Introductory American History Part 9

SPAIN AND ENGLAND. The English at first had no reason to quarrel with the king of Spain. They were friendly to the Netherlanders, who were his subjects. During the Middle Ages they sold great quant.i.ties of wool to the Netherland cities of Bruges, Brussels, and Ghent, and bought fine cloth woven in those towns. The friendship of the ruler of the Netherlands seemed necessary, if this trade was to prosper. It was the trouble about religion which finally made the English and the Spaniards enemies.

HENRY VIII. During the reign of Henry VIII, King of England, the king, the parliament, and the clergy decided to refuse obedience to the pope. The king called himself the head of the Church in England. Lutheran views crept into the country as they had done into the Netherlands, but King Henry at first disliked the Lutherans quite as much as he grew to dislike the pope.

THE ENGLISH CHURCH. So long as Henry lived not much change was made in the beliefs or the manner of worship in the Church. During the short reign of his son, the English Church became more like the Protestant Churches on the Continent, except that in England there were still archbishops and bishops, and the government of the Church went on much as before. When Henry's daughter Mary was made queen she tried to stop these changes, and for a few years her subjects were again obedient to the pope, but she died in 1558 and her half-sister, Elizabeth, became queen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUEEN ELIZABETH]

THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND THE CATHOLICS. In religious matters Queen Elizabeth did much as her father and her brother had done. All persons were forced to attend the religious services carried on in the manner ordered in the prayer-book. Roman Catholics could not hold any government office. They were punished if they tried to persuade others to remain faithful to the older Church. Philip did not like this, but for a time he preferred to be on friendly terms with the English.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COSTUMES AT THE TIME OF ELIZABETH]

QUEEN ELIZABETH. Queen Elizabeth ruled England for forty-five years. The English regard her reign as the most glorious in their history. Before it was over they proved themselves more than a match for the Spaniards on the sea. They also began to seek for routes to the East and to attempt settlements in America. Their trade was increasing. The Greek and Roman writers were studied by English scholars at Oxford and Cambridge. Books and poems and plays were written which were to make the English language the rival of the languages of Greece and Rome. This was the time when Shakespeare wrote his first plays.

QUESTIONS.

1. Why was it easier to sail toward America from Spain or Portugal than from England?

2. What peoples divided the new world between them? Where did they draw the line of division?

3. Why were the kings of France and Spain rivals? Over what countries did King Charles rule?

4. When did religion become a cause of strife? What king was chiefly injured by such struggles?

5. Who were called "reformers?" By what other names were they called?

6. Who were the leaders of the Catholics? of the Protestants? Who were the Huguenots? What was their leader's name?

7. Why did Philip II and his subjects in the Netherlands quarrel?

8. What was strange about the land in which the Dutch lived? Who was the hero of the Dutch?

9. Why were the English and the Spaniards at first friendly? What king of England refused to obey the pope?

10. Why do Englishmen think Queen Elizabeth a great ruler? How did Elizabeth settle the question of religion?

EXERCISE.

Collect pictures of the Dutch, of their ca.n.a.ls, dikes, and towns.

CHAPTER XIX.

FIRST FRENCH ATTEMPTS TO SETTLE AMERICA.

CARTIER. During the reign of Francis I, the French made the first serious attempts to find a westward route to the Far East and to settle the new lands that seemed to lie directly across the pathway. In 1534 Jacques Cartier was sent with two ships in search of a strait beyond the regions controlled by Spain or Portugal which would lead into the Pacific Ocean. Cartier pa.s.sed around the northern side of Newfoundland and into the broad expanse of water west of it. This he called the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

CARTIER AT MONTREAL. Cartier made a second voyage in the following year, exploring the great river which he called the St. Lawrence. He went up the river until the heights of Mount Royal or Montreal, as he called them, appeared on his right hand, and swift rapids in the river blocked his way in front. The name Lachine rapids, or the China rapids, which was afterwards given to these, remains to remind us that Cartier was searching for a pa.s.sage to China.

THE FIRST WINTER IN CANADA. Cartier spent the severe winter which followed at the foot of the cliffs which mark the site of the modern city of Quebec. The expedition returned to France with the coming of spring.

