xtensive trade to the East, had become
a world-centre during the latter Middle Ages. But after Columbus,
and still more after Magelhaens, the European nations on the Atlantic
were found to be closer to the New World, and, in a measure, closer
to the Spice Islands, which they could reach all the way by ship,
instead of having to pay expensive land freights. The trade routes
through Germany became at once neglected, and it is only in the
present century that she has at all recovered from the blow given
to her by the discovery of the new sea routes in which she could
not join. But to England, France, and the Low Countries the new
outlook promised a share in the world's trade and affairs generally,
which they had never hitherto possessed while the Mediterranean
was the centre of commerce. If the Indies could be reached by sea,
they were almost in as fortunate a position as Portugal or Spain.
Almost as soon as the new routes were discovered the Northern nations
attempted to utilise them, notwithstanding the Bull of Partition,
which the French king laughed at, and the Protestant English and
Dutch had no reason to respect. Within three years of the return
of Columbus from his first voyage, Henry VII. employed John Cabot,
a Venetian settled in Bristol, with his three sons, to attempt
the voyage to the Indies by the North-West Passage. He appears to
have re-discovered Newfoundland in 1497, and then in the following
year, failing to find a passage there, coasted down North America
nearly as far as Florida.

In 1534 Jacques Cartier examined the river St. Lawrence, and his
discoveries were later followed up by Samuel de Champlain, who
explored some of the great lakes near the St. Lawrence, and established
the French rule in Canada, or Acadie, as it was then called.

Meanwhile the English had made an attempt to reach the Indies,
still by a northern passage, but this time in an easterly direction.
Sebastian Cabot, who had been appointed Grand Pilot of England by
Edward VI., directed a voyage of exploration in 1553, under Sir
Hugh Willoughby. Only one of these ships, with the pilot (Richard
Chancellor) on board, survived the voyage, reaching Archangel, and
then going overland to Moscow, where he was favourably received
by the Czar of Russia, Ivan the Terrible. He was, however, drowned
on his return, and no further attempt to reach Cathay by sea was
attempted.

The North-West Passage seemed thus to promise better than that by
the