i6
BRITISH COLONIAL POLICY
already begun, was the best justification for Elizabeth’s policy. Of her it may be said with truth, “cunctando «wstituit rem.” Thenceforward, Spain resembled some wounded wild beast which, while still powerful to hurt, carries about with it the seeds of death. It was because of the decay of Spanish greatness that England was allowed to develop in peace its colonial settlements. The maritime greatness of Spain had always been an exotic. Her sailors were either Germans, Flemings, or strangers, “for the Spaniards,” says Hawkins, “ are but indifferently practised in this art. . . . The mariners are but as slaves to the rest to moil and toil day and night.” It was not by such methods as these that the command of the sea was to be held.
Englishmen, however, did not wait till the power of Spain was on the wane before attempting the work of colonization. Already in 1580 the English Government is found boldly asserting in answer to Spain, that “prescription without possession availed nothing.” And more than one practical attempt had been, before this, made to give effect to this 0^.1563. claim. The dubious Florida 1 scheme of the worthless Stuke- ley need not detain us, but in 1565 we find the first traces of Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s colonization schemes. 2 Amongst the projects of a trading company established in that year to discover a North-West passage to Cathay is the colonization of intermediate lands. A pamphlet afterwards written by him, 3 “ A discourse to prove a passage by the North-West to Cataya and the East Indies,” advocated colonization as a means of “settling there such needy people of our own which now trouble the Commonwealth.” He is also found under the glamour of that El Dorado, which bewitched even the shrewd Raleigh. The pamphlet is said to have given directions to
1 Stukeley, though a dissolute adventurer, appears to have been a popular favourite. In “The City Gallant,” Vol. XI. ofDodley’s Old English Plays, 4th ed., a character is spoken of as
“ a Stukeley or a Sherley for his spirit, bounty, and royalty to men at arms.”
Stukeley was killed at the battle of Alcazar in Barbary in 1578.
2 See Doyle’s English in America. Virginia, and Maryland.
3 Hakluyt, Vol. Ill,
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