ATTEMPTS TO PLANT A COLONY AT QUEBEC. Several years later, in 1541, Cartier and others attempted to establish a permanent settlement on the St. Lawrence. As it was hard to get good colonists to settle in the cold climate so far north, the leaders were allowed to ransack the prisons for debtors and criminals to make up the necessary numbers. They selected the neighborhood of the cliffs where Cartier had wintered in 1535, where Quebec now stands, as the most suitable place for their colony. But the settlers were ill-fitted for the hardships of a new settlement in so cold and barren a country. Diseases and the hostility of the Indians completely discouraged them, and all gladly returned to France.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP SHOWING JACQUES CARTIER's VOYAGES Thus: 1st Voyage---- 2d Voyage.... 3d Voyage--> -->]

The zeal of the French for American discovery and settlement on the St. Lawrence ceased with Cartier. His hope that the St. Lawrence would prove the long-sought pa.s.sage to China had to be given up, but the river which he had discovered and so thoroughly explored proved to be a great highway into the center of North America.

COLIGNY'S PLAN FOR A HUGUENOT COLONY. Nearly thirty years later the French Protestant leader, Coligny, formed the plan of establishing a colony in America, which would be a refuge for the Huguenots if their enemies got the upper hand in France. An expedition left France in 1564, and selected a site for a settlement near the mouth of the St. Johns river in Florida. It seemed a good place. A fort, called Fort Caroline, was quickly built. But the first colonists were not well chosen. They were chiefly younger n.o.bles, soldiers unused to labor, or discontented tradesmen and artisans. There were few farmers among them.

THE MISDEEDS OF THE COLONISTS. They spent their time visiting distant Indian tribes in a vain search for gold and silver, or plundering Spanish villages and ships in the West Indies. No one thought of preparing the soil and planting seeds for a food supply. It seemed easier to rob neighbors. The provisions which they had brought with them gave out. Game and fish abounded in the woods and rivers about them, but they were without skill in hunting and fishing. Before the first year had pa.s.sed the miserable inhabitants of Fort Caroline were reduced to digging roots in the forest for food. Starvation and the revenge of angry Indians confronted them.

RELIEF SENT TO THE COLONY. In August, 1565, just as the half-starved colonists were preparing to leave the country, an expedition with fresh settlers--mostly discharged soldiers, a few young n.o.bles, and some mechanics with their families, three hundred in all--arrived in the harbor. It brought an abundance of supplies and other things needed by a colony in a new country. It looked then as though these Frenchmen would succeed in their plan and establish a permanent colony in America.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FORT CAROLINE, THE FRENCH SETTLEMENT IN FLORIDA From De Bry's Voyages]

FORT CAROLINE AND THE SPANIARDS. The French had, however, settled in Florida. Indeed, it would have been difficult to settle in America at any place along the Atlantic coast without doing so. The Spaniards regarded all North America from Mexico to Labrador as lying within Florida. The attempt of the French to settle on the lands claimed by the king of Spain was sure to bring on a war, sooner or later. The conduct of the French at Fort Caroline in plundering the Spanish colonies in the West Indies made all Spaniards anxious to drive out such a nest of robbers and murderers. Besides, the Spaniards hated Coligny's followers more than ordinary Frenchmen, because they were Huguenots.

MENENDEZ. At the time the news reached Spain of Coligny's settlement at Fort Caroline, a Spanish n.o.bleman, Pedro Menendez, was preparing to establish a colony in Florida, and thus after a long delay carry out the task which De Soto had vainly attempted. Menendez was naturally as eager as the king to drive out the French intruders. So an expedition larger than was planned at first was hurried off. Menendez was to do three things: drive the French out, conquer and Christianize the Indians, and establish Spanish settlements in Florida.

THE DEFEAT OF THE FRENCH FLEET. Menendez with a part of his fleet arrived before Fort Caroline just one week after the relief expedition which Coligny had sent over came into harbor. His ships attacked and scattered those of the French. The vessels of the French for the most part sought refuge on the high seas. They were too swift to be overtaken, but no match for the Spanish in battle. Menendez decided to wait for the rest of his ships before making another attack on Fort Caroline. Meanwhile he sailed southward along the coast for fifty miles till he came to an inlet. He called the place St. Augustine.

