A History of England

At the time Baffin started his great voyages of exploration, England had already gained charts of sea routes around the globe. What is lacked was the information of the land beyond those oceans. The information is did possess only showed land already claimed by other European powers or inhospitable regions inhabited by hostile native tribes.

Baffin set out to change all that using the latest innovations that the Royal Society could provide. More advance telescopes and advances in cartography enabled Baffin to uncover whole regions of the world that had eluded many of the great explorers of the 15th and 16th centuries. Unlike his predecessors - Drake, Frobisher and Hudson - Baffin also had the benefit of friendly ports in the provinces of Chesapeake, Martinique and Bandjarmarsin which would allow his to rest and restock before continuing on his extensive voyages.

Setting out from London in the middle of January, Baffin took with him to Chesapeake Raleigh, who was to make his final journey to America. By the time he had arrived in the new colonial city, he had already mapped out provinces in Greenland, Labrador and many of the uncharted provinces on the east coast of the continent. Returning north from Chesapeake, he followed Hudson's journey any charted all of the lands bordering the bay of the same name.

As information filtered back to England of these new discoveries, merchant houses pressed the Crown to fund expeditions to set up colonies or trade posts in these places. Were it not for the lack of funds or volunteers, it is highly conceivable that England would have quickly claimed all of this land before the French or Dutch might have done the same. Within little over a year of his departure from London, England had established trade posts in Newfoundland, Labrador and Greenland and a colony on Isle Royale.

Baffin's first voyage north also gave the English vital intelligence on the French who were also active in colonising areas to the North of England's own colony in Chesapeake. The threat of the French made London consider its position in North America and it did not take long to come to the conclusion that England's future would be better served in shoring up our position quickly further south. It was to be an important move for while the French concentrated on building up its shipping and foresting communities in the north, England was rapidly building up a burgeoning business in tobacco, destined to rival those of the Portuguese and the Spanish.

Baffin's second voyage was perhaps his greatest. Sailing south from Chesapeake he passed the Florida coast into the Gulf of Mexico and charted the Spanish lands in Mexico and Central America before stopping briefly in Martinique. From there, he turned back west towards Africa and rounded the Cape of Good Hope in the autumn of 1618. Unlike many regions of Africa, the region around Table Mountain was sparely populated with friendly natives and ideal for colonisation by Europeans, unaccustomed to the harsh conditions of the tropics.

It was to be a most important discovery. For England to compete with the Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish or French, a long term strategy was needed to gain that important foothold in the east. But this was not as simple as colonising on the east coast of the Atlantic. The distances involved from London to the west meant that English ships and men could be quickly brought over to defend colonies from natives or hostile European powers. With India and the far east, it was imperative to have some sort of staging post along the way. Located in the more temperate region of the southern tip of Africa, Table province provided the ideal location for England to capitalise upon.

Baffin still continued his voyage journeying first to the struggling colony in Bandjarmarsin on the island of Borneo. From there he was to sail further east charting unclaimed islands in the Indies before going on to discover Australia and yet more land suited to the English. Far away from any threat from other Europeans, here was a land that could quickly be developed into thriving colonies.

On returning to Bandjarmasin, Baffin received the shocking news that the indiginous tribes have risen up and massacred the entire population of the colony save only those who could escape to neighbouring Dutch territory and under the protection of the Dutch armies. Despite his desparate pleas to allow port facilities, the Dutch would not allow him to rest and he was forced to sail east across the vast expanse of the Pacific on a long journey back to a friendly port in Martinique.

Records of the journey highlight the intense deprivations suffered by Baffin and his crew. At one stage during the Pacific voyage, his men were on the verge of mutiny seeking only to harbour in one of the many uninhabitated islands scattered about the southern ocean. But despite these difficulties, Baffin held his men together and as they rounded Cape Horn, a new hope was revived in them that their ordeal was coming to an end.

Sadly for one crew, it was to be a premature end. As the delipidated squadron passed along the northern coast of Brazil, the Pride of Plymouth, started to take in water. Before the alarm was raised, the water level in the hold was so high that recovery was impossible. When Baffin heard the news, he mustered what small boats he could to rescue the unfortunate seamen who were, by this time, plunging into the shark-infested waters. As their ship started to list, the sailors swam in desperation towards the other two ships. Those who could not swim waited as long as they could on the stricken ship before finally jumping into the sea as the Pride of Plymouth finally dipped beneath the waves. Of the original crew, just 17 survived to return to Martinique.

