CHAPTER II

THE AGE OF DISCOVERY (1497-1502)


"If this should be lost," said Sir Walter Raleigh of Newfoundland, "it
would be the greatest blow that was ever given to England." The
observation was marked by much political insight. Two centuries later,
indeed, the countrymen of Raleigh experienced and outlived a shock far
more paralyzing than that of which he was considering the possible
effects; but when the American colonies were lost the world destiny of
England had already been definitely asserted, and the American
loyalists were able to resume the allegiance of their birth by merely
crossing the Canadian frontier. When Raleigh wrote, Newfoundland was
the one outward and visible sign of that Greater England in whose
future he was a passionate believer. Therefore, inasmuch as
Newfoundland, being the oldest of all the English colonies, stood for
the Empire which was to be, the moral effects of its loss in infancy
would have been irretrievably grave. How nearly it was lost will
appear in the following pages.

Newfoundland, as was fitting for one of the largest islands in the
world, and an island, too, drawing strategic importance from its
position, was often conspicuous in that titanic struggle between
England and France for sea power, and therefore for the mastery of the
world, which dwarfs every other feature of the eighteenth century. Nor
did she come out of the struggle quite unscathed. Ill-informed or
indifferent politicians in the Mother Country neglected to push home