The Old World, the New World, and the Creation of the Modern World, 1400–1650 Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Original Source Material
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter One Beginnings: Europe and the Wider World
- Chapter Two Expansion: The Old World and a New World
- Chapter Three Spain Ascendant: Conquest and Colonization
- Chapter Four Interlopers: Pirates, Traders, Trappers, Missionaries
- Chapter Five Profit and Piety: The English Settlements
- Chapter Six The Sea and the Land: Open Space, Abundance, Frontier
- Index
Chapter Five - Profit and Piety: The English Settlements
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 September 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Original Source Material
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter One Beginnings: Europe and the Wider World
- Chapter Two Expansion: The Old World and a New World
- Chapter Three Spain Ascendant: Conquest and Colonization
- Chapter Four Interlopers: Pirates, Traders, Trappers, Missionaries
- Chapter Five Profit and Piety: The English Settlements
- Chapter Six The Sea and the Land: Open Space, Abundance, Frontier
- Index
Summary
And the diminishing of [the Spanish] forces by sea is to be done either by open hostility, or by some deceptive means, as by giving license under letters patent to discover and inhabit some strange place, … by which means the doing of the contrary shall be imputed to the executor's fault, your Highness's letters patent being a manifest show that it was not your Majesty's pleasure so to have it. After the public notice of which fact, your Majesty is either to avow or to disavow both them and the fact, as league breakers, leaving them to pretend it as done without your knowledge …
—Sir Humphrey Gilbert to Queen Elizabeth I (November 6, 1577)Oh, that you did see my daily and hourly sighs, groans, and tears, and thumps that I afford mine own breast, and rue and curse the time of my birth, with holy Job. I thought no head had been able to hold so much water as hath and doth daily flow from mine eyes.
—Richard Freethorne to his parents in England from Virginia (April 3, 1623)We shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are upon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdraw his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a by word through the world, wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the ways of god …
—John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” sermon on board the Arbella en route to America (1630)The English in North America
Cabot, Frobisher and Hawkins had all sailed in American waters for England. Yet none had taken serious steps toward creating permanent settlements on the North American continent. Perhaps the first Englishman to advocate such activities was Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a gentleman from the West Country near the small ports of Bristol, Dartmouth, Exeter, Plymouth and Southampton—that part of England where many sailors and explorers made their homes.
Gilbert was an adventurer with many interests (including alchemy) who had participated in English colonization of Ireland (where he displayed his capacity for brutality in suppressing a rebellion of the “wild Irish”), and the author of lengthy tracts.
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- The Old World, the New World, and the Creation of the Modern World, 1400–1650An Interpretive History, pp. 139 - 182Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2013