des Nouveau Continent opposees a l'Europe, et le libre et prodigieux accroissement d'une colonisation Anglaise audela de la grande vallee de l'Atlantique, a puissamment contribue a changer la face politique et les destinees de l'ancien continent. On a affirme que si Colomb n'avoit pas change, selon les conseils d'Alonzo Pinzon,[313] le 7 Octobre, 1492, la direction de sa route, qui etoit de l'est a l'ouest, et gouverne vers le sud-ouest, il seroit entre dans le courant d'eau chaude ou Gulf Stream, et auroit ete porte vers la Floride, et de la peut-etre vers le cap Hatteras et la Virginie, incident d'une immense importance, puisqu'il auroit pu donner aux Etats Unis, en lieu d'une population Protestante Anglaise, une population Catholique Espagnole."--Humboldt's _Geog. du Nouveau Continent_, tom. iii., p. 163.] [Footnote 313: Alonzo s'etoit ecrie "que son coeur lui disoit que pour trouver la terre, il falloit gouverner vers le sud-ouest." L'inspiration d'Alonzo etoit moins mysteriuse qu'elle peut le paraitre au premier abord. Pinzon avoit vu dans la soiree passer des perroquets, et il savoit que ces oiseaux n'alloient pas sans motif du cote du sud. Jamais vol d'oiseau n'a eu des suites plus graves.] CHAPTER X. The Protestant Reformation was eminently suited to the spirit of the English people, although forced upon them in the first instance by the absolute power of a capricious king, and unaccompanied by any acknowledgment of those rights of toleration and individual judgment upon which its strength seemed mainly to depend. The monarch, when constituted the head of the Church, exacted the same spiritual obedience from his subjects as they had formerly rendered to the Pope of Rome. Queen Elizabeth adopted her father's principles: she favored the power of the hierarchy, and the pomp and ceremony of external religious observances. But the English people, shocked by the horrors of Mary's reign, and terrified by the papal persecutions on the Continent, were generally inclined to favor the extremes of Calvinistic simplicity, as a supposed security against another reaction to the Romish faith. The stern and despotic queen, encouraged by the counsels of Archbishop Whitgift, assumed the groundless right of putting down the opinions of the Puritans by force. (1583.) Various severities were exercised against those who held the obnoxious doctrines; but, despite the storm of persecution, the spirit of religious independence spread rapidly among the sturdy people of England. At length a statute was passed of a nature now almost incredible--secession from the Church was punishable by banishment, and by death in case of refusal on return.[314] (1593.)