The series has now ended but you can still enjoy a wealth of information on the site, from the interactive timeline to historical narratives and profiles.
The difference between the Elizabethan colony makers and the Stuarts was that the latter were better organized. The Stuarts may have made similar mistakes, but they looked to the longer term.
The reasons for colonization had been refined. Some went for trade, some went for refuge. Sir Francis Bacon (see below) argued that when investors demanded instant returns - as they had in Elizabethan times - they encouraged disaster.
Bacon's thesis was that the colonies were forests in which sturdy saplings had to be planted and encouraged until they were worth harvesting. No one should expect to show a return for the first twenty years. The people sent to the plantations should be practical settlers, carpenters, foresters, farmers, managers. The idea of dumping vagabonds and wastrels on the colonies should be discouraged, because they would cause disruption and unsettle the migrants.
Settlers should be allowed to make money and so be encouraged to work harder, that way the London investors would do well in the long run. While they waited, they had to do everything to make it easy as possible for the colonists, including keeping a continuous supply line running from England. The most hopeful of the early Virginian settlements (with Ralegh as its patron) perished because the supply line was ignored.
Furthermore, the settlers should be allowed to govern themselves without irritating rules decided in London. Imposition of law was one of the reasons for the War of American Independence 170 years later. Bacon also believed that noblemen and gentlemen self-assured in their inherited social and financial positions should be chosen as leaders.
It sounded so sensible but, with big profits already returning from the Indies, many London-based investors in the New World still could not accept any prospectus that did not promise quick profits.
He lived through the reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603) and died in the first year of Charles I. Bacon was a polymath, not so unusual in those times. He was a lawyer of considerable standing and was Solicitor General, Attorney General and later, Lord Chancellor.
As a philosopher, he transformed much thinking with his The Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum. James I took to him because Bacon promoted the concept of the royal prerogative, a matter dear to James's constitutional heart. He championed the reconciliation of crown and parliament and the union of Scotland and England.
His legacy is perhaps the tenets he established for scientific research and philosophical rigor. Bacon became Baron Verulam of Verulam and Viscount St Albans, the cathedral city close to his own estate, Gorhambury.
That a major argument presented for colonisation was a means of ridding England of some of her poorer people. Even with a population of not much more than 4 million, the English felt they had population too big to feed. Furthermore, the colonies were seen as a dumping ground for unemployable and what we would now call the traveller population.
Damien O'Farrell Fantastic series. Who says radio 4 is for old crusty's? I'm 24 and excited about every episode of Empire that I have listened to so far. As for the other history documentaries, Melvin Bragg's a bit serious but very good though.
F Almond Reasons for colonial expansion under the Stuarts would also have to take into account other very important factors:
1)The hard life-risking exploration and groundbreaking work had been done by geniuses like Raleigh and Drake- opening the way for the Calvinist money men to capitalize on all the hard pathfinding work.
2.English seamen were not afraid of Spaniards- too obvious to argue why they weren't (Armada, Cadiz etec etc) They were told not to step on Spanish toes because James believed devoutly in the divine right of kings, so if these Spanish princes could be dispossessed, then so could he! He didn't want to go there. therefore they concentrated on the north of North America.
3. And of course, the climate was more like the one the settlers were leaving, which could be said of the Spanish, too- they kept to the south- Mediterranean climate locations.
Later emigrations sprang from cavaliers running away after their defeat in the Civil War because they were afraid of Cromwell!These of course became the slave-owning planters.
Great series- I'm enjoying it.
"For you must make account to lose almost twenty years' profit and expect your recompense in the end. For the principal thing that hath been the destruction of most plantations hath been the base and hasty drawing of profit in the first years. It is true, speedy profit is not to be neglected as far as may stand with the good of the plantation, but no farther. It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked, condemned men to be the people with whom you plant; it spoileth the plantation, for they will ever live like rogues and not fall to work but be lazy and do mischief and spend victuals and be quickly weary and then certify over to their country to the discredit of the plantation. The people wherewith you plant ought to be gardeners, ploughmen, labourers, fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons, cooks and bakers.
"For government, let it be in the hands of one assisted with some counsel, and let them have commission to exercise martial laws and some limitation. And above all, let men make that profit of being in the wilderness as to have God always and his services before their eyes. Let not the Government of the Plantation depend upon too many councillors and undertakers in the country that planteth, but upon a temperate number; and let those be rather noblemen and gentlemen than merchants, for they look ever to the present gain. Let there be freedoms from Customs till the plantation be of strength; and not only freedom from Customs but freedoms to carry their commodities where they may make the best of them. Except there be some special cause of caution, cram not in people by sending too fast company and company, but rather harken how they wait and send supplies proportionably. But, as the number may live well in the plantation and not by surcharge be in penury, when the plantation grows to strength, then it is time to plant with women as well as with men that the plantation may spread into generations and not be ever pierced from without. It is the sinfulest thing in the world to forsake or destitute a plantation once in forwardness."
Richard Hakluyt: Discourse on Planting Virginia, 1584
"This western discovery will be greatly for the enlargement of the gospel of Christ, whereunto the Princes of the reformed religion are chiefly bound, amongst whom Her Majesty is principal. All other English trades are grown beggarly or dangerous, especially in all the king of Spain's dominions, where our men are driven to fling their Bibles and Prayer Books into the sea, and to forswear and renounce their religion and conscience, and consequently their obedience to her Majesty. This western voyage will yield unto us all the commodities of Europe, Africa, and Asia, as far as we were wont to travel, and supply the wants of all our decayed trades. This enterprise will be for the manifold employment of numbers of idle men, and for breeding of many sufficient, and for utterance of the great quantity of the commodities of our Realm.
"The passage in this voyage is easy and short. It cutteth not near the trade of any other mighty Princes, nor near their Countries. It is to be performed at all times of the year, and needeth but one kind of wind. Ireland, being full of good havens on the south and west sides, is the nearest part of Europe to it, by which this trade shall be in more security, and the sooner drawn to more Civility. The Revenues and custom of her Majesty both outwards and inwards shall mightily be enlarged by the tolls, excises, and other duties which without oppression may be raised. This action will be greatly for the increase, maintenance and safety of our Navy, and especially of great shipping which is the strength of our Realm, and for the support of all those occupations that depend upon the same."
