products of their vast colonial territories, in return for which the English transferred to these two kingdoms a great quantity of merchandise to be disposed of by these nations in America. Twice a year an English fleet sailed to the Spanish and Portuguese ports to make this exchange. Upon the smallest provocation, it was in the power of Spain and Portugal to lay hands upon this fleet and the sailors who manned it, and also upon the vessels of English merchants bound for Italy and Turkey. The prospect of such a seizure was always imminent in the reign of Elizabeth on account of the mutual ill-will felt by the Spanish and English nations even in intervals of peace, and at the time of the formation of the London Company, little had occurred to remove the underlying distrust existing between the two peoples. In addition to the practical drawbacks in the commercial relations with Spain, Italy, and Portugal at this time, there was a sentimental objection of a graver character than the one referred to in connection with the Turkish trade, namely, the English children, servants, and factors who were employed in these Catholic territories, were forced, it was said, to deny their own profession, and were made to acquaint themselves with that which their parents and masters utterly refused, or their own hearts abhorred as a detestable and wicked doctrine. In other words, they were compelled to submit to the Roman Church.[1]
- ↑ Brief and Summary Discourse of Christopher Carlile, Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. III, p. 229. It was characteristic of the sixteenth century that at the very time the Dutch were engaged in their struggle for national independence with the Spanish Power, Dutch fleets made periodical voyages to the Spanish dominions and carried on a lucrative traffic with the merchants of Spain. See Professor Rogers’ Holland in the Story of the Nations Series, p. 163. The strained relations between England and Spain in the reign of Elizabeth do not appear to have affected for any length of time the commercial intercourse of the two nations.
