themselves to be the majority. They began with repealing the ordinances by which they had been excluded: they renewed the general's commission, and enlarged his powers: they established a council of state, consisting chiefly of those men who, during the civil war, had made a figure among the presbyterians; and having passed these and other votes for the present composure of the kingdom, they dissolved themselves, and issued writs for the immediate assembling of a new parliament.(1)

The council of state conferred the command of the fleet on admiral Montague, whose attachment to the royal family was well known; and thus secured the naval, as well as military force, in hands favourable to the projected revolution. But Monk, notwithstanding all these steps towards the re-establishment of monarchy, still maintained the appearance of zeal for a commonwealth; and had never declared, otherwise than by his actions, that he had adopted the king's interest. At last, a critical circumstance drew a confession from him. Sir John Granville, who had a commission from Charles, applied for access to the general, and absolutely refused to communicate his business to any other person. Monk, pleased with this closeness, so conformable to his own temper, admitted Granville into his presence, and opened to him his whole intentions. He refused, however, to commit any thing to writing; but delivered a verbal message, assuring the king of his services, giving advice for his conduct, and exhorting him instantly to leave the Spanish territories, lest he should be detained as a pledge for the restitution of Dunkirk and Jamaica.(2)

The elections for the new parliament were every where carried in favour of the friends of monarchy; for although the parliament had voted, that no one should be elected who had himself, or whose father had borne arms for the late king, little regard was paid to this ordinance. The passion for liberty, which had been carried to such violent extremes, and produced such bloody commotions, began to give place to a spirit of royalty and obedience. The earl of Manchester, lord Fairfax, lord Roberts, Denzil Hollis, sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, and other leaders of the presbyterians, were resolved to atone for their past transgressions by their present zeal for the royal cause.(3) Nor were the affairs of Ireland in a condition less favourable to the restoration of monarchy. Lord Broghill, president of Munster, and sir Charles Coote, president of Connaught, had even gone so far as to enter into a correspondence with the king; and, in conjunction with sir Theophilus Jones, and other officers, they took possession of the government, and excluded general Ludlow, who was zealous for the parliament, but whom they represented as in league with the committee of safety.(4)

All those promising views, however, had almost been blasted by certain unfortunate circumstances. On the admission of the secluded members into parliament, the heads of the republican party were seized with the deepest despair, and endeavoured to infuse the same sentiments into the army. The king's death, the execution of so many of the nobility and gentry, the sequestration and imprisonment of the rest, were in their eyes crimes so black, that they must be prosecuted with the most implacable resentment. When these suggestions had begun to operate upon the troops, Lambert suddenly made his escape from the tower. Monk and the council of state, who were well acquainted with his vigour and activity, as well as with his popularity in the army, were thrown into the utmost consternation at this event. But, happily, colonel Ingoldsby, who was immediately despatched after him, overtook him at Daventry, before he had assembled any considerable force, and brought him back to his place of confinement. In a few days he would have been formidable.

When the parliament first met, the leading members exerted themselves chiefly in bitter invectives against the memory of Cromwell, and in execrations against the inhuman murder of the late king; no one yet daring to make any mention of the second Charles. At length, the general, having

(1) Whitlocke. Clarendon.
(3) Clarendon. Whitlocke.

(2) Landsdown. Clarendon.
(4) Id. ibid.

sufficiently sounded the inclinations of the commons, gave directions to Annesly, president of the council, to inform them, that sir John Granville, one of the king's servants, was now at the door with a letter from his majesty to the parliament. The loudest acclamations resounded through the house on this intelligence. Granville was called in; and the letter, accompanied with a declaration, was greedily read. The declaration was well calculated to promote the satisfaction inspired by the prospect of a settlement. It offered a general amnesty, leaving particular exceptions to be made by parliament: it promised liberty of conscience: it assured the soldiers of their arrears, and the same pay they then enjoyed: and it submitted to parliamentary arbitration, an inquiry into all grants, purchase, and alienations.(1)

