even in peace, an uninterrupted course of petty aggression and encroachment. In 1684, a twenty years' truce, concluded at Ratisbon, confirmed to France several places pilfered from Spain and Austria since the peace of Nimeguen.

The question of succession was the subject of the most audacious intrigues. On Oct. 2, 1700, Charles signed a will in favor of Philip of Anjou; and on Nov. 3 this unfortunate monarch expired. His reign had been generally disastrous. He left Spain

sunk to the very extremity of imbecile weakness. His losses to France have been already stated; and

in Africa the Puerto de Mamora was conquered from him by the Turks. In America only his dominions remained unimpaired; but the tributary wealth annually furnished by the New World to Spain had to Charles proved wholly unavailing, and had moreover been frequently intercepted by French cruisers.

In the year 1699, Portugal first began to derive similar supplies of the precious metals from Brazil, the chief wealth of which had till then been sugar and dye-woods. The rich gold mines of that region were casually discovered by some wandering, outlawed criminals.

W

E have now to deal with the discovery of a New World, of a world whose existence was never suspected by most men. Look at a map of the world as it really is, and at one of the world as it was then supposed to be, and a "New World" is indeed revealed to us!

Before the end of the fifteenth century, the only nations of Europe that had made much progress in seamanship were the Portuguese and the Italians. The Portuguese were the most enterprising voyagers, and had sailed along the coast of Africa and to the Canary Islands. But the Italians seem to have been the most scientific geographers and the most far-seeing about the unknown portions of the world. There does not, however, seem to have been much zeal about voyages of discovery in Italy itself, and all the great Italian navigators of that age made their discoveries in the ships of other countries. Of these navigators Christopher Columbus was the first and greatest. Whether he hoped by sailing to the west to discover a new continent, or only to get a direct route to Eastern Asia, it is hard to say. Whatever his scheme may have been, he had no small trouble to obtain the means for trying it; for after spending some eight years in seeking to persuade various sovereigns and great men to employ him in a voyage of discovery, he at last with great difficulty got what he wanted from the sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella. On the 3d of August, 1492, he sailed with three ships, and on the 12th of October landed on the island which the Spaniards afterwards called Hispaniola and we now St. Domingo. A town was subsequently founded

and named San Salvador, and Spanish settlements soon spread over the island. But it was about twenty years before they extended to the neighboring islands or 'he mainland.

The next great discovery was made four years later. In 1497, Sebastian Cabot, a Genoese by descent, but born and bred in England, set sail from Bristol with a ship manned by Englishmen, and discovered Newfoundland and all the coast north of Florida. Thus, though Columbus discovered the islands, Cabot was the first European who is known for certain to have sailed to the mainland of America. On the strength of his voyage, England for a long while after put forward a special claim to the land to which he had sailed. In that age it was customary for such adventurers to obtain a patent from the sovereign of the country from which the, sailed. This patent was a document giving various privileges, such as the right of importing merchandise free of duty, and often granting some authority over any land that might be discovered. Cabot had obtained such a patent before his first voyage, and on his return he procured a fresh one, and made a second voyage, of which no details are known. In 1501 three Bristol merchants and three Portuguese obtained a patent from the English king, and it seems likely that some voyages were made about this time, but nothing certain is known of them. In any case, it did not seem as if England was likely to take a leading part in the settlement of America -for at that time she was quite unfit for any great undertakings on the sea. She had no large ships or skilful seamen, and, except a few boats that sailed north for fish from Bristol and other ports in the

west, all her merchandise was carried in foreign vessels. And Henry VII., who then reigned, was a cautious and somewhat miserly king, and very unlikely to risk anything for an uncertain return. So, looking at all the nations of Europe, it seemed as if Spain alone was likely to do anything important in America. The Portuguese were taken up with their voyages to the coast of Africa, and the French were fully occupied at home. For though in 1524 Verrazzani, another Italian navigator, was sent out by the king of France, Francis I., and made great discoveries on the American coast, yet France was too much taken up with her fierce and protracted war with Spain for these discoveries to be followed further. Thus during the sixteenth century France had very little to do with the colonization of America. There were moreover many things in the character and temper of the Spaniards, which specially fitted them for such a task. For many years they had been engaged in almost continuous wars with the Moors, and this had given them a great love of adventure for its own sake, and a great desire for preaching Christianity to the heathen, and, if necessary, for forcing them to accept it. And it required some strong passions like these to make men face all the dangers which lay before them in the New World.

For the first twenty years the Spaniards kept almost entirely to Hispaniola; and only a few unimportant settlements were made on the mainland or on the neighboring islands, and most of them were not regular settlements, but only stations for pearl fishing. It was not until 1518 that any great attempt was made on the mainland.

