heir navigators on the coast of Africa, in
India and in the Indian Archipelago. Spain spread her dominion over
Central and South America, and forced the labour of the subject natives
into the gold and silver mines, which seemed in that age the chief prize
of her conquests. France introduced her trade in both the East and West
Indies, and was the first to colonize Canada and the Lower Mississippi.
The Dutch founded New York in 1621; and England, which in boldness of
naval and commercial enterprize had attained high rank in the reign of
Elizabeth, established the thirteen colonies which became the United
States, and otherwise had a full share in all the operations which were
transforming the state of the world. The original disposition of affairs
was destined to be much changed by the fortune of war; and success in
foreign trade and colonization, indeed, called into play other qualities
besides those of naval and military prowess. The products of so many new
countries--tissues, dyes, metals, articles of food, chemical
substances--greatly extended the range of European manufacture. But in
addition to the mercantile faculty of discovering how they were to be
exchanged and wrought into a profitable trade, their use in arts and
manufactures required skill, invention and aptitude for manufacturing
labour, and those again, in many cases, were found to depend on abundant
possession of natural materials, such as coal and iron. In old and
populous countries, like India and China, modern manufacture had to meet
and contend with ancient manufacture, and had at once to learn from and
improve economically on the established models, before an opening could
be made for its extension. In many parts of the New World there were
vast tracts of country, without population or with native races too wild
and savage to be reclaimed to habits of industry, whose resources could
only be developed by the introduction of colonies of Europeans; and
innumerable experiments disclosed great variety of qualification among
the European nations for the adventure, hardship and perseverance of
colonial life. There were countries which, whatever their fertility of
soil or favour of climate, produced nothing for which a market could be
found; and products such as the sugar-cane and the seed of the cotton
plant had to be carried from regions where they were indigenous to other
regions where they might be successfully cultivated, and the art of
planting had to pass