The peers, perceiving the spirit with which the nation, as well as the house of commons, was animated, hastened to reinstate themselves in their ancient rights, and take their share in the settlement of the government. They found the doors of their house open, and were all admitted without excep tion. The two houses attended while the king was proclaimed in Palaceyard, at Whitehall, and at Temple-bar; and a committee of lords and commons were despatched to invite his majesty to return, and take possession of the kingdom. The respect of foreign powers soon followed the allegiance of his own subjects; and the formerly neglected Charles was, at the same time, invited by France, Spain, and the United Provinces, to embark at one of their seaports. He chose to accept the invitation of the latter; and had the satisfaction, as he passed from Breda to the Hague, to be received with the loudest acclamations. The states-general, in a body, made their compliments to him with the greatest solemnity; and all ambassadors and foreign ministers expressed the joy of their masters at his change of fortune.(2)

The English fleet came in sight of Scheveling; and Montague, who had not waited the orders of the parliament, persuaded the officers to tender their duty to their sovereign. The king went on board, and the duke of York took the command of the fleet, as high admiral.(3) When Charles disembarked at Dover, he was received by general Monk, whom he cordially embraced, and honoured with the appellation of father. He entered London on the twenty-ninth of May, which happened to be his birth-day, amid the acclamations of an innumerable multitude of people, whose fond imaginations formed the happiest presages from the concurrence of two such joyful occasions; and the nation in general expressed the most sincere satisfaction at the restoration of their ancient constitution and their native prince, without the effusion of blood.(4)

We must now, my dear Philip, take a retrospective view of the progress of navigation, commerce, and colonization, before we carry farther the general transactions of Europe. Without such a survey, we should never be able to judge distinctly of the interests, claims, quarrels, and treaties of the several European nations.

LETTER XI.

The Progress of Navigation, Commerce, and Colonization, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth to the Middle of the Seventeenth Century.

THE discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese in the East Indies, and of the Spaniards in America, soon excited the ardour, the avarice, and the ambition of other European nations. The English and Dutch were particu larly tempted, by their maritime situation and commercial spirit, as well as by their great progress in navigation, to use every effort to share in the riches of the east and west; and the Reformation, by abolishing the papai

jurisdiction, left them free from religious restraints. Nor did the Dutch long want other motives, which necessity made them obey, for entering into a competition with the destroyers of the New World and the conquerors of India, in those distant seats of their wealth and power. Before I relate the bold enterprises of these republicans, however, it will be proper to trace the farther progress of the Portuguese and Spaniards in navigation, commerce, and colonization.(1)

No sooner had Cortez completed the conquest of the Mexican empire, than he ordered ship-builders to repair to Zacatula, a port on the South Sea, in order to equip a fleet destined for the Molucca islands. From their trade with those islands the Portuguese drew immense wealth; all which he hoped to secure for the crown of Castile, by a shorter navigation. (2) But he was ignorant, that, during the progress of his victorious arms in the New World, the very plan he was attempting to execute had been prosecuted with success by a navigator in the service of his country.

Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese gentleman, who had acted several years in the East Indies, with distinguished valour, as an officer under the famous Albuquerque, disgusted with his general, and slighted by his sovereign, renounced his allegiance to an ungrateful master, and fled to the court of Spain, in hopes that his merit would there be more justly estimated. He endeavoured to recommend himself by reviving Columbus's original project of discovering a passage to India by a westerly course, and without encroaching on that portion of the globe allotted to the Portuguese by the pope's line of demarcation. Cardinal Ximenes, who at that time directed the Spanish councils, listened with a favourable ear to Magellan's proposal, and recommended it to his master Charles V., who, entering into the measure with ardour, honoured Magellan with the habit of St. Jago and the title of captain-general, and furnished him with five ships, victualled for two years, in order to enable him to accomplish his undertaking.

With this squadron Magellan sailed from Seville on the 10th of August, 1519; and after touching at the Canaries, stood directly south, towards the equinoctial, along the coast of America. But he was so long retarded by tedious calms, and spent so much time in searching every bay and inlet, for that communication with the South Sea which he wished to discover, that he did not reach the river de la Plata till the 12th of January, 1520. Allured to enter by the spacious opening through which that vast body of water pours itself into the Atlantic, he sailed up it for some days; but concluding, at last, from the shallowness of the stream, and the freshness of the water, that the wished-for strait was not situated there, he returned and continued his course towards the south. On the 31st of March he arrived at Port St. Julian, about fortyeight degrees south of the line, where he resolved to winter, the severe season then coming on in those latitudes. Here he lost one of his ships; and the Spaniards suffered so much from the excessive rigour of the climate, that they insisted on his relinquishing the visionary project, and returning to Europe. But Magellan, by ordering the principal mutineer to be assassinated, and another to be publicly executed, overawed the remainder of his followers, and continued his voyage still towards the south. In holding this course, he at length discovered, near the fifty-third degree of latitude, the mouth of a strait, into which he entered, notwithstanding the murmurs of his officers. After sailing twenty days in that winding dangerous passage, which still bears his name, and where one of his ships deserted him, the great Southern Ocean opened to his view, and inspired him with new hopes, while his adventurous soul effused itself to Heaven in a transport of joy for the success which had already attended his endeavours.(3)