In that year,

Velasquez, the governor of Hispaniola, sent out a small fleet to explore the mainland. This fleet not returning as soon as expected, he sent out a larger expedition, composed of about five hundred and fifty Spaniards and three hundred Indians. The command of this expedition was given to Hernando Cortez (see Mexico, p. 263), a man of thirty-three, who had distinguished himself by courage and sagacity. Soon after he reached the mainland he got tidings of the great empire and city of Mexico. Learning that the people were heathens and had quantities of gold, he resolved to disregard his orders, and with his small force to march to the city and compel the people to become Christians, and acknowledge the supremacy of Spain.

made allies of the nations by the way, subduing some by arms and persuading others, and causing all of them to be baptized. Cortez, with five hundred and fifty Spaniards-his allies were worthless -marched into the city of Mexico. There he established himself, and was at first received by the people as the friend of their emperor, and dwelt in one of the palaces, and after a little compelled the emperor himself to live there as a sort of state prisoner. The Mexicans soon resented this, and open war broke out. After various changes of fortune, and being once driven out of the city, in 1521 Cortez finally conquered Mexico. He had by this time received more than one reinforcement from home, but these only filled the places of those whom he had lost, so that at the last he had less than six hundred Spaniards with whom to conquer the great empire. He had three immense advantages— horses, fire-arms, and was a captain of consummate ability.

To conquer such an empire with such a force was a wonderful exploit, but there were many things which made it even more wonderful than it seems. For Cortez had no authority from the governor of Hispaniola for what he was doing, and was in constant dread of being recalled. One Narvaez was actually sent out with a fresh force to bring him back. But Cortez defeated Narvaez and joined this force to his own, and so turned what was meant for a hindrance into a help. Not only was his force small, but the men were such as he could hardly trust; nor was there anything in the former deeds of Cortez to put his soldiers in awe of him, or to give them confidence in his success. So little faith, indeed, had he in their loyalty, that he sunk his fleet to guard against any chance of their deserting him. The Tlascalans, too, and the other native allies, were but an uncertain support, and apt to fail him when things went badly with him and he most needed their aid. But what was more wonderful still, and far more honorable to Cortez, was that he not only conquered Mexico, but having conquered it, ruled it well, and protected the natives against the Spaniards. Not indeed that he, any more than the rest of his countrymen, was perfectly free from blame. In establishing his power, he did things which we in this day should deem atrociously cruel.. But these were all done in establishing Christianity and Spanish rule, things

which Cortez firmly believed to be for the good of the Mexicans. They were not done, like many of the Spanish cruelties elsewhere, from lust of gold or in mere wantonness. Moreover, after the war had once begun, the Mexicans, unlike the natives elsewhere, provoked the Spaniards by acts of great ferocity. When we consider what it is to keep men in order who have just won a great victory, and are all claiming their reward, and how completely the other Spanish conquerors failed in this matter, we see that Cortez was something far more than a mighty general. Through his efforts the state of the natives was always far better in Mexico than in the other Spanish provinces.

CONQUEST OF PERU.

The conquest of Peru, which occurred immediately after that of Mexico, gave Spain possession of South America. In 1512, one Vasco Nuñez, called Balboa, a man of great wisdom and courage, had set forth from Darien, one of the earliest Spanish settlements on the east coast, and marched across the Isthmus of Panama, and had gazed on the Pacific Ocean. He was, however, executed as a traitor by the governor of Darien, and his marchings went for nothing. Francis Pizarro, in 1525, a kinsman of Cortez, undertook an expedition south. He sailed along the west coast and landed in the territory of Peru, and in about nine years completely overthrew the Peruvian empire. Pizarro failed as a ruler. He was murdered by conspirators; the settlers fought amongst themselves and the foreign. governors, and it was twenty years before the country was reduced to any kind of order.

Hitherto the islands had been the great centre of all activity and enterprise among the Spanish settlers. But now the islands became less important, and Mexico and Peru served as two fresh startingpoints from which discoveries and conquests were made. In 1512 one Ponce de Leon had explored Florida in search of a fountain whose water was supposed to give endless life. But instead of finding the fountain, he was killed nine years later by the natives. During the next thirty years the Spaniards made other expeditions into Florida, but they all ended unluckily, either through the hostility of the natives or the difficulties of the country.

In 1562 the first attempt was made by another European nation to follow the example of Spain.

A number of French Protestants settled on the coast of Florida. Many of them were disorderly and lawless, and a party of these got possession of two ships without the leave of Laudonnière, the governor, and betook themselves to piracy. The colony was soon exposed to dangers from without as well as from within. The Spanish king Philip, a bigoted Roman Catholic, resolved not to suffer a Protestant colony to settle on the coast of America, and sent out one Menendez to destroy the French town and establish a Spanish one in its place. He obeyed his orders, fell upon the French and massacred nearly all of them, and founded a Spanish town, which he named St. Augustine. Two years later this massacre was avenged by a French captain, Dominic de Gourgues. At his own expense he fitted out a fleet and sailed to Florida. There he surprised the Spanish settlement, and put to death the greater part of the inhabitants. But this success was not followed up by the French, and Spain kept possession of the country. After this St. Augustine continued to be the furthermost point occupied by the Spaniards in that direction. Two voyages of discovery were made towards the north, but nothing came of them, and all the coast beyond Florida was left open to fresh settlers. The Spaniards were fully taken up with their exploits in the south, and had no leisure for exploring the country where they were no gold mines and no great empires or cities to be conquered.

