Began to be more correctly understood, that political and
commercial motives combined in determining England to attack Spain
through America, and to deprive her of supremacy in the colonial and
maritime world. Then the voyages of the Cabots assumed an importance
entirely new, and could be quoted as the basis of a prior claim on the
part of the English Crown, to lands which it [through the Cabots] had
discovered."
Having in mind the terrible history of slaughter and reprisal between the
Spanish and French (Huguenot) settlers in Florida in 1565-67,
[Bancroft, History of the United States, vol. i. p. 68; Fiske,
Discovery of America, vol. ii. p. 511 et seq. With the terrible
experience of the Florida plantations in memory, the far-sighted
leaders of the Leyden church proposed to plant under the shelter of
an arm strong enough to protect them, and we find the Directors of
the New Netherland Company stating that the Leyden party (the
Pilgrims) can be induced to settle under Dutch auspices, "provided,
they would be guarded and preserved from all violence on the part of
other potentates, by the authority, and under the protection of your
Princely Excellency and the High and Mighty States General."
Petition of the Directors of the New Netherland Company to the
Prince of Orange.]
the Pilgrims recognized the need of a strong power behind them, under
whose aegis they might safely plant, and by virtue of whose might and
right they could hope to keep their lives and possessions.