Magellan, however, was still at a great distance from the object of his wishes; and greater far than he imagined. Three months and twenty days did he sail in a uniform direction towards the north-west, without discovering

(1) For an account of their first discoveries and conquests, see Part I. Let. LVII. (2) Herrera, dec. III. lib. ii. c. x.

(3) Herrera, dec. II. lib. ii. c. 3, lib. vii. c. 2.

land; during which voyage, the longest that had ever been made in the unbounded ocean, his people suffered incredible distress from scarcity of provisions, putrid water, and all their attendant maladies. One circumstance, and one only, afforded them some consolation: they enjoyed an uninterrupted course of fair weather, with such mild winds as induced Magellan to bestow on that ocean the epithet of Pacific. At length, they fell in with a cluster of small islands, which afforded them refreshments in such abundance that their health was soon restored. From these islands, which he called Ladrones, he continued his voyage, and soon made a discovery of the Manillas; since denominated the Philippine Islands, from Philip II. of Spain, who first planted a colony in them. In Zebu, one of the Philippines, Magellan got into an unfortunate quarrel with the natives, who attacked him with a numerous body of well-armed troops; and while he fought gallantly at the head of his men, he was slain, together with several of his officers, by those fierce barbarians.(1) On the death of this great navigator, the expedition was prosecuted under different commanders. They encountered many difficulties in ranging through the smaller islands scattered in the eastern part of the Indian Ocean, touched at the great island of Borneo, and at last landed at Tidore, one of the Moluccas, to the astonishment of the Portuguese; who, ignorant of the figure of the earth, could not comprehend how the Spaniards, by holding a westerly course, had reached that sequestered seat of their most valuable commerce, which they themselves had discovered by sailing in an opposite direction !— At this and the adjacent islands, the Spaniards found a people acquainted with the benefits of extensive trade, and willing to open an intercourse with a new nation. They took in a cargo of spices, the distinguished produce of those islands; and with that, together with the specimens of the commodities yielded by the other rich countries which they had visited, the Victory, which of the two remaining ships was most fit for a long voyage, set sail for Europe under the command of Juan Sebastian del Cano. He followed the course of the Portuguese by the Cape of Good Hope; and, after a variety of disasters, arrived safe at St. Lucar.(2)

The Spanish merchants eagerly engaged in that alluring commerce, which was thus unexpectedly opened to them; while their men of science were employed in demonstrating, that the Spice islands were so situated as to belong to the crown of Castile, in consequence of the partition made by pope Alexander VI. But the Portuguese, alarmed at the intrusion of such formidable rivals, remonstrated and negotiated in Europe, at the same time that they obstructed in Asia the trade of the Spaniards; and Charles V., always needy, notwithstanding his great resources, and unwilling to add a rupture with Portugal to the numerous wars in which he was then engaged, made over to that crown his claim to the Moluccas for a sum of money.(3) In consequence of this agreement, the Portuguese continued undisturbed, and without a rival, masters of the trade of India; and the Manillas lay neglected, till Philip II. succeeded to the crown of Spain. Soon after his accession, Philip formed the scheme of planting a colony in those islands, to which he gave the name of the Philippines. This he accomplished by means of an armament, fitted out for New Spain. Manilla, in the island of Luconia, was the station chosen for the capital of the new establishment; and, in order to induce the Spaniards to settle there, the rising colony was authorized to send India goods to America, in exchange for the precious metals. (4) From Manilla an active commercial intercourse began with the Chinese, and a considerable number of that industrious people, allured by the prospect of gain, settled in the Philippines under the Spanish protection. By their means the colony was so amply supplied with all the valuable productions and manufactures of the East, as soon enabled it to open an advantageous trade with America, by a course of navigation the longest from land to land on our globe. (5) This

(1) Herrera, dec. II. lib. ix. c. 3.

