Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/293

 THE ERA OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR 281 was laying the foundations of a great nation on the other side of the Atlantic. American colonisation began, as we have already seen, in Virginia; but it received a fresh impulse The from the persecution by the Crown of the Puritans, American the advanced reformers who were not satisfied with Colonies - the changes in doctrine and ceremonial which had been sanctioned in the Church in England. Forbidden at home to deviate from authorised practice, the Puritans obtained leave to plant colonies to the north of Virginia, where they were at liberty to follow their own devices ; and thus the New England group of colonies was established, starting from Massachusetts ; while again to the north, French colonists were establishing themselves in Acadia, afterwards called Nova Scotia, and beyond the St. Lawrence in Canada. In the course of time English colonists occupied the whole seaboard between Florida on the south and Novs. Scotia on the north. Holland also, as we may now call the Dutch Republic of the United Netherlands, which had shaken off the yoke of Spain, had developed colonial enterprises, so that in the eastern seas she held the foremost position. Holland was a republic ; but the house of Orange provided her with a series of Stadtholders or Governors of great ability, and the government might really be described as a limited monarchy. Shortly before the death of Charles 1. of England, the young stadtholder William 11. allied himself to a royal house by marry- ing Charles's daughter Mary. Not long afterwards William was foiled in an attempt to make himself king, and during the long minority of the son, born after his death, who ultimately be- came William Hi. of England as well as of Orange, Holland was vigorously republican under the guidance of the Grand Pensionary, John de Witt. The connection of the young Prince of Orange with the Royal House of England, whose kings Charles 11. and James 11. were his uncles, had a marked influence on international politics especially after the English Restoration. Although Holland was independent after 1609, her status as an independent nation was not fully and formally recognised until the Peace of Westphalia, when the independence of