The lands conveyed to Gilbert were suitable for Englishmen to dwell in, and to be made valuable would require to be populated. This, however, raised a new question. Heretofore, men had lived as merchants in foreign but civilized countries, or fished or traded in others. If, now, they were to settle permanently in this barbarous land, would they cease to be Englishmen without becoming anything else? Elizabeth cut the knot by decreeing that such new countries should owe personal allegiance to herself, and, in that way, be united to her “Realmes of England and Ireland”; and, further, that any one born in the new lands, or emigrating thither from the old, should have all the privileges of a free-born native of the Realm.[66] These questions, now first arising, as to whether the settlers in new lands were within or without the Realm, and, if without, then whether they could be held as subject to the government that functioned for the Realm, were to become more and more insistent of answer in the days to come. But when Elizabeth granted her patent to Gilbert, little could any one have realized the size of England's future empire in America, or that that empire would be lost by civil war, in part because the answers to those questions could not be found. The main factor that gave rise to this distinction between the Realm and the Dominions, and that was to be primarily responsible for the failure satisfactorily to adjust the relations between them, was the physical distance, in terms of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, by which they were separated. Footnote 66: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vol. VIII, p. 20. Professor H. L. Osgood states that “by the realm was usually meant England, Wales, and Berwick on Tweed.” _The American Colonies in the 17th Century_ (New York, 1907), vol. III, p. 6. In Gilbert's charter, the words “realmes of England and Ireland” are used. Scotland, of course, was a separate realm. Gilbert's efforts to colonize, however, like those of his half-brother, Raleigh, resulted only in failure. The time was ill chosen, as there was still work enough for enterprising spirits, and the employment of capital, in other directions. Under the stimulus of the defeat of the Armada, English seamen scoured the sea in search of Spanish prey, and it has been estimated that eight hundred Spanish vessels were lost in four years.[67] If in the light of such opportunities, colonizing seemed but a poor investment, voyaging and discovery, nevertheless, proceeded at a rapid rate. But New England, in spite of its being so near the field of English activities in the fisheries, was neglected, although its coast may occasionally have been visited by enterprising souls like Richard Strong, who sailed to “Arambec,” in 1593, in search of “sea-Oxen.”[68] Footnote 67: Brown, _Genesis_, p. 20. Footnote 68: Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vol. VIII, p. 157.