ST. AUGUSTINE FOUNDED. A friendly Indian chief readily gave his dwelling to the Spaniards. It was a huge, barn-like structure, made of the entire trunks of trees, and thatched with palmetto leaves. Soldiers quickly dug a ditch around it and threw up a breastwork of earth and small sticks. The colonists who came with Menendez landed and set about the usual work of founding a settlement. Such was the beginning of the Spanish town of St. Augustine, founded in 1565, and the oldest town in the United States.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA, AS FOUNDED BY MENENDEZ Pagus Hispanorum as given in Monta.n.u.s and Ogilby]

FRENCH SAIL TO ATTACK ST. AUGUSTINE. Both sides prepared for a terrible struggle, the French at Fort Caroline and the Spaniards in their new quarters at St. Augustine. The French struck the first blow. A few of the weaker and the sick soldiers were left at Fort Caroline to stand guard with the women and children. The main body aboard the ships advanced by sea to attack St. Augustine, but a furious tempest scattered and wrecked the French fleet before it arrived.

MENENDEZ DESTROYS FORT CAROLINE. Menendez now took advantage of the storm to march overland to Fort Caroline, wading through swamps and fording streams amid a fearful rain and gale. His drenched and hungry followers fell like wild beasts upon the few French left in the fort. About fifty of the women and children were spared to become captives. As many men escaped in the forests around the fort, but the greater part were killed.

CAPTURE OF THE SHIPWRECKED FRENCH. The French fleet had been wrecked off the coast of Florida a dozen miles south of St. Augustine. A few days later Menendez discovered some survivors wandering along the coast, half starved, trying to live on the sh.e.l.l-fish they found on the beach, and slowly and painfully working their way back toward Fort Caroline. The Frenchmen begged Menendez to be allowed to remain in the country till ships could be sent to take them off, but he was unwilling to make any terms with them.

MURDER OF THE CAPTIVES. The unhappy Frenchmen were taken prisoners, and, a few hours later, put to death. Other shipwrecked refugees were captured a few days later, and these suffered the same fate. Nearly three hundred perished in this cold-blooded manner. It was a merciless deed, and yet such was the character of all warfare at the time. Menendez believed that he was doing his duty. Nor did the king of Spain think Menendez unduly cruel, for when he heard the story of the fate of the Frenchmen of Fort Caroline he sent this message to Menendez: "Say to him that, as to those he has killed, he has done well; and as to those he has saved, they shall be sent to the galleys."

[Ill.u.s.tration: NORTH AMERICA AS KNOWN AFTER THE EXPLORATIONS OF DE SOTO CORONADO AND CARTIER]

[Ill.u.s.tration: (map)]

QUESTIONS.

1. Who was the leader in the first French efforts to explore and settle in North America? Find as many reasons as possible why France had not tried to settle in America before. What parts of the continent did Cartier become interested in? Why was he specially interested in St. Lawrence region?

2. How did Montreal get its name? Why was the name, Lachine rapids, given to the rapids above Montreal on the St. Lawrence river?

3. Why did Cartier fail in his attempts to plant a French colony in North America? How much had he and his friends accomplished for France in North America?

4. Why did Coligny later wish to establish a colony in America? Where did his people try to settle? Find the place on the map. Give several reasons why they soon got into trouble with the Spaniards.

5. What did the king of Spain send Menendez to Florida to do? What things did he accomplish? Why do we specially remember St. Augustine? Find it on the map.

EXERCISES.

1. Examine the map of North America in 1541. What parts of North America were known? What parts were unknown? Can you see why the explorers would search each bay or inlet or great river?

2. Find how far into the continent of North America the French explored the St. Lawrence river, that is, the distance from Newfoundland to Montreal by using the scale of miles on a map in one of your geographies.

Important Date: 1565. The founding of St. Augustine.

CHAPTER XX.

THE ENGLISH AND THE DUTCH TRIUMPH OVER SPAIN.

CRUEL TREATMENT OF THE NETHERLANDERS. Two years after the cruel ma.s.sacre of the Huguenot colony in Florida, Philip II, the King of Spain, decided to put an end to the obstinacy of the Netherlanders, and sent an army from Spain commanded by the Duke of Alva, who was as pitiless as Menendez. Alva began by seizing prominent n.o.bles, and he would have arrested the Prince of Orange, but he escaped into Germany. A court was set up which condemned many persons to death, including the greatest n.o.bles of the land. The people nicknamed it the Council of Blood. Alva also turned the merchants against him by compelling them to pay the "tenth penny," that is, one tenth of the price of the goods every time these were either bought or sold. Alva made himself so thoroughly hated that even Philip decided to call him back to Spain.

