very great part of the history, and particularly of the sea history,
of the world. All colonies had not the simple and natural birth and
growth above described. Many were more formal, and purely political,
in their conception and founding, the act of the rulers of the people
rather than of private individuals but the trading-station with its
after expansion, the work simply of the adventurer seeking gain, was
in its reasons and essence the same as the elaborately organized and
chartered colony. In both cases the mother-country had won a foothold
in a foreign land, seeking a new outlet for what it had to sell, a new
sphere for its shipping, more employment for its people, more comfort
and wealth for itself.

The needs of commerce, however, were not all provided for when safety
had been secured at the far end of the road. The voyages were long and
dangerous, the seas often beset with enemies. In the most active days
of colonizing there prevailed on the sea a lawlessness the very memory
of which is now almost lost, and the days of settled peace between
maritime nations were few and far between. Thus arose the demand for
stations along the road, like the Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, and
Mauritius, not primarily for trade, but for defence and war; the
demand for the possession of posts like Gibraltar, Malta, Louisburg,
at the entrance of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,--posts whose value was
chiefly strategic, though not necessarily wholly so. Colonies and
colonial posts were sometimes commercial, sometimes military in their
character; and it was exceptional that the same position was equally
important in both points of view, as New York was.

In these three things--production, with the necessity of exchanging
products, shipping, whereby the exchange is carried on, and colonies,
which facilitate and enlarge the operations of shipping and tend to