rgers from
Germany, poured forth in an almost unbroken stream. It was natural that
they should take refuge in the only lands where full religious freedom
was offered to them; and these were especially some of the British
settlements in America, and the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope.

It is often said that the overflow of Europe over the world has been a
sort of renewal of the folk-wandering of primitive ages. That is a
misleading view: the movement has been far more deliberate and
organised, and far less due to the pressure of external circumstances,
than the early movements of peoples in the Old World. Not until the
nineteenth century, when the industrial transformation of Europe
brought about a really acute pressure of population, can it be said
that the mere pressure of need, and the shortage of sustenance in their
older homes, has sent large bodies of settlers into the new lands.
Until that period the imperial movement has been due to voluntary and
purposive action in a far higher degree than any of the blind early
wanderings of peoples. The will-to-dominion of virile nations exulting
in their nationhood; the desire to obtain a more abundant supply of
luxuries than had earlier been available, and to make profits
therefrom; the zeal of peoples to impose their mode of civilisation
upon as large a part of the world as possible; the existence in the
Western world of many elements of restlessness and dissatisfaction,
adventurers, portionless younger sons, or religious enthusiasts: these
have been the main operative causes of this huge movement during the
greater part of the four centuries over which it has extended. And as
it has sprung from such diverse and conflicting causes, it has assumed
an infinite variety of forms; and both deserves and demands a more
respectful study as a whole than has generally been given to it.

II

THE ERA OF IBERIAN MONOPOLY

During the Middle Ages the contact of Europe with the rest of the world
was but slight. It was shut off by the great barrier of the Islamic
Empire, upon which the Crusades made no permanent impression; and
although the goods of the East came by caravan to the Black Sea ports,
to Constantinople, to the ports of Syria, and to Egypt, where they were
picked up by the Italian traders, these traders had no direct knowledge
of the countries which were the sources of their wealth. The threat of
the Empire of Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century aroused the