(2) Id. ibid.

(3) Herrera, dec. III. lib. iv. c. 5.

(4) When Philip granted this indulgence, unless he meant afterward to withdraw it, he was certainly little acquainted with the commercial interests of Old Spain.

(5) Torquemada, lib. v. c. 14. Robertson, Hist. Span. Amer. book viii.

trade was originally carried on with Callao, the port of Lima, and the most commodious harbour on the coast of Peru; but experience having discovered many difficulties in that mode of communication, and the superior facility of an intercourse with New Spain, the staple of the commerce between America and Asia was removed from Callao to Acapulco.(1)

The Spanish colony in the Philippines, having no immediate connexions with Europe, gave no uneasiness to the Portuguese, and received no annoyance from them. In the mean time, the Portuguese not only continued to monopolize the whole commerce of the East, but were masters of the coast of Guinea, as well as that of Arabia, Persia, and the two peninsulas of India. They possessed the Moluccas, Ceylon, and the isles of Sunda, with the trade of China and Japan; and they made their colony of Brazil, which occupies that immense territory that lies between the Maragnon and the Rio de la Plata, one of the most valuable districts in America. But, like every people who have suddenly acquired great riches, the Portuguese began to feel the enfeebling effects of luxury and effeminacy. That hardy valour, which had subdued so many nations, existed no longer among them: they were with difficulty brought to fight, except where there was a prospect of plunder. Corruption prevailed in all the departments of government, and the spirit of rapine among all ranks of men. At the same time that they gave themselves up to all those excesses which make usurpers hated, they wanted courage to make themselves feared. Equally detested in every quarter, they at length saw themselves ready to be expelled from India by a confederacy of the princes of the country; and, although they were able, by a desperate effort, to break this storm, their destruction was at hand. (2)

When Portugal fell under the dominion of Spain, in consequence of the fatal catastrophe of Don Sebastian and his gallant nobility on the coast of Africa, Philip II. became possessed of greater resources than any monarch in ancient or modern times. But instead of employing his enormous wealth in procuring the security, the happiness, and the prosperity of his widely extended empire, he profusely dissipated it, in endeavouring to render himself as despotic in Europe as he was already in America, and in no inconsi derable portion of Asia and Africa. While Philip was employed in this ambitious project, his possessions in India were neglected; and as the Portuguese hated the dominion of the Spaniards, they paid little attention to the security of their settlements. No one pursued any other object but his own immediate interest: there was no union, no zeal for the public good. (3)

Things could not continue long in such a situation; and a new regulation, in regard to trade, completed the ruin of the Portuguese settlements in India. Philip II., whose bigotry and despotism had induced him to attempt to deprive the inhabitants of the Low Countries of their civil and religious liberties, in order more effectually to accomplish his aim, prohibited his new subjects from holding any correspondence with the revolted provinces.

This was a severe blow to the trade of the Hollanders, which consisted chiefly, as at present, in supplying the wants of one nation with the produce of another. Their merchants, ambitious of augmenting their commerce, had got the trade of Lisbon into their hands. There they purchased India goods, which they sold again to all the different states of Europe. They were there fore struck with consternation at a prohibition which excluded them from so essential a branch of their trade; and Philip did not foresee, that a restriction, by which he hoped to weaken the Dutch, would, in the end, render them more formidable. Had they been permitted to continue their intercourse with Portugal, there is reason to believe they would have contented themselves with

(1) Many remonstrances have been presented against this trade, as detrimental to Old Spain, by divert ing into another channel a large portion of that treasure which ought to flow into the paren ngdom; as tending to give rise to a spirit of independency in the colonies, and to encourage innumerable frauds, against which it is impossible to guard, in transactions so far removed from the inspection of government. But as it requires no slight effort of political wisdom and vigour to abolish any practice which numbers are interested in supporting, and to which time has added the sanction of its authority, the commerce between Acapulco and Manilla is still carried on to a considerable extent and allowed under certain restrictions. (2) Faria y Sousa, lib. v. cap i. (3) Id. ibid