5. Elizabeth was a good queen in many respects, for she was a friend to learning, commerce, and all useful arts; and she chose able ministers, who ruled the country with wisdom and prudence; but she behaved very cruelly about religion, for although numbers of the people were still Catholics, she made a law that everybody should go to Protestant churches; and those who did not were put in prison, or made to pay such large sums of money, that they were quite ruined. 6. In other countries, particularly the Netherlands, the Protestants were as ill-treated as the Catholics were here, so that a great many of them came to England, and were very useful in teaching the English several arts and manufactures they did not know before. 7. Pins, needles, and paper, were now first made in England, and the cotton and other factories were greatly improved, so that there was more employment for the working classes. 8. Then workhouses were established for the destitute, and all householders, for the first time, were obliged to pay a tax, called the poor rate, to support and find the poor in food and clothes, so that they might not be driven, by want, to beg or steal. 9. The middle classes became more wealthy, and lived in better style than at any former period, especially the citizens of London, many of whom were rich merchants, living like noblemen, and among these was Sir Thomas Gresham, who built the first Royal Exchange, at his own expense, and gave a grand dinner there to the queen, in the year 1570. 10. English merchants now began to think of trading to the East Indies: but as it required a great deal of money to fit out ships, to make so long a voyage, for it took about four times as long then as it does now, a number of rich merchants joined together, and for a sum of money, obtained a charter from the queen, which made it unlawful for any other persons to carry on any trade with that part of the world. 11. It is very interesting to read how this East India Company first were only permitted just to land in India, and buy and sell a few goods; then, how they obtained permission of the emperor, for there was an emperor of India then, to build some warehouses on the sea coast, and form a little settlement, called a factory; then how they gradually established more factories, and took soldiers to protect them, and gained possession of lands, where they built towns, so that many English families went to live there. 12. Such was the beginning of the British empire in India; and, I dare say, that if the emperor could have foreseen the consequences, he would not have consented to have an English factory built on his coast. 13. In the reign of Elizabeth, Captain Francis Drake made a voyage all round the world, though he was not the first navigator who did so, but he was the first English one.