Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/36

 London, declared that the purposes the plantation was designed to accomplish were to enrich the nation by the discovery and development of mines and other natural sources of wealth; to enlarge the navy by increasing the demand for vessels and mariners, which would also strengthen the defences of the kingdom; to lessen the dependence of the English people upon foreign countries for certain commodities by their production in Virginia; to draw off the surplus population, this being now so great as to lead to many disorders; and finally to wipe away the stain inflicted upon the reputation of England by the refusal of Henry VII to accept the proposals of Columbus.

William Strachey, in a like manner, summed up the reasons that should lead the English people to give their active support to the colonization of Virginia, declaring that it was a fertile and spacious country which would afford the amplest room and the most abundant sustenance for the growing multitude of those inhabitants of England who passed their lives in idleness and destitution; that it would offer a secure harbor for English ships in case England and Spain went to war and those seas became the scene of battle; that it would furnish the English ship-yards with a vast quantity of the finest timber, which could now be purchased only of foreign countries and at exorbitant rates; that it would pour into the lap of England a constant stream of the precious metals; and that it would assure the discovery of the nearest route to the South Sea. It will be seen from this testimony that the