for every person who laid out his money in the first enterprise, a hundred would invest in the second if the first had shown that even to a small extent the anticipation of gain had not been groundless. A full knowledge of this fact impelled Gilbert and the representatives of Raleigh in Virginia to display so much anxiety to discover indications of the precious metals in their several territories; such a discovery would have at once rendered it easy for these two great men to obtain not only all the funds which they needed for the establishment of their colonies, but also the whole number of settlers required for population.[1]
At no period in the history of the world has the thirst for gold been more fervid and inordinate than it was in the age of Elizabeth. The spread of the Spanish dominion in the southern portion of the Western Hemisphere had thrown the fullest light upon the wealth of the New World, and the knowledge of this wealth, which surpassed the most opulent dreams of the East., had excited the imaginations of men and made more feverish their desire for individual gain. Upon the English popular mind the success of the Spaniards in securing in such vast quantities the gold and silver of tropical America had made a profound impression, which revealed itself in a practical form in the voyages of English fleets to the Spanish Main for the purpose of sacking Spanish cities, or intercepting the Spanish ships transporting to Cadiz the glittering treasures of Peru and Mexico and the West Indies. The booty seized in these expeditions was often enormous. The less aggressive spirits were satisfied to have a chance of obtaining gold and silver by venturing
- ↑ The history of the State of California and the colony of Victoria in Australia in recent times gives us some notion as to the increase of population which would probably have followed the discovery of gold in Virginia in the seventeenth century.
