on his own account. But he was never
so foolish as to think that peaceful trade could go on without a
fighting navy to protect it. So he built men-of-war; though he used
these for trade as well. Men-of-war built specially for fighting were
of course much better in a battle than any mere merchantman could be.
But in those days, and for some time after, merchantmen went about well
armed and often joined the king's ships of the Royal Navy during war,
as many of them did against the Germans in our own day.

English oversea trade was carried on with the whole of Europe, with
Asia Minor, and with the North of Africa. Canyng, a merchant prince of
Bristol, employed a hundred shipwrights and eight hundred seamen. He
sent his ships to Iceland, the Baltic, and all through the
Mediterranean. But the London merchants were more important still; and
the king was the most important man of all. He had his watchful eye on
the fishing fleet of Iceland, which was then as important as the fleet
of Newfoundland became later on. He watched the Baltic trade in timber
and the Flanders trade in wool. He watched the Hansa Towns of northern
Germany, then second only to Venice itself as the greatest trading
centre of the world. And he had his English consuls in Italy as early
as 1485, the first year of his reign.

One day Columbus sent his brother to see if the king would help him to
find the New World. But Henry VII was a man who looked long and
cautiously before he leaped; and even then he only leaped when he saw
where he would land. So Columbus went to Ferdinand and Isabella of
Spain, who sent him out to discover America in 1492, the same year that
they conquered the last Eastern possession in Western Europe, the
Moorish Kingdom of Grenada, which thenceforth became a province of
Spain. Five years later Henry sent John Cabot out from Bristol in the
little _Matthew_ with only eighteen men "to sayle to all Partes,
Countreys, and Seas, of the East, of the West, and of the North; to
seeke out, discover, and finde, whatsoever Iles, Countreyes, Regions,
or Provinces, of the Heathennes and Infidelles" and "to set up Our
banners and Ensigns in every village, towne, castel, yle, or maine
lande, of them newly found." Cabot discovered Canada by reaching Cape
Breton in 1497, three years before Columbus himself saw any part of the
mainland. But as he found nobody there, not even "Heathenries and
Infidelles," much less "villages, castels, and