America may become,
once more, the Land of Romance to the Englishman. I say with intent,
the Englishman. For, if you consider, it was the Englishman, not the
Scot or the Irishman, who discovered America by means of John Cabot
and his Bristol merchants--not to speak of Leif, the son of Eric, or
of Madoc, the Welshman. It was the Englishman, not the Scot or the
Irishman, who fought the Spaniard; who sent planters to Barbadoes; who
settled colonists and convicts in Virginia; from England, not from
Ireland or Scotland, went forth the Pilgrims and the Puritans. While
the Scottish gentlemen were still taking service in foreign
courts--as, for example, the Admirable Crichton with the Duke of
Mantua--the young Englishman was sailing with Cavendish or Drake; he
was fighting and meeting death under desperadoes, such as Oxenham; he
was even, later on, serving with L'Olonnois, Kidd, or Henry Morgan.
All the history of North America before the War of Independence is
English history. Scotland and Ireland hardly came into it until the
eighteenth century; till then their only share in American history was
the deportation of rebels to the plantations. The country was
discovered by England, colonized by England; it was always regarded by
England as specially her own child; the sole attempt made by Scotland
at colonization was a failure; and to this day it is England that the
descendants of the older American families regard as the cradle of
their name and race.
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