The episode deeply shocked Baffin. Betrayed by the Dutch he was forced to see his crew waste away as he had tried to race back to port. For the last two years of his life, he stayed in the Carribean and devoted his time to overseeing the renewed drive to expand the colonies that were now growing in the region.

Baffin's voyages

When Raleigh arrived in Chesapeake in March 1617, his first act was to present the colony with its city charter. Natives had joined the small group of colonists in February increasing the population of the town to around 1100 inhabitants. On doing this he took a party of 4000 men and explored the interior where he cleared Powhatan of natives in April before supervising a colonial expedition to the province just inland from the existing colony in Chesapeake. Like Chesapeake, Powhatan contained the ideal climate for growing tobacco plants and Raleigh had long seen England’s potential as one of Europe’s leading suppliers of quality tobacco leaves. By the end of the year, England had another colony there. A trading party had already been sent to Roanoke at the beginning of the year and a trade post was established before the summer of 1619. The tobacco traded from both new provinces flowed into the Dutch trading centre in Manhattan where English merchants were, at the time, starting to increase their activity.

Not that Raleigh believed that England would live on tobacco alone. While travelling to Chesapeake he had seen the Greenland provinces of Eiriksfjord and Vestbygden and supported the view that the land was suitable for sending trading parties. In reality, England did not have sufficient capital to support a full colonial expedition but this did not greatly matter since the setting up of a trade post met two important objectives. First, the investment on a trade post was generally repaid more quickly than would the much larger initial cost of funding a colonial party. Second, the province itself could be claimed as English sovereign territory at minimal cost before rival European powers could do the same. Within another year, England had set up trade posts in Gander and Wabana on Labrador Island, and in Torngat in Newfoundland.

Two other colonial mission were sent in 1617: the first to Isle Royale establish a port and colony while the second, to Bermuda met with failure. Although the Bermuda expedition was seen as a very costly failure, it was quickly understood, back in Westminster, that this was simply one of the commercial risks involved with colonial activity. Both King and Parliament agreed that the drive for colonial power must not stop.

During the remainder of the year, Raleigh charted lands as far as he could discovering the Iroquois and Shawnee tribes before returning to Chesapeake. In 1618, he journeyed south to Roanoke where he planned a colonial mission to replace the existing trade post in the province. After making all the necessary plans for the new settlement, he journeyed into the interior and discovered Catawba and Appalache provinces before going on to uncover lands owned by the Cherokee. On returning to Catawba, he marked out an area for settlement and colonists were sent immediately to develop the land. By early 1619, England had four tobacco provinces in North America.

Raleigh’s work was not yet complete and, in his final years, he successfully worked on the clearing and colonisation of both Santee and Carolina. He died shortly after in Roanoke, the place where he first set foot on American soil. Although Raleigh never found out, the King had by now been persuaded by Parliament to drop the earlier charge of conspiracy and his body was finally brought back to London and laid to rest in Westminster alongside England’s many war heroes.

Raleigh therefore left a legacy in North America that the Commons was anxious to build upon. Five small colonies were ripe for expansion when money would allow. In two of them, Catawba and Roanoke, natives in the region were tolerated but not yet accepted into the community. Powhatan, Santee and Carolina shared borders with the Cherokee and Iroquois tribes and were therefore prone to attacks from two of the most hostile tribes in the region. To protect the colonists in Catawba and Roanoke from marauding natives, troops had to be stationed in the province to act as deterrents against any such attacks.

Somewhat ironically, the armed forces occupying both provinces managed to antagonise both native and settlers. In the spring of 1621, there was a serious uprising of colonists in both provinces against the king’s forces. Fortunately, both were brought under control.

But the incident outlined the danger of keeping the colonists and natives together in the same area. Parliament decided that both should be expanded quickly and the natives integrated into English colonial society. Once this was realised, tax incomes were increasingly diverted to provide the necessary money to send additional colonial expeditions, sometimes amounting to £600,000 apiece.

With Raleigh dead, it was left to Button, returning after an expedition around the globe, to provide the expertise and knowledge necessary for successful colonial expeditions. Stationed in Roanoke, he saw the colonial rapidly grow to a city. In neighbouring Catawba, colonists simply had to find there own way of surviving but, in time, that province was also granted full city status.

