s
not warrantable, which would better beseeme our own walles and borders
to bee spread with such branches, that their native countrey and not
forreine Princes might reape their fruit, as being both exquisite
Navigators, and resolute men for service, as any the world affords."[1-5]

It must be remembered that the merchant vessel three hundred years ago
constituted an important part of the nation's sea defence. The fleet
which met the mighty Spanish Armada in the Channel and inflicted upon it
so decisive a defeat, was made up in large part of volunteer ships from
every English port. And the Britisher knew full well that the merchant
marine constituted the "wooden walls" of his country, knew that its
decay would leave England almost defenseless. At the moment when one
able writer was pointing out that "the Realme of England is an Island
impossible to be otherwise fortified than by stronge shippes," another
was complaining that there were scarce two vessels of 100 tons belonging
to the whole city of Bristol, and few or none along the Severn from
Gloucester to Land's End on one side, and to Milford Haven on the
other.[1-6]

For this intolerable situation there could be but one remedy--England
must secure colonial possessions to supply her with the products for
which her forests were no longer sufficient. Her bold navigators had
already crossed the Atlantic, returning with alluring stories of the
limitless resources of the New World, of mighty forests spreading in
unbroken array for hundreds of miles along the coast and back into the
interior as far as the eye could see.[1-7] Why, it was asked, should
Englishmen be forced to make the hazardous journey to the Baltic in
order to procure from other nations what they might easily have for
themselves by taking possession of some of the limitless unoccupied
areas of America? It was folly to remain in economic bondage while the
road to independence stretched so invitingly before them.

Long before the Goodspeed, the Discovery and the Sarah Constant turned
their prows into the waters of the James, able English writers were
urging upon the nation the absolute necessity for colonial expansion. In
1584 the farseeing Hakluyt pointed out that the recent voyage of Sir
Humphrey Gilbert had proved that "pitche, tarr, rosen, sope ashes" could
be produced in America in great plenty, "yea, as it is thought, ynoughe
to serve the whole realme."[1-8] Captain Christopher Carleill had the
previou