TRANSPORTATION AND COLONISATION* 13 the North-west/' and also for the discovery of ^'golde mynes among the icebergs. His instructions directed FroWaher's him to ^' sett on land upon the coast of Friesland vi of the condemned persons which you carie with you, with weapons and vittuaUs such as yon may conveniently spare, to which persons you shall give instructions howe they may by their good behaviour wyn the goodwill of the people of that country, and also learn the state of the same/'* And lastly, the colonists sent out to North America by the Govern- ment of Sweden in 1638, when Fort Christina in Delaware Sweden, was founded, were composed largely of convicts from the prisons of Sweden and Finland. It was natural that this system, once introduced, should Difficulty of be utilised for other purposes* than that of laying the tree MttLs* foundations of new settlements. The difficulty of obtaining free settlers for the work operated long after that stage in the history of a colony had been passed ; and as the de- mand for labonr in the colonies far exceeded the supply, the employment of prisoners became a matter of practical necessity as well as one of State policy. This difficulty was aff ffravated by another influence which Anti- •^ . ®° '^ emigration operated largely in the same direction. Down to a com- theories. paratively recent period, the various States of Europe, so far from suffering from redundant populations, were harassed with the fear of losing that portion of them which formed the main reservoirs of their military strength. One result of this apprehension was a settled aversion to the emigration of able-bodied men to new countries, on the ground that it tended to depopulate the parent State. The "depopulation" theory became a potent factor, espe- "Depopuia. cially in England, in checking the tendency to emigration to the colonies, and continued to be so until the evils of a surplus population had grown into a great national question.t
- Hakluyt Society : The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher, p. 118.
t Poet, p. 440. Digitized by Google