Button then left for the Caribbean where English colonists were being sent to the islands of Martinique, Dominica and Guadeloupe. By the time King James had died, and his son Charles succeeded him, Martinique had become England’s fourth colonial city and the other two Caribbean islands were growing rapidly. However, Charles also inherited from his father the still tenuous position of England’s new colonies surrounded on all sides by hostile natives. It was this, more than anything else, that finally led him to support Parliament’s call for a war against the Iroquois.

Originally posted by Lord Durham
Nice approach, Lionheart. So, I guess Baffin Island never got named in your world, and is it true that Raleigh explored back in 1417?

AARe you covering all English explorers?

Click to expand...

Don't know what you mean about a 15th century Raleigh

I won't actually be covering all explorers - there isn't much left for the rest of them to do. All you need is to have a guy in a boat with a good telescope and you've got all coastal provinces discovered by 1650. Baffin actually discovered nearly 200 provinces and sea routes - rather than just the frozen lump of ice which bears his name today - so I'm quite sure that Baffin island would have got its name from the great explorer. It's just that, in this tale. Baffin Island might be more familiar to you guys as Australia

To be honest, I was getting a bit bored with the ahistorical history of Burgundy and wanted to return to more familiar territory

Conflict in the New World

For the first few Europeans travelling to North America, life in New England was not the peaceful utopia which some historians might wish to paint it. Even in the fertile lands of Virginia, those early settlers had to learn quickly to adapt to this new way of life and build up a spirit of interdependence among themselves in order to survive, let along thrive. In the early days of colonisation, the work of administering the new communities often fell to the likes of Raleigh and Button

Both men saw the need to defend the provinces from outside attacks as an integral part of their survival and English soldiers were continually stationed in the region to guard against such eventualities. However, the cost of maintaining troops in the area was to fall to London, and not on the few colonists. Indeed, the early colonists positively benefited from the local garrison since the local trade, which existed at the time, received a one-off boost as soldiers provided an additional market for such basic products as tobacco, or surplus timber and food. Once adequate housing had been provided for the troops in the region, they would then help in building roads and public buildings, such as churches and town halls.

With the death of Raleigh, Button was only to remain in the region until he was called away on another “pet project” in the Caribbean. The governance of the region was left in the hands of the local army commander whose interests lay in his troops more than in the fledgling colonies that they were protecting. The soldiers became less involved in community life and started to drain the resources, and patience of the industrious colonists.

In towns such as Jamestown and Shepherdstown, in the north, anxious settlers also had another worry. To their north lay the Iroquois tribe who, in the summer of 1619, had defeated the more peaceful Lenape tribe and annexed their lands. Stories began to spread of the barbaric practices of the natives and the fears grew that the Iroquois would soon come and plunder the defenceless villages on the borders. Although these fears may have been imaginary – the Iroquois had never shown any hostile intent towards the English colonies – for the people living in the north, the concerns were very real.

The Dutch were the first to act and declared war on the Iroquois quickly to protect their own valuable colony in Manhattan. The inhabitants of Jamestown and Shepherdstown called for England to do the same but Parliament and King James showed little interest in a war, particularly after our allies, the Dutch, refused to grant military access to English troops and ships. For London, the war held a greater diplomatic significance. If the Dutch wanted to go it alone in fighting the Iroquois, then, Parliament was saying, let them do so. England would simply watch and wait and her troops in New England remained inactive.

For the settlers, this was widely seen as an act of betrayal. In early 1420, a call went out for men willing to fight against the Iroquois and, despite the futility of a few poorly armed and untrained settlers taking on the might of 20000 Iroquois warriors without the support of the army, over 300 men came forward in the towns of Lynchburg and Norfolk ready to march to the defence of their fellows in Shepherdstown and Jamestown.

On seeing such a large group of armed men, the local garrison commanders panicked and ordered the troops to fire upon the crowds. What followed was a brief exchange of fire before the rebels dispersed quickly. But this was not to be the end of it. Townsfolk led a serious of reprisal attacks on the soldiers in which small bands of them were surrounded by a local mob and beaten to death. Thus was born the term “lynching” from the town in Catawba where the first incident occurred. Over the course of the next few weeks, over 100 people were to be killed, or suffered serious injuries in a growing cycle of violence. After 19 days of daily fighting, the trouble suddenly stopped every bit as quickly as it had first started. It is not known why the locals ceased resistance to the army and returned to their daily business. Perhaps some wiser heads had got together and resolved the matter or persuaded the citizens of the futility and madness of turning against what was supposed to be a defensive army. Whatever happened, the people simply settled back into the daily routine.

