Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/523

 Co7iditiotis surrounding Settlement of Virginia 513 amytie with us, paying such tributes and droytes as may belong to their traffique, yet at the instant request of the said king, made to us by his ambassador, we be pleased for this tyme to admonish all manner our subjects to forbeare anie entry by navigation into any said ports of Ethiopia in which the said king hath presently dominion and tribute.' Many changes occurred in the next twenty-five years, and when all the possessions of the Portuguese had come into the hands of the king of Spain and war had broken out between them and the queen, there was no longer any reason for such self-restraint, so that in 1588 the first Guinea or African Company was chartered. In 1589 a petition was laid before Lord Treasurer Burleigh asking for the queen's authorization to a group of adventurers to estab- lish a trade in the Far East, on the ground that " the Portugales of long tyme have traded the East Indies and the countries to them adjoyning to the great benefytte and enriching of themselves and their countrie . . . and the tyme doth now ofl:'er greater occazion for the attempting of trade in those countries than at any tyme heretofore yt hath done."- This project resulted in the Raymond and Lancaster expedition to India in 1591 and ultimately in the establishment in 1600 of the East India Company, the most am- bitious of all the chartered companies of the period. In the same year with this petition, however, that is to say 1589, a memorial of even greater boldness, breadth of view, and interest was submitted to the queen. It is headed, " A Discourse of the Commoditie of the taking of the Straight of INIagellan."^ It is based on the anticipated peril to all Europe arising from the possession of both the West and the East Indies b- the king of Spain and his shutting other nations entirely out from both their products and their trade. It proposes that the narrowest part of the Strait of Magellan be occupied and fortified by the English, calmly suggesting that " Clarke the pyrott " may be sent there on promise of pardon, or rather, may " go there as of him selfe and not with the counten- ance of the English state ", and take some cannon and a man skilled in fortification. If later a few good English soldiers are placed there, no doubt " they will soon make subject to them all the golden mines of Peru and all the coste and tract of that firm of America." As additions to the soldiers and the native population may be sent " condemned Englishmen and women in whom there may be found hope of amendment ". Then the author contemplates, probably for the first time, an independent America. " But admitt that we could ' Dyson. Proclamations, No, 34. 2 State Papers, East Indies, I., No. 8. ^ State Papers, Dom., Eliz., ccxxix, 97.