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National Geographic : 1892 Mar 18
Contents
Birth of British Commerce. 7 rocky and rugged, the temperature generally cold, the land un fertile and barren. For these reasons North America was left to the French and English. The French claimed Canada and the whole of the territory of the United States save a narrow strip of land on the Atlantic coast. The French population was small and was made up principally of fur traders and half-breeds; Great Britain held New England, Virginia and the Carolinas. After the first fever of religious colonization had passed, about the commencement of the eighteenth century, there was scarcely any emigration from England to America and but little trade between the two countries. The population of North America was small, its commerce less, with little profit to the European merchants. The country possessed no peculiar advantages for the production of articles of value in foreign markets; there was nothing, therefore, to invite immigration or commerce. The chief inducement to the English to navigate the Atlantic was the hope of capturing the treasure-laden Spanish galleons and the rich Spanish cities. Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other navigators, aided by Queen Elizabeth, with bands of buccaneers, refugees from all countries though mostly Englishmen, explored the re cesses of the Caribbean sea, crossed the isthmus of Panama, and launched their little vessels on the Pacific. In fifteen years they captured five hundred and forty-five treasure ships, sacked many towns, trained the English seamen, and laid the foundation for the navy of Great Britain. The growth of English commerce was slower than that of Spain, Portugal or Holland, and it was not until the middle of the eighteenth century, or two hundred and fifty years after the discovery of America, that she entered upon that career which gave her the control of the ocean. Her commerce was built up by protective laws, founded on the Navigation Act of 1651, which prohibited foreign vessels from carrying to or from England the commerce of any country but its own. These laws were uni versally regarded as among the chief causes and most important bulwarks of the prosperity of Great Britain, and they were con tinued until English ships controlled the carrying trade of the world, and were not finally repealed until 1854. The mechanical devices of Watt, Arkwright, and other great inventors gave to England that supremacy in manufactures which she has ever since retained. The French revolution a
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