To make the whole story clear, from beginning to end, calls for an effort to first put ourselves in relation with that remote time,—its thought, its interests, its aims and civilization. Let us try to do this now, at this time, when from our standpoint of achieved success we may calmly look back over the field, and see clearly the causes which have led up to it in orderly succession.
In the very beginning we see three rival civilizations. We see different nations, each of which is putting forth efforts to grasp dominion in, or stamp its own civilization upon, the New World in despite of the other. We see civilization apparently engaged in defeating its own ends. Naturally, then, our first interest centres in the combatants themselves. Who and what are these Old World gladiators, who, in making choice of the New for their arena, have stripped for the encounter?
SHIP OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
Great affairs were engaging the attention of the civilized world, so great that nearly all Europe was up in arms. It was the era of unsettled conditions,—of old jealousies and animosities revived, of new opportunities and new adjustments created by them. But among the nations of Europe power was very differently distributed from what we see it to-day. Spain, not England, was acknowledged mistress of the seas. Not yet had England wrested that proud title from her ancient rival in the greatest naval battle of the century. Drake and Frobisher had not been born. Hawkins was a lad, strolling about the quays of his native seaport. Who, then, should dispute with Spain dominion of the seas?
The royal standard of Spain had indeed floated very far at sea. Columbus had borne it even in sight of the shores of Mexico; but, though he had given to Spain a new world, he, the man of his century, did not succeed in finding his long-sought strait to India, and so had died without seeing the one great purpose of his life accomplished.
ISABELLA OF SPAIN.