Nation in a Nutshell | Page 6

the western land. Very early in the sixteenth century projects of colonizing America were formed in England.
[Sidenote: English Colonization.]
Numerous voyages hither were undertaken during the reign of Henry VIII.; but the accounts which remain of them are rare and meagre. Some of them resulted in terrible disasters of shipwreck and death. Late in the century a courageous and determined navigator, Martin Frobisher, made three voyages to America, but without establishing a colony, or finding the treasures of gold and gems which he sought. Later, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the half-brother of Raleigh, and Barlow, made attempts to found colonies, but in vain.
[Sidenote: Raleigh's Expedition.]
It was in the spring of 1585 that Sir Walter Raleigh fitted out his famous expedition of seven ships, and one hundred and eight emigrants, and sent it forth, bound for the shores of Carolina. At first it seemed as it art English colony were really about to prosper in the new land. They established themselves at Roanoke, and explored the country. Hariot, one of the shrewdest of them, discovered the seductive proper- ties of tobacco, the succulence of Indian corn, and the nutritive quality of potatoes.
[Sidenote: Sir Francis Drake.]
The hostility of the natives, however, soon became so bitter, and their attacks so frequent, that the colony was glad to return to England in the visiting ships of Sir Francis Drake. Two years later Raleigh, undismayed by the failure of his first colony, sent out another, under John White, which settled on the Isle of Roanoke, and founded the "city of Raleigh." It was here that, on the 18th of August, 1587, the first child of English parents was born on American soil. Her name was Virginia Dare, and she was the granddaughter of Governor White. The Governor returned to England, leaving the emigrants behind; and on his going back to Roanoke, three years afterwards, no vestige of the colony could be discovered. It is supposed that they were all massacred by the Indians during White's absence. The first permanent settlement in America, was made by the French, at Port Royal, in 1605.
[Sidenote: Port Royal.]
[Sidenote: Colonies in Virginia.]
English enterprise was now at last ready to found and perpetuate states on the new continent. In little more than a year after the French occupation of Port Royal, a patent was granted by King James the First to a party of colonists, under Newport and Smith, authorizing them to form a government in Virginia, subject to the English crown. Imagine, then, three small ships setting forth, on the bleak 19th of December, 1606, and directing their way to Virginia, with one hundred and five men on board, and freighted with a goodly store of arms and provisions. Most of the party were gallant and courtly cavaliers: there were but twelve laborers and four carpenters in all the company. After a stormy voyage they passed up the James River, and landing, on its shores, they founded Jamestown.
[Sidenote: Heinrich Hudson.]
The news of the colonization of Virginia, the success of the adventurous emigrants in maintaining their settlement, and the fertility, beauty, and salubriousness of the continent, soon inspired other enterprises of a similar kind. The Dutch have always been famous navigators; and it was in 1609 that gallant Heinrich Hudson, alter two previous futile attempts to find a western passage to India, reached these shores, and sailed up the noble river which now bears his name. Five years after, a Dutch colony was formed on Manhattan Island, whereon the city of New York now stands, to which was first given the name of "New Amsterdam." The colony prospered, and in 1624 the island was purchased of the Indians for twenty four pounds English money.
[Sidenote: The Pilgrims and Puritans.]
We now reach the fourth permanent colony on American soil; that which was more powerful in shaping our destinies and determining our national traits than any other. The story of the Pilgrims and Puritans is almost too familiar to be rehearsed. Every schoolboy knows of their adventures and trials, their hardships and their dauntless energy, their piety and rigidity of rule, the great qualities by the exercise of which it may be justly claimed that they made themselves the true founders of the American Republic. Driven by persecution from their native England, they took refuge in Holland; and from thence they sailed in two small vessels, the Speedwell and the Mayflower on a July day in 1620, for the new world. One hundred Puritans thus crossed the ocean.
[Sidenote: Settlement at Plymouth.]
After a tempestuous voyage of sixty-three days, the Mayflower coasted along Cape Cod, and landed, on the twenty-first day of December, at Plymouth. The Speedwell had been forced to put back in a disabled condition. Before landing, the Puritans made a solemn compact of government, purely republican in form, and to this they afterwards religiously adhered.