dazzling exploits of Hawkins, Drake, and Cavendish, and sent to the
sea scores of English privateers; and it was the same motives which
stimulated Gilbert in 1576, eighty-four years after the Spaniards had
taken possession, in his grand design of planting a colony in America.
The purpose of Gilbert was to cut into Spanish colonial power, as was
explained by Richard Hakluyt in his _Discourse on Western Planting_,
written in 1584: "If you touche him [the king of Spain] in the Indies,
you touche the apple of his eye; for take away his treasure, which is
_neruus belli_, and which he hath almoste oute of his West Indies, his
olde bandes of souldiers will soone be dissolved, his purposes
defeated, his power and strengthe diminished, his pride abated, and
his tyranie utterly suppressed."[5]

Still, while English colonization at first sprang out of rivalry with
Spain and was late in beginning, England's claims in America were
hardly later than Spain's. Christopher Columbus at first hoped, in his
search for the East Indies, to sail under the auspices of Henry VII.
Only five years later, in 1497, John Cabot, under an English charter,
reached the continent of North America in seeking a shorter route by
the northwest; and in 1498, with his son Sebastian Cabot, he repeated
his visit. But nothing important resulted from these voyages, and
after long neglect their memory was revived by Hakluyt,[6] only to
support a claim for England to priority in discovery.

Indeed, England was not yet prepared for the work of colonization. Her
commerce was still in its infancy, and did not compare with that of
either Italy, Spain, or Portugal. Neither Columbus nor the Cabots were
Englishmen, and the advantages of commerce were so little understood
in England about this period that the taking of interest for the use
of money was prohibited.[7] A voyage to some mart "within two days'
distance" was counted a matter of great moment by merchant
adventurers.[8]

During the next half-century, only two noteworthy attempts were made
by the English to accomplish the purposes of the Cabots: De Prado
visited Newfoundland in 1527 and Hore in 1535,[9] but neither of the
voyages was productive of any important result. Notwithstanding,
England's commerce made some advancement during this period. A
substantial connection between England and America was England's
fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland; though used by other European
states, over fifty English shi