Reports of the rebellion led to consternation in London. While everyone was at a loss to understand why it had occurred, a significant number recognised the need to do something about it. Parliament voted for an immediate increase in funds to be diverted to the colonies in Catawba and Roanoke. In the years 1620 to 1624, nearly £1,400,000 was spent each year on work to expand and develop the two provinces.

The war between the Netherlands and the Iroquois was to last over a year and was to end with the capture of the Dutch trading centre in Manhattan. Eager to make peace, the Netherlands agreed to pay the princely sum of £2,500,000 to the Iroquois chief for him to return possession of Manhattan. The initial shock in London on hearing the news rapidly turned to bemusement when it became apparent that the Dutch had failed to do anything to prosecute the war or even to defend Manhattan. England was not going to make the same mistake.

By the summer of 1624, the feeling in both London and the colonies was that war with the Iroquois was inevitable. It was not any more a question of whether such a war would take place but when. Advocates of a pre-emptive strike on both sides of the Atlantic received the simple response that England was not yet ready. Troops led by Buckingham were shipped to the colonies from Ireland and the Caribbean and more were raised in the colonies themselves. Fortifications were ordered for Jamestown and Lynchburg on the Iroquois border.

If the English colonies felt threatened in the north, their brethren in the towns of Charleston, Carolina and Wilmington, Santee had equal reason for concern from their own neighbours the Cherokee. In February 1624, the Cherokee won a war against the Shawnee tribe and captured the province of Kentucky. The threat of encirclement from hostile natives grew ever closer when the Cherokee declared war on the Creek tribe to the south.

Back in England, there was a new King. Charles had succeeded his father in 1625 at the relatively young age of 25. He was a confident and bold young man who cared little for the wishes of Parliament and more for his own prestige in the courts of Europe. When the King heard the news of the war in the south, he called on Parliament to present him an official declaration of war in the Iroquois. For many members of Parliament, it was the act of an arrogant autocrat and Charles was quickly reminded that it was for Parliament, and not the king, to judge the merits of a war in North America. Fortunately for England, Parliament had always been in favour of the war and confident of success, the official declaration was prepared and signed by the King before being sent to the Iroquois on May 24th 1626.

Buckingham led the main invasion army of 12000 men across the border into Tuscarora while a small force of 2000 were sent via Shenandoah to march into unexplored Iroquois territory to the west. In the first two battles, English forces demonstrated their superior firepower in defeating the Iroquois. In Powhatan, a force of 2000 English soldiers left to defend Shepherdstown successfully repulsed over 18000 Iroquois warriors.

By late August, Buckingham had captured Tuscarora province, the only unfortified Iroquois province that was known to England at the time. The rest of the Iroquois lands, apart from their fortified provinces of Mohawk, Shenandoah, Susquehanna and Delaware, all lay to the northwest and had to be slowly charted. Buckingham sent a force quickly to lay siege to the Iroquois capital and another east to besiege Susquehanna. Further colonial recruits were drafted to support the war effort as Buckingham maintained a presence in Tuscarora designed to hinder the movement of the Iroquois armies and allow his forces to freely march into the uncharted territory.

Bit by bit, the Iroquois were thrown back at every attempt to lift the siege of their capital. Cannon were brought into action to gradually wear down the defenders and beat them into submission. It was a slow process but one that, as every month passed, and additional colonial armies arrived to support the war, led gradually to English supremacy.

It was not until early 1627, that the English finally discovered Oswego and Irondekoit, both unfortified provinces and quickly captured in the spring of the same year. Once Onondaga had been discovered and captured in July 1627, Buckingham knew the full extent of Iroquois lands and their armies. He then settled into a slow war of wearing down the defenders by maintaining a siege of all the Iroquois fortified provinces.

Battles with roving Iroquois armies were frequent but invariably resulted in success to the English while 7 frigates on the Royal Navy maintained a constant blockade of the Iroquois port in Delaware. The English naval commander was to report regular, but very brief battles with the hopelessly outgunned and smaller Iroquois ships. Frequently, one or two of these would put to sea only to be met by a quick barrage of fire from the English before retreating back to port. This rather bizarre behaviour from the Iroquois was repeated almost 50 times during the course of the war and there was always the same end result.

With the inevitable fall of the Iroquois capital in April 1628, the chief sued for peace with England offering to cede all Iroquois provinces bar Mohawk. King Charles finally agreed to the growing pressure from Parliament to put an end to the war. Sadly, Charles had failed to heed the warnings of his early years as king and saw this as a sign of his divinely inspired leadership. It was to lead him to yet another run in with Parliament in the years that followed.

