in 1497, and pushed along the coast of America to the south as far as Florida, and northward as high as Hudson's Bay. But no Englishman followed on the track of this bold adventurer; and while Spain built up her empire in the New World, the English seamen reaped a humbler harvest in the fisheries of Newfoundland. [Sidenote: The Sea-dogs.] There was little therefore in the circumstances which attended the first discovery of the western continent that promised well for freedom. Its one result as yet was to give an enormous impulse to the most bigoted and tyrannical among the powers of Europe, and to pour the gold of Mexico and Peru into the treasury of Spain. But as the reign of Elizabeth went on the thoughts of Englishmen turned again to the New World. A happy instinct drew them from the first not to the southern shores that Spain was conquering, but to the ruder and more barren districts of the north. In 1576 the dream of finding a passage to Asia by a voyage round the northern coast of the American continent drew a west-country seaman, Martin Frobisher, to the coast of Labrador; and, foiled as he was in his quest, the news he brought back of the existence of gold mines there set adventurers cruising among the icebergs of Baffin's Bay. Elizabeth herself joined in the venture; but the settlement proved a failure, the ore which the ships brought back turned out to be worthless, and England was saved from that greed of gold which was to be fatal to the energies of Spain. But, failure as it was, Frobisher's venture had shown the readiness of Englishmen to defy the claims of Spain to the exclusive possession of America or the American seas. They were already defying these claims in a yet more galling way. The seamen of the southern and south-western coasts had long been carrying on a half-piratical war on their own account. Four years after Elizabeth's accession the Channel swarmed with "sea-dogs," as they were called, who sailed under letters of marque from Conde and the Huguenot leaders, and took heed neither of the complaints of the French Court nor of their own Queen's efforts at repression. Her efforts broke against the connivance of every man along the coast, of the very port officers of the Crown, who made profit out of the spoil which the plunderers brought home, and of the gentry of the west, whose love of venture made them go hand in hand with the sea-dogs. They broke above all against the national craving for open fight with Spain, and the Protestant craving for open fight with Catholicism. If the Queen held back from any formal part in the great war of religions across the Channel, her subjects were keen to take their part in it. Young Englishmen crossed the sea to serve under Conde or Henry of Navarre. The war in the Netherlands drew hundreds of Protestants to the field. Their passionate longing for a religious war found a wider sphere on the sea. When the suspension of the French contest forced the sea-dogs to haul