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Updated: July 28, 2025
Cabot settled in Bristol, where the still existing guild of Merchant-Venturers was even then two centuries old. Columbus, writing of his visit to Iceland, says, 'the English, especially those of Bristol, go there with their merchandise. Iceland was then what Newfoundland became, the best of distant fishing grounds. It marked one end of the line of English sea-borne commerce.
Elizabethan England is the motherland, the true historic home, of all the different peoples who speak the sea-borne English tongue. In the reign of Elizabeth there was only one English-speaking nation. This nation consisted of a bare five million people, fewer than there are to-day in London or New York.
In the first place, it provides a supplementary line of communication. We have already seen that, during the advance across the Desert, sea-borne supplies from Port Said were landed at El Arish. This method was continued throughout our advance in Palestine, and landing places were improvised at various convenient stages.
Either under their own flag or that of a neutral, either by foreign trade or coasting trade, the sea is the greatest of boons to such a state; and under every form its sea-borne trade is at the mercy of a foe decisively superior.
Probably all the greater colonies and India could feed their inhabitants for a moderately long time without sea-borne imports, but unless the sea were open to them their prosperity would decline. This teaches us the necessity to the British Empire of controlling our maritime communications, and equally teaches those who may one day be our enemies the advisability of preventing us from doing so.
So strong is the barrier which these sea-borne sands oppose to the river-borne ooze, that as soon as a seabank is built as the projectors of the 'Victoria County' have built them across any part of the estuary, the mud caught by it soon 'warps' the space within into firm and rich dry land.
It must be remembered in the third place that we are an insular nation, wholly dependent upon sea-borne supplies, possessing no considerable army, either for home defense or foreign service, and compelled therefore to play for very unequal stakes should Germany be our opponent in the hazardous game of war.
The Dutch coast was blockaded; British fleets stopped all sea-borne commerce; and the Dutch colonies in the East and West Indies were one after the other captured. The action of the Prince of Orange made this an easy task.
Also, Clementina had in her mind a scheme for attempting what Malcolm had requested of her: the next day must see it carried into effect, and ever and anon, like a cold blast of doubt invading the bliss of confidence, into the heart of that sea-borne peace darted the thought that if she failed she must leave at once for England, for she would not again meet Liftore.
Queen Elizabeth, a patriot ruler who always loved a hero for his service to the state, knighted Drake on board his flagship; and a poet sang his praises in these few, fit words, which well deserve quotation wherever the sea-borne English tongue is known: The Stars of Heaven would thee proclaim, If men here silent were. The Sun himself could not forget His fellow traveller.
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