The rise of a middle class and of parliamentary rights

English colonial dynamism during the second half of James realm came also with its birth as a trading nation. By the time of James’ death, income from trade tariffs and import duties exceeded that from taxes on domestically produced goods. Part of this growth came from the increased value of goods from the colonies and trade posts around the world. The largest single traded product from the colonies now was tobacco although sugar from the Carribean island, and to a lesser extent Matagorda and Bourbon and spices from the island of Mahe made important contributions to imported goods

But this alone, did not explain the growth in trading activity that brought so much wealth to the Exchequer. Much of it also came from a greater activity of English merchants in overseas markets.

By 1617, English policy on trade was already fairly open compared to aggressive mercantile societies like Spain. However, it was still not a full-blooded supporter of free trade as practised by the Dutch. Nevertheless, this more implicit support of the principle of free trade forced English traders to compete across the world and the scale of their success underlines the merits of those arguing for free trade

Until James’ death, England had signed free trade agreements with the Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and Swedish. Less reluctantly, an agreement was also reached with the Scots although no such compromise was made with the French. What this meant was that English traders could more freely compete in international markets, often controlled by the Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish. When Charles came to the throne in 1625, England controlled most of the trade centred in London, and a large share of the trade in places such as Manhattan, Amsterdam, Seville, and Lisbon. Merchant companies, and the industries that grew from them, principally banking, started to grow and individual traders saw their wealth grow correspondingly.

By the time that the war with the Iroquois was underway, England suddenly woke up to the fact that, somewhere between the nobility and the peasant worker, there had silently emerged another middle-class. These were not the quiet uneducated masses that followed the whims of kings of titled nobility. They were well versed in the literary works of Shakespeare and the scientific works of Bacon and could often speak several languages. More importantly these people had money, land and power and were not likely to relinquish this lightly.

In 1627, as the war in North America continued, Buckingham called for more men to be sent to finish the war. Charles, eager to oblige his old friend, ordered the raising of a forced loan on fixed properties, something at Parliament saw as an illegal confiscation. Prominent amongst the dissenting voices were such notable figures as the Earls of Warwick, Essex, Huntingdon and Arundel. However, Charles could not understand the reaction in Parliament and refused to submit on matters concerning the raising of taxes for wars. Some prominent voices in the commons, including Sir John Elliot were arrested and jailed while the initial uproar subsided.

When the 1628 elections arrived, those in Parliament arguing for stronger measures to control the monarch received a boost as supporters for their cause were elected across the country. Many of these saw the forced loan as extra-parliamentary taxation and illegal under the Magna Carta. More ominously, the King was increasingly seen as being set on breaching their parliamentary defences of common law. Parliament ordered a judicial hearing to judge on whether the forced loan was actually illegal and to decide whether sovereign had any right to arrest persons without charge. When the judgement came, they upheld on both cases.

But this was not the end of the matter. During the spring of 1628, it was reported that the terms of the judges decision had been falsified and, more importantly, that the King himself had agreed to the revision. While the judges had ruled that the King had not raised the loan illegally, they had said that extra-parliamentary taxation was legal in cases where the King felt it necessary in the national cause. Perhaps this was a minor difference but the incident painted a picture of a King with no regard for parliament or the wishes of the people and even hell-bent on finding ways to usurp Parliamentary authority.

By late 1628, it had all become an argument of constitutional principles. Pro-parliamentary reformers called for a Bill of Rights for the King to sign. Among other things, the Bill stated that non-parliamentary taxes would be illegal, the prohibition of imprisonment without trial and the unlawfulness of martial law. This was subsequently downgraded to a Petition of Rights allowing Charles to save face in being able to claim that these rights were to be granted and did not exist as a fundamental right of Parliament.

As the crisis developed, England had experienced something else that was new: the emergence of public opinion as a political force. Throughout the new parliamentary session, reports emerged from each heated debate in the commons before being quickly transcribed and printed on small broad sheets of paper for public display. People in London were able to find out of developments in Parliament on the same day that it happened.

Charles finally relented to the demands of Parliament and agreed to sign the Petition of Rights granting the aforementioned but still claimed unique sovereign rights over ecclesiastical appointments and over foreign relations. He was simply incapable of acting or thinking in any way contrary to his own convictions and had once again failed to notice the ground moving beneath him. For him, Parliament was still there as a servant of the King, to do what he wished of them. It was not to be the last time that he would make such an error of judgement.

