Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/27

 ECONOMIC HISTORY OF VIRGINIA

CHAPTER I

REASONS FOR THE COLONIZATION OF VIRGINIA

age of Elizabeth was for some reasons the most memorable in the history of English commerce. The great outburst of literary genius, which reflects so much splendor upon the closing years of the reign of that justly celebrated queen, was hardly more remarkable than the daring commercial spirit which, during the same period, pushed its ventures as far to the south as Guinea, to the north as Archangel, to the east as India and Persia, and to the west as Newfoundland and Roanoke. Hawkins and Drake, Cumberland and Raleigh, in their incursions upon the Spanish dominions in America, were really promoting the growth of a legitimate English foreign trade, not only in checking the power of the Spanish king by the destruction of his cities and fleets, but also in accustoming the English people to distant lands hitherto unknown or unregarded, although eminently fitted by nature to become the scene of an active and lucrative commerce. Some of the expeditions sent out combined purposes of barter and discovery with colonization, but whenever colonization was also designed, it was to enlarge the volume of English trade.