of this document is, as I said, 1585, and I believe it
generally accurate. The only mistake is that among the Anglican
Catholics there were a few to whom their country was as dear as their
creed--a few who were beginning to see that under the Act of Uniformity
Catholic doctrine might be taught and Catholic ritual practised; who
adhered to the old forms of religion, but did not believe that obedience
to the Pope was a necessary part of them. One of these was Lord Howard
of Effingham, whom the Queen placed in his high command to secure the
wavering fidelity of the peers and country gentlemen. But the force, the
fire, the enthusiasm came (as the Jesuit saw) from the Puritans, from
men of the same convictions as the Calvinists of Holland and Rochelle;
men who, driven from the land, took to the ocean as their natural home,
and nursed the Reformation in an ocean cradle. How the seagoing
population of the North of Europe took so strong a Protestant impression
it is the purpose of these lectures to explain.

Henry VIII. on coming to the throne found England without a fleet, and
without a conscious sense of the need of one. A few merchant hulks
traded with Bordeaux and Cadiz and Lisbon; hoys and fly-boats drifted
slowly backwards and forwards between Antwerp and the Thames. A fishing
fleet tolerably appointed went annually to Iceland for cod. Local
fishermen worked the North Sea and the Channel from Hull to Falmouth.
The Chester people went to Kinsale for herrings and mackerel: but that
was all--the nation had aspired to no more.

Columbus had offered the New World to Henry VII. while the discovery was
still in the air. He had sent his brother to England with maps and
globes, and quotations from Plato to prove its existence. Henry, like a
practical Englishman, treated it as a wild dream.

The dream had come from the gate of horn. America was found, and the
Spaniard, and not the English, came into first possession of it. Still,
America was a large place, and John Cabot the Venetian with his son
Sebastian tried Henry again. England might still be able to secure a
slice. This time Henry VII. listened. Two small ships were fitted out at
Bristol, crossed the Atlantic, discovered Newfoundland, coasted down to
Florida looking for a passage to Cathay, but could not find one. The
elder Cabot died; the younger came home. The expedition failed, and no
interest had been roused.

With the accession of Henry VIII. a new era had opened--a n