MrT: Just saw your comment on the Burgundy game which was starting to get tedious with its month of peace punctuated by five to ten year of war. I'll have a look into how I might change the game file to give me some of the French, German or Italian historical events but trying hard to avoid getting their leaders.

For the moment, this one's my pet project but I've only just finished writing up the story from my first period of gameplay. I havent' yet decided whether the focus of the next period will be internal or external but I've got the notes to do either. There is a little difficulty in playing Charles as the character he was in history due to the way the game has developed but this is just one of the many problems that an AAR writer has to deal with.

p.s. Thanks for the kind remarks

Colonial expansion in North America 1628-35

With the news of Buckingham’s victory over, and subsequent peace settlement with the Iroquois, England masses thronged to the streets in celebration. Such was the post war euphoria that the country experienced an exceptional year in almost every field. Tax receipts to the crown jumped by over £2,000,000 while the excessive supply of goods drove down prices across the country, including those of key naval industries where costs of cloth, timber and iron fell over 10% over the year.

Almost overnight, England had gained land of an area greater than England itself although with less than half the population of Yorkshire. But this land was rich in resources. The combined income from territories in the New World was greater now than that of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Midlands and Lincoln together. Over the next decades, natural population growth alone in North America would be almost twice that in England and this would be swelled yet further as more settlers would leave England and Ireland for New England. Land in Susquehanna was quickly claimed through deforestation as the colony size in the region almost doubled within a year of its capture. In contrast, a plague which struck the population of Kent in 1633, believed to be caused through infected beef, only highlighted the difference in fortunes between those remaining in Mother England and those brave few who journeyed to the new territories.

The new lands did however create an interesting problem for England. The native inhabitants all continued to worship pagan gods and this brought inordinate strain on stability at home. How could a god-fearing nation such as England govern a land of heathens. Resistance in England mounted and pressure was put to send missionaries to the new provinces. Money was diverted to treasury to be used first to combat inflation and then to raise up missionary expeditions to the Americas. During 1628 to 1632, governors were promoted across England, Wales and Ireland bringing new methods of keeping prices low. By the end of 1631, taxes are diverted more to improve our trading methods as income from trade and colonies expanded and the need for significant funds for investment and missions to North America subsided.

Missions started to arrive in the Iroquois lands from May 1630 with Shenandoah the first target of the zealous Anglican priests. Delaware, the richest of the Indian provinces was the site chosen for a second mission. By 1631, missions had been sent to six of the seven Indian provinces.

The instability at home led to outbreaks of sporadic fighting, the most famous incident being of a feud between two of the most prominent families in the province of Lancashire: the Clarendons and the Hobarts. When the king openly sided with the Clarendons, the province was caught off guard by a sudden revolt and troops were returned from Ireland to resolve the issue by force.

Natives were cleared in regions around old Iroquois lands although Buckingham was to be killed in battle against natives in Detroit. Colonists were sent to the new provinces although too late to stop the French from claiming Niagara province as their own. During the first years after the Iroquois war, colonies were established in Catskill, Adirondak, Detroit, Connecticut and Michilimakinak.

To the north, a brief war between France and the Huron tribe raised concerns of French expansion in the area. Colonists were sent quickly to Massachussets in an attempt to reduce French influence in the area. The mission was a failure but others were to follow in 1633 to Massachussets and Penobscot while the French actively expanded their own colonies in the region. Both of these new missions failed but Parliament was adamant that Penobscot would form the border between French held lands and the English provinces to the south. Success arrived in May 1634 with the first successful colonisation in the province. The colonisation of Massachussets was to meet with yet more failure in the same year before success finally came in 1635. While other regions in North America were somewhat neglected, England concentrated efforts on expanding the Massachussets colony near to the French regions

During this period, England’s colonial drive had started to shift. Not content to devote all its efforts to North America, England also looked to Africa and the east and the lucrative trading profits that could be made. As a stepping-stone to India, Parliament had already decided by 1628, to build up colonies in Table province and on the islands of Mahe and Bourbon. Button arrived in Table province to oversee the expansion of the colony from April 1628 to March 1632. He also saw to the expansion of new colonies in Bourbon and in Mahe, where he was finally to die of fever in the summer of 1634. The island colony of Bourbon was to soon become an important local trading centre which was to quickly expand into a small colonial city by 1635. Mahe was to follow suit in the same year as England steadily moved its focus further east towards India.

Englands colonal growth 1628-35