Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/262

 204 ENGLAND'S ATTEMPTS TO KEACH INDIA with conquests of that kind. Or, when we would en- large ourselves, let it be that way we can, and to which it seems the eternal providence has destined us, which is by sea. The Indies are discovered, and vast treasure is brought from thence every day. Let us, therefore, bend our endeavours thitherwards; and if the Spaniards and Portuguese suffer us not to join with them, there will yet be region enough for all to enjoy." For these state- ments we have no less an authority than Lord Herbert in the sixteenth century. From the outset, therefore, the Indies formed the goal of English maritime enterprise in the sixteenth century. The efforts to reach that goal by a northwest or a northeast passage I have already described. But Elizabeth did not confine her attempts to the north alone. As far back as 1553 English ships began to make their way to the coast of Guinea an infringe- ment of Portuguese rights profitable to the Portuguese themselves, and placed on a treaty basis in 1572. The occasional seizures and reprisals which followed did not seriously disturb the amity of the two nations; and England's friendship on the Newfoundland bank was worth some concessions in the South. For the English had the best ships engaged in the Atlantic fisheries, and, although in 1577 they numbered but fifteen as against fifty Portuguese and a hundred Spanish, they were said to give the law to the rest. Elizabeth's diplomacy enabled her adventurers to push not only southwards by Guinea, but also eastwards through the Mediterranean. In 1577, according to Sir