hile every sailor-captain discovered new rivers, new
gulfs, and new islands, and went in search of new north-west passages,
while the rovers, freebooters, privateers and buccaneers, put out in
their crazy, ill-found craft, to rob and slay the Spaniard; while the
mystery of the unknown still lay upon it; long after the mystery had
mostly gone out of it, save for the mystery of the Aztec; it remained
the Land of Romance when New England was fully settled and Virginia
already an old colony; it was the English Land of Romance while King
George's redcoats fought side by side with the colonials, to drive the
French out of the continent for ever.

We have had India, as well. Surely, in the splendid story of the long
struggle with France for the Empire of the East, in the achievements
of our soldiers, in the names of Clive, Lawrence, Havelock; in the
setting of the piece, so to speak, in its people, its wisdom, its
faith, its cities, its triumphs, its costumes, its gold and silver and
precious stones and costly stuffs--there is material wherewith to
create a romance of its own, sufficient to fire the blood and stir the
pulse and light the eye. Or, we have had Australia, New Zealand, the
Cape of Good Hope; coral isles, strongholds, fortresses, islands here,
and great slices and cantles of continent there. We have had all these
possessions, but round none of these places has there grown up the
romance which clung to the shores of America, from the mouth of the
Orinoco round the Spanish Main, and from Florida to Labrador. This
romance formerly belonged to the whole of our people. In their
imaginations--in their dreams--they turned to America. There came a
time when this romance was destroyed violently and suddenly, and,
apparently, for ever. In another shape it has grown up again, for some
of us; it is taking fresh root in some hearts, and putting forth new
branches with new blossoms, to bear new fruit. America may become,
once more, the Land of Romance to the Englishman. I say with intent,
the Englishman. For, if you consider, it was the Englishman, not the
Scot or the Irishman, who discovered America by means of John Cabot
and his Bristol merchants--not to speak of Leif, the son of Eric, or
of Madoc, the Welshman. It was the Englishman, not the Scot or the
Irishman, who fought the Spaniard; who sent planters to Barbadoes; who
settled colonists and convicts in Virginia; from England, not from
Ireland or Scotland, went forth the P