THE BEGGARS OF THE SEA. Just then something happened which gave Coligny and the Huguenots their chance for vengeance. The men who were resisting the king's officers in the Netherlands had been nicknamed the "Beggars." When they were driven from the cities they took to the sea. The "Beggars of the Sea" sometimes found a port of refuge in La Roch.e.l.le, a Huguenot town on the western coast of France, and sometimes they put into friendly English harbors. From these places they would sail out and attack Spanish vessels. When Queen Elizabeth in 1572 ordered a fleet of these "Beggars" to leave, they crossed over to their own sh.o.r.es and drove the Spanish garrison out of Brille. This success encouraged the Dutch and many of the southern Netherlanders to rise and expel the Spanish soldiers from their towns.

THE FRENCH PROMISE AID. As soon as Coligny heard the news he urged the French king to send an army into the Netherlands and take vengeance not only for the ma.s.sacre at Fort Caroline, but also for all the wrongs that he and his father and his grandfather had ever received at the hands of the Spaniards. The French king agreed and wrote a letter to the Netherlanders promising aid.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GASPARD DE COLIGNY After the portrait in the Public Library, Geneva]

Ma.s.sACRE OF HUGUENOTS IN PARIS. The plan was never carried out. While Coligny and many other Huguenots were in Paris, his enemies attempted to kill him. When the attempt failed these enemies, including the king's mother, persuaded the king that Coligny and the Huguenots were plotting against him, and goaded the king into ordering the murder of all the Huguenots in Paris and the other cities of France. Thousands of Huguenots perished. When the Netherlanders heard of what had befallen Coligny and his followers, they were crushed with grief. Coligny had missed the chance of vengeance. But the Spanish king was soon to have other enemies besides the Huguenots who were ready to help the Dutch. These new enemies were the English.

THE ENGLISH DRAWN INTO THE CONFLICT. The religious troubles in England had been growing more serious. Two or three plots were made to a.s.sa.s.sinate Elizabeth in order to put on the throne Queen Mary of Scotland, who was the next heir. Philip began to encourage these plotters, especially after the pope in 1570 had excommunicated Elizabeth and forbidden her subjects to obey her as queen. She was sure to be dragged into the struggle in the Netherlands sooner or later. We have seen that she had once sheltered the "Beggars of the Sea." The murder of Coligny and his followers frightened the English and made many of them anxious to join in the conflict before their friends on the Continent, the French Huguenots and the Dutch Calvinists, were utterly destroyed.

GROWTH OF ENGLISH TRADE. If England should be drawn into war, her safety would depend mainly upon her ships. Englishmen had always taken to the sea, as was natural for men whose sh.o.r.es were washed by the Atlantic, the Channel and the North Sea, but they were slow in building fleets of ships either for trade or for war. The trade of the country with other peoples in the Middle Ages was carried on mostly by foreigners. Yet since the days of Elizabeth's father and grandfather a change had taken place. English merchants found their way to all markets. They also made new things to sell. Refugees driven by the religious troubles from France and the Netherlands brought their skill to England and taught the English how to weave fine woolens and silks.

THE NEW ENGLISH NAVY. The English navy was growing. One of the new ships, The Triumph, carried 450 seamen, 50 gunners, and 200 soldiers. Besides harquebuses for the soldiers, there were many kinds of cannon with strange names, such as culverins, falconets, sakers, serpentines, and rabinets. Four of the cannon were large enough to shoot a cannon-ball eight inches in diameter. But it was on the skill and courage of her men rather than upon the size of her ships that England relied for victory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE After the painting at Buckland Abby, England]

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. One of these men was Francis Drake. He was son of a chaplain in the navy and as a boy played in the rigging of the great ships-of-war, as other boys play in the streets. In time young Drake was apprenticed to the skipper of a small trading vessel. Fortune smiled on the lad early in life. His master died, and out of love for the apprentice who had served him so well, left him the vessel. Francis Drake became thus a shipmaster on his own account, and in time the most popular of Queen Elizabeth's sea-captains.

SLAVE-TRADERS. He often went with his cousin, John Hawkins, on voyages to Africa. They bought negro slaves from slave-traders along the coast, or kidnaped negroes whom they found, and carried them to the Spanish planters of the West Indies. Hawkins and Drake were as devout and humane as other men of their time. They simply could not see any wrong in enslaving the heathen black men in Africa. Besides, they enjoyed the wild life of the slave-trader with its dangers and rich rewards.

WHY DRAKE HATED THE SPANIARDS. The king of Spain tried to keep the trade in slaves for his own merchants, and attempted to prevent the trade of the English slavers with the West Indies. Spanish ships-of-war ruined one of the voyages from which Hawkins and Drake hoped for large profits. The Spaniards won thereby the undying hatred of Drake.

