Page:The Rise of American Civilization (Volume 1).djvu/24

 above a motley crew of many nationalities and made the fateful voyage of 1492 that discovered America. It was a Portuguese, Vasco da Gama, who rounded the Cape of Good Hope with the banner of Portugal flying at his masthead, visited the markets of India, and brought back treasure and tales that filled all Europe with commotions.

Before a single English sea captain dared the wide Atlantic, the impetuous Spaniard held in fee the West Indies, ruled huge empires on two American continents, and laid claims to fair domains in the Orient. More than half a century before Francis Drake bore Queen Elizabeth's pennant round the world, the expedition of the indomitable Portuguese, Magellan, under Spanish patronage, on the most perilous voyage in the annals of the sea, had circumnavigated the globe. When Henry VII, stirring from his insular lethargy for a brief moment, bethought himself in 1497 of high adventure beyond the Atlantic, it was an Italian, John Cabot, who took charge of the king's ships, directed the voyage that skirted the shores of Labrador, and gave England her lawyer's claim to the North American continent.

Three years previous to the planting of the first successful English post in America at Jamestown, the French had established a permanent colony at Port Royal on the banks of the Annapolis. Long before a single English ship had plowed the waters of the Indian Ocean or threaded its way among the spice islands of the golden East, the resolute Dutch had visited a hundred Indian ports, established trading factories, and planted the outposts of empire. Slowly indeed did the idea dawn in the minds of Englishmen that, while other nations might carry goods, religion, culture, and the sword across the ocean, they themselves could found great states, occupied and governed mainly by people of their own stock.