaven by sea 

 as land ! ' ' passed out through a storm of elements off 

 those headlands, precarious indeed, and with him the soul 

 went out of his enterprise, and the claim of England 

 through this occupancy did not for a long time emerge. 



Sir Walter Ealeigh's vigorous efforts in Virginia in 

 1584 also came to nought. And so at the close of the 

 16th century there was not a European settlement north 

 of Florida on the western Atlantic shores. 



But the human ferment was going on, and the time 

 appointed drawing near. The fierce persecution of the 

 Huguenots was tearing asunder social bonds in France. 

 The quarrel over the succession of King Henry of 

 Navarre had its spring in this bitterness, and the chang- 

 ing play of parties permitted no one to be safe. Earnest 

 minds were moved to seek peaceful homes in the wilder- 

 ness of the New World, where they might find at least 

 freedom of thought and action, and possibly scope for 

 their best energies. Thus Admiral Coligny sought to 

 plant Huguenot colonies in both South and North 

 America, which soon succumbed to Portugal or Spain. 

 But inward pressure prompted outward movement and 

 bitterly manifest as were the differences in the old home, 



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