THE DRAGON OF THE SEAS. It was a time, too, when Drake's countrymen at home shared his intense hatred of the Spaniard. While England and Spain were not at war with one another, English and Spanish traders fought whenever they met on the high seas. The English made the Spanish settlements in America their special prey. At certain times of the year Spanish ships, called government ships, carried to Spain gold and silver--the royal share of the products of America. Drake, like many another of his countrymen, lay in wait to rob these ships of their precious cargoes. He managed to gather a fortune by his cunning and courage. More than once he was forced to bury his treasures in the sand to lighten his ships that they might sail the faster, and escape his pursuers. The Spaniards came to know and to fear Drake as the Dragon of the Seas.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SPANISH TREASURE SHIP]

DRAKE'S VENTURE. Drake once formed the plan to take a fleet into the Pacific Ocean in order to plunder the treasure ships where they would be less on their guard. A fleet of five ships was made ready. Contributions from wealthy merchants and powerful n.o.bles, perhaps a gift from Queen Elizabeth herself, gave him the means for unusual luxuries in the equipment of his fleet. Skilful musicians and rich furniture were taken on board Drake's own ship, the Pelican, or the Golden Hind as he afterwards christened it. The brilliant little fleet left Plymouth in 1577. One after another of the ships turned back or was destroyed on the long voyage of twelve months across the Atlantic and through the Strait of Magellan.

BEYOND THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. The Golden Hind alone remained to carry out the original project. As it entered the Pacific Ocean a furious storm drove the little vessel southward beyond Cape Horn to the regions where the oceans meet. No one before had sailed so far south.

THE FIRST PRIZES. Drake regained control of his ship when the storm had pa.s.sed, and sailed northward along the coast, plundering and robbing as he went. Once, as a land-party was searching along the sh.o.r.e for fresh water, it came upon a Spaniard asleep with thirteen bars of silver beside him. His nap was disturbed long enough to take away his burden. Further on they met another Spaniard and an Indian boy driving a train of Peruvian sheep laden with eight hundred pounds of silver. The Englishmen took their place, and merrily drove the sheep to their boats. A treasure ship, nicknamed the Spitfire, on the way to Panama, was captured after a long chase of nearly eight hundred miles. Drake obtained from it unknown quant.i.ties of gold and silver. With such a rich load, his thoughts turned to the homeward voyage.

DRAKE'S VOYAGE AROUND THE WORLD. By this time a host of Spanish war-ships were on Drake's track. They expected to capture him on his return through the Strait of Magellan. Drake, now confronted with real danger, cunningly outwitted his enemies. He and many other Englishmen of his day were sure a pa.s.sage would be found somewhere through North America between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Spanish, French, and English explorers had all carried on the search for this pa.s.sage. Drake decided to return by such a route, if it were possible. He followed the coast of California, and probably pa.s.sed that of Oregon and Washington as far as Vancouver [Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF DRAKE'S VOYAGE]

When it grew colder and the coast turned to the westward, he gave up the search.

After making some needed repairs in a small harbor a few miles above the modern San Francisco, Drake set out boldly across the Pacific to return home, as Magellan's men had done before him, by going around the world. He touched at the Philippines, visited the Spice Islands, and slowly worked his way around the Cape of Good Hope. The Golden Hind, long since given up as lost, reached England in the fall of 1580, after nearly three years' absence. For a second time a ship had sailed around the world. Drake was the first Englishman to gain the honor.

DRAKE'S REWARD. Queen Elizabeth liked the story Drake told of outwitting and plundering Spaniards. Arrayed in her most gorgeous robes she visited his ship, where a banquet had been prepared. While Drake knelt at her feet she made him a knight. And so it was that the man whom the Spaniards called with good reason the Master Thief of the Seas, the English called by a new t.i.tle, Sir Francis Drake, and praised as the greatest sea-captain of the age. His ship, the Golden Hind, was ordered to be preserved forever.

THE DUTCH STRUGGLE AGAINST SPAIN. A few years after Drake returned the English took a deeper interest in the struggle between Philip and the Dutch. Although the Dutch had lost hope of help from the French Huguenots, they resisted Philip's generals more boldly than ever. The Spanish soldiers treated the towns which surrendered so savagely that the other towns decided it was better to die fighting than to yield. The siege of Leyden became famous because, after food had given out and the inhabitants were starving their friends cut the great dikes in order that the boats of the "Beggars of the Sea" loaded with provisions might be floated up to the very walls of the city. This unexpected flood also drove away the Spaniards. Fortunately after the rescue of the city a strong wind arose and drove back the waves so that the dikes could again be replaced.

