108 STATEN ISLAND INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 
admiration of his countrymen. Martin Frobisher had passed away 
after a brilliant and dashing career as a militant sailor in the 
service of his beloved England. 
The heroic Gilbert had made his last effort to spread the prin- 
ciples of English liberty in the world, perishing at sea with those 
faithful words upon his lips: “The way to heaven is as near by 
sea as by land.” 
No single achievement prepared the way so directly and clearly 
to the English settlement in the New World as the destruction of 
the Spanish Armada. 
It is difficult for one in this age to imagine the time when 
England was not a great maritime power. But the fact is never- 
theless that when Philip of Spain sailed his Invincible Armada 
into the English Channel the fleet opposed to him was in no proper 
sense a navy, but rather a miscellaneous, indiscriminate, and in- 
adequate collection of merchant ships, caravels, and pinnaces, 
quickly gotten together and manned with a force generally raw, 
inexperienced, and poorly trained for concerted effective action 
But what they lacked in technical naval preparation and precision. 
in number and size of vessels, they made up in eager united patriot- 
ism and public spirit, directed by captains of unequaled valor and 
skill. As she had no navy, England had of course practically no 
commerce. Indeed, as late as the reign of Henry VIII, the laws 
of the nation were so framed as to prevent development in a com- 
mercial way. Thus a statute passed in that monarch’s time pro- 
hibited the giving or receiving of interest for the use of money, 
and dealing in negotiable instruments was forbidden as 1mmorai 
and irreligious. | 
When the supremacy of Spain on the high seas went down with 
the Invincible Armada, and her prestige as the greatest military 
power of the world bowed to the legions of William the Silent in 
the Netherlands, the opportunity of the English came and they 
were not slow to seize it. . | 
The rise of England’s modern navy began at this time. Her 
merchants with great assurance began to seek commerce in every 