While all these things were being done, it seemed as if England was not about to take any part in the settlement of the New World. Only one or two voyages had been made thither, and these had been so disastrous that there was very little encouragement to others to follow. In 1527 one Albert de Prado, a foreign priest living in England, sailed out with two ships. We know that the voyagers reached Newfoundland, since letters still exist sent home thence by them; but after that nothing more is known of them. In 1536 another expedition set out, commanded by one Hore, a gentleman of London. This voyage is somewhat remarkable, not for anything that was accomplished, but because it seems to have been the first of any importance that Englishmen undertook entirely without foreign help. Landing far north, they suffered great hardships, and were on the very point of killing and cating one of their own number, but were saved by the appearance of a French ship well victualled. This

they seized, and so returned to England. Such a voyage was not likely to encourage Englishmen to pursue adventure in America, and for some time we hear of no more attempts. But in the meantime a great deal was being done towards fitting England to play her part in the settlement of America. During the past eighty years trade had increased greatly, as is shown by the number of commercial treaties with foreign towns, and of corporations of English merchants in many of the great European cities, and foreign trade was almost sure to bring the pursuit of navigation with it. Moreover, Henry VIII. did a great deal to further this. For though his misdeeds in other ways were very great, yet, when his passions did not lead him astray, he was a wise king, and one that sought the good of his country; and he clearly saw that the strength of England must lie in her ships. And all those great deeds that were done by Englishmen in the reign of his daughter Elizabeth, both on the seas and in distant lands, were in a great measure due to Henry's energy and foresight. For he not only built large ships, but he saw that ships, however good, would be useless without skilled seamen; and he founded three colleges on the model of one that already existed in Spain to train up pilots and sailors. Though this bore no great fruit in his life-time, the good of it was seen in the next generation; for in 1549, in the reign of Henry's son Edward, Sebastian Cabot, who, as we have seen, was the first great English navigator, was made Grand Pilot of England, and planned immense enterprises. English ships soon began to sail in every quarter, and England became as great on the sea as either Portugal or Spain. Voyages were made to Guinea to trade in gold and precious stones, and unhappily too in negro slaves. And great discoveries were made in the northern seas. For English ships sailed round the northern point of Norway and to Archangel, and Englishmen travelled by this way to the Russian court at Moscow, and even to Persia. yet nothing was done in the direction of America. When at last a voyage was made thither, it was rather by chance than by design. For, in 1576, Martin Frobisher, a west-country sea captain, sailed northward, thinking to find a passage to Asia round the nothern coast of America. He did not, however, get further than that gulf to the north of Labrador called Frobisher Straits. But though he

But as

failed in his main object, he brought back what was more valued than even a passage to Asia would have been. A stone which he had found was reputed to contain gold. The stories of the Spanish conquest had set England, like all the rest of Europe, mad after gold; and immediately a company was formed to explore the supposed gold country. Frobisher was sent out again and came back with a great cargo of what was believed to be ore. Queen Elizabeth then took up the scheme. A third and larger expedition was sent out in fifteen ships, and it was arranged that a hundred men should be left there to form a settlement. The expedition proved a dead failure.

By this time there was a fresh motive for English voyages to America. From the beginning of Elizabeth's reign many Englishmen of good family had sailed the seas as pirates, especially attacking Spanish ships. And as English seamen became more skilful, they ventured to harass the Spanish settlements on the coast of America, and to cut off the Spanish fleets as they came and went.

In 1578, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a west-country gentleman of great learning and wisdom, resolved to plant an English settlement on the coast of America, to serve as a sort of outpost from which to attack the Spanish fleets. The first expedition proved a fiasco. Four years later he was more successful, for he reached America, landed on the coast of Newfoundland, and took possession of the country in the queen's name. He made no attempt at settlement, for his men were lawless and three of his ships were lost: the Squirrel, of ten tons-think of this, ye who travel in the ocean palaces of to-day -being one, the ship in which Gilbert himself had sailed. One ship remained, and in this he returned to England.

Gilbert's scheme was taken up by a man fitter for such a task. His half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, was probably the greatest Englishman in an age unusually rich in great men. There certainly have been many better men, and there have been men too who were greater in one special way. But there scarcely ever has been anyone equally distinguished in so many different ways. Of the various careers open to a man in that day-learning, war, statesmanship, navigation-Raleigh pursued all, and ex-celled in all. As colonization was one of the great undertakings possible in that age, Raleigh entered