but numerous persons who were deeply interested in maintaining the merchant navy in a high state of prosperity, opposed altogether any measure prohibiting, as had been proposed, the export of British commodities in foreign bottoms. When, however, extremes meet, the necessity of a change becomes apparent, and the unfair advantages so long granted to foreign nations as against English shipping had at length roused the people to adopt those retaliatory measures of legislation which, ignoring Raleigh's sound advice, eventually culminated in the highly protective maritime laws of Cromwell.
Colonising expeditions to North America. But amid the depression which then prevailed, English shipowners did not overlook the advantages to be derived from trading with the newly discovered world of North America. Though the expeditions to that country, promoted by Sir Walter Raleigh and his relations, had terminated disastrously, the merchants of London and Bristol frequently despatched small vessels thither with trinkets and articles of little value, exchanging them profitably for the skins and furs of the native Indians. In 1602 Captain Gosnold[1] made for the first time the voyage direct
- ↑ Captain Gosnold had been employed in several of the previous voyages. He appears to have traded direct with the Indians, in lat. 42°, in peltry, sassafras, and cedar-wood. He was also the first to sow English corn in the Island of Martha's Vineyard (so named by him). In the following year (1603) two ships from Bristol and one from London traded successfully to the same parts (Macpherson, ii. pp. 229-246, etc.). The most remarkable of all these expeditions was that of Captain John Smith, who sailed from London in 1607, and is deservedly considered the real founder of the colony of Virginia (see 'True Travels, Adventures, etc., of Captain John Smith,' Lond. 1627). Captain Smith is the hero of a famous old ballad, called 'The Honor of a London 'Prentice; being an account of his matchless manhood and boyhood.'