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUEEN ELIZABETH MAKING DRAKE A KNIGHT]

THE DEATH OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE. King Philip had come to the conclusion that unless William of Orange were killed the Dutch could not be conquered, and so he put a price on Prince William's head, offering a large sum of money to any one who should kill him. The first attempts failed, but finally in 1584 he was shot.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. The murder of William alarmed the English for Elizabeth's life, especially as Philip had already aided men who were plotting against her. She sent an army into the Netherlands to aid the Dutch, although she had not made up her mind to attack Philip directly. The army did not give much help to the Dutch, but it is remembered because a n.o.ble English poet, Sir Philip Sidney, was mortally wounded in one of the battles. The story is told that while Sidney was riding back, tortured by his wound, he became very thirsty, as wounded men always do, and begged for a drink of water. Looking up when it was brought to him he saw on the ground a common soldier more sorely wounded than he. He immediately sent the water to the soldier saying, "Thy necessity is greater than mine."

THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA. The king of Spain now decided that he could not subdue the Dutch until he had thoroughly punished the English. He even planned to put himself upon the English throne, claiming that he was the heir of one of the early kings of England. Months were spent in preparing a great fleet, an "Invincible Armada" which was to sail up the Channel, take on board the Spanish army in the Netherlands, and cross over to England. While these preparations were being made with Philip's usual care, Sir Francis Drake swooped down on Cadiz and burnt so much shipping and destroyed so many supplies that the voyage had to be postponed a year. This Drake called "singeing the king of Spain's beard."

THE ARMADA IN THE CHANNEL. It was July, 1588, before the "Invincible Armada" appeared off Plymouth in the English Channel. Many of the Spanish ships were larger than the English ships, but they were so clumsy that the English could outsail them and attack them from any direction they chose. Moreover, the Spaniards needed to fight close at hand in order that the soldiers armed with ordinary guns might join in the fray. The English kept out of range of these guns and used their heavy cannon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SPANISH ARMADA IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL After an engraving by the Society of Antiquarians following a tapestry in the House of Lords]

DESTRUCTION OF THE ARMADA. With the English ships clinging to the flanks and rear of the Armada, the Spaniards moved heavily up the Channel. In the narrower waters between Dover and Calais the English attacked more fiercely, and sank several Spanish vessels. Soon the others were fleeing into the North Sea, driven by a furious gale. Many sought to reach Spain by sailing around Scotland and Ireland, and some of these ships were dashed on the rocky sh.o.r.es. Only a third of Philip's proud fleet returned to Spain.

EFFECT OF THE DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA ON SPAIN. This was the last attempt Philip made to attack the English, because Spain had been exhausted in the effort to collect money and supplies for the Invincible Armada. The war dragged on for many years, and the English attacked and plundered Spanish vessels wherever they found them.

THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE DUTCH. The ruin of the Armada also meant that the Dutch would succeed in becoming independent of the Spanish king. Seven of the northern provinces had already formed a union and had begun to call themselves the United Netherlands. They were growing richer while their neighboring provinces on the south, which had decided to return to their allegiance to Spain, grew poorer.

FIRST VOYAGE OF THE DUTCH TO THE EAST. Even while the fight was going on the Dutch traded in places where Philip had not permitted them to trade while he could control them. One of these places was Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Here the Dutch obtained spices which the Portuguese brought from the East Indies. But in 1580 Philip seized Portugal, and the Dutch could no longer go to Lisbon. This made them anxious to find their way to the East. In 1595 the first fleet set out. This voyage was unsuccessful, but other fleets followed, until soon the Dutch had almost driven the Portuguese, now subjects of the king of Spain, from the Spice Islands. Soon also Dutch sailors ventured across the Atlantic to the sh.o.r.es of America.

QUESTIONS.

1. What country in northern Europe did Spain rule? What name was given to those who resisted the Spanish officers in the Netherlands? Why were they given this name?

2. What promise did Coligny make to the people of the Netherlands? Why was he unable to carry it out? What other people were ready to help the Dutch? Can you give one reason at least why the English were willing to help the Dutch against Spain?

3. Why had English trade grown important? Did this help to make a navy?