ussion of the English interest in colonization at
the opening of the seventeenth century is in Beer's _The Origins of the
British Colonial System_, chaps. I-III. The most elaborate and learned
account of the colonies in the seventeenth century is that of Osgood,
_The American Colonies in the 17th Century_, 3 vols. Macmillan, 1904.
The most readable account of the founding of Virginia is in Fiske's _Old
Virginia and Her Neighbours_, I chaps. I-VI. John Smith's account of the
settlement of Jamestown is in his _True Relation_, printed in Arber,
_Works of Captain John Smith_. Birmingham, 1884.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Pesos_=approximately $3.00.

CHAPTER III

THE ENGLISH MIGRATION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

_They are too delicate and unfitte to beginne new Plantations and
Collonies, that cannot endure the biting of a muskeeto._

WILLIAM BRADFORD.

_To authorize an untruth, by toleration of State, is to build a
sconce against the Walls of Heaven, to batter God out of his
chair._

_The Cobler of Aggawam._

_I have often wondered in my younger dayes how the Pope came to
such a height of arogancie, but since I came to New England I have
perceived the height of that tripple crowne, and also the depth of
that sea._

SAMUEL GORTON.

I

Those who looked to America for great financial profit or immediate
political advantage were disappointed. The seventeenth century had run
half its course before the colonies became an important asset to the
English Government: no gold came from them to enrich its treasury, few
supplies to furnish its navy, while the revenue, derived from its slowly
growing trade was insignificant. Equally deceptive was the New World as
a field for corporate exploitation. The sagacity of Thomas Smythe and
the idealism of Edwin Sandys were alike unavailing. Before the Virginia
Company was dissolved in 1624 it had sunk nearly two hundred thousand
pounds in its venture "withoutt returne either of profitt or of any part
of the principall"; and in 1660 Lord Baltimore, whose colony was well
established, was himself living in straitened circumstances.

Yet within sixty years after the Susan Constant entered the James River,
seven colonies were firmly planted on the coast of North America:
Virginia and Maryland to the south; Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth,
Connecticut and Rhode Island, in New England; and between the two groups
of English settle