In aiding these corporations, which succeeded after a fashion in planting colonies, but failed for the most part in reaping profits, the State expected increased revenue rather than the spread of European civilization. In England, State assistance to such undertakings was always slight and uncertain; the strength of the early colonies lay in the wealth and persistence of their promoters. 23. Character of English Emigrants. Sidenote: English impulse to emigration. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were full of trouble for the English people. Religious restlessness was succeeded by revolution and civil war, while crude and oppressive economic conditions induced lawless disturbance and disaster. Colonizing schemes were readily taken up in such times of unrest. At first the notion prevailed that the colonies might profitably be utilized for clearing the mother-country of jail-birds and paupers, although with these went out many who were worthy pioneers. It remained for the Plymouth planting to demonstrate that only the honest and thrifty can work out the salvation of a wilderness. America attracted the attention alike of traders and settlers because its soil was supposed to be rich, because the climate was temperate and not unlike that of England, because there was plenty of room, and because the unknown land attracted the adventurous. Sidenotes: Englishmen as colonists. Their characteristics, Englishmen were soon found to be the best colonizers in the world. An intelligent, large, well-built, and handsome race, active in a high degree and passionately fond of out-door life and manly sports, they are brave and enterprising, will fight for supremacy, are tenacious of purpose, and carry with them in their migrations their ideas, their customs, and their laws. They do not assimilate with other races,--in fact, there is inbred in them a strong disdain of foreigners, and still more of inferior races; but they rule with vigor, and make a lasting impress of their characteristics upon the communities they establish. Although Englishmen in the seventeenth century, when they colonized America, lacked many of the refinements of civilization, were coarse in their tastes and sentiments, and much given to dissipation and petty vices, a fibre of robust morality ran through the national life. The leaders were educated, they were ambitious for their race, and there was a healthy tone to their patriotic aspirations. Simple and reserved in manner, they prided themselves on repressing the utterance of their feelings, entering upon the serious business of rearing a nation in the wilds with most becoming gravity. Their conduct was often bad, but they were schooled in piety and reverence, and were steadfast in high aims. Sidenote: and their free institutions.