the sixteenth century there survived the
dream of riches to be quickly gained. Wherever the European landed in
America he looked first of all for mines, as Frobisher did on the
unpromising shores of Labrador. The precious metals proving illusive,
his next recourse was to trade. Hawkins sought his profit from slaves.
The French bought furs from the Indians at Tadoussac. Gosnold brought
back from Cape Cod a mixed cargo of sassafras and cedar.

But wealth from the mines and profits from a coasting trade were only a
lure to the cupidity of Europe. Real colonies, {14} containing the
germ of a nation, could not be based on such foundations. Coligny saw
this, and conceived of America as a new home for the French race.
Raleigh, the most versatile of the Elizabethans, lavished his wealth on
the patriotic endeavour to make Virginia a strong and self-supporting
community. 'I shall yet live to see it an English nation,' he
wrote--at the very moment when Champlain was first dreaming of the St
Lawrence. Coligny and Raleigh were both constructive statesmen. The
one was murdered before he could found such a colony as his thought
presaged: the other perished on the scaffold, though not before he had
sowed the seed of an American empire. For Raleigh was the first to
teach that agriculture, not mines, is the true basis of a colony. In
itself his colony on Roanoke Island was a failure, but the idea of
Roanoke was Raleigh's greatest legacy to the English race.

With the dawn of the seventeenth century events came thick and fast.
It was a time when the maritime states of Western Europe were all
keenly interested in America, without having any clear idea of the
problem. Raleigh, the one man who had a grasp of the situation,
entered upon his tragic imprisonment in the {15} same year that
Champlain made his first voyage to the St Lawrence. But while thought
was confused and policy unsettled, action could no longer be postponed.
The one fact which England, France, and Holland could not neglect was
that to the north of Florida no European colony existed on the American
coast. Urging each of these states to establish settlements in a tract
so vast and untenanted was the double desire to possess and to prevent
one's neighbour from possessing. On the other hand, caution raised
doubts as to the balance of cost and gain. The governments were ready
to accept the glory and advantage, if private persons were prepared to
take the risk.