Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Beginnings of English America: Sir Walter Raleigh's Settlements on Roanoke Island, 1584-1587
The celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of the founding of Jamestown clothes with renewed Jamestown, interest and gives increased emphasis to one of the greatest events in the worlds history. The planting of a permanent English settlement in America marked the close of one great historic epoch and the beginning of another. The long struggle between England and Spain for the control of the western world was at an end; the development of English-speaking America had begun. The course of events had demonstrated that the latter was impossible without the former. Indeed so important was it to the English colonization of America that the power of Spain should be destroyed that an eminent historian declares: "The defeat of the Invincible Armada was the opening event in the history of the United States. It was the event that made all the rest possible. Without it the attempts at Jamestown and Plymouth could hardly have had more success than the attempt at Roanoke Island. An infant colony is like an army at the end of a long line of communication: it perishes if the line is cut. Before England could plant thriving states in America she must control the ocean routes. The far-sighted Raleigh understood the conditions of the problem. When he smote the Spaniards at Cadiz he knew it was a blow struck for America. He felt the full significance of the defeat of the Armada, and in spite of all his disappointments in Virginia, he never lost heart.
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