arts of Continental Europe. After a few
feeble and unsuccessful efforts by England, under Henry the Seventh, to
plant colonies in America, no designs of that kind were prosecuted for a
long period, either by the English government or any of its subjects.
Without inquiring into the causes of this delay, its consequences are
sufficiently clear and striking. England, in this lapse of a century,
unknown to herself, but under the providence of God and the influence of
events, was fitting herself for the work of colonizing North America, on
such principles, and by such men, as should spread the English name and
English blood, in time, over a great portion of the Western hemisphere.
The commercial spirit was greatly fostered by several laws passed in
the reign of Henry the Seventh; and in the same reign encouragement was
given to arts and manufactures in the eastern counties, and some not
unimportant modifications of the feudal system took place, by allowing
the breaking of entails. These and other measures, and other
occurrences, were making way for a new class of society to emerge, and
show itself, in a military and feudal age; a middle class, between the
barons or great landholders and the retainers of the crown, on the one
side, and the tenants of the crown and barons, and agricultural and
other laborers, on the other side. With the rise and growth of this new
class of society, not only did commerce and the arts increase, but
better education, a greater degree of knowledge, juster notions of the
true ends of government, and sentiments favorable to civil liberty,
began to spread abroad, and become more and more common. But the plants
springing from these seeds were of slow growth. The character of English
society had indeed begun to undergo a change; but changes of national
character are ordinarily the work of time. Operative causes were,
however, evidently in existence, and sure to produce, ultimately, their
proper effect. From the accession of Henry the Seventh to the breaking
out of the civil wars, England enjoyed much greater exemption from war,
foreign and domestic, than for a long period before, and during the
controversy between the houses of York and Lancaster. These years of
peace were favorable to commerce and the arts. Commerce and the arts
augmented general and individual knowledge; and knowledge is the only
fountain, both of the love and the principles of human liberty.

Other powerful causes soon came into acti