4 RELIGION, COLONISING AND TRADE 
Overland,” was published in 1589, and the second 
edition of the work, expanded into three volumes, was 
published in 1598, 1599, 1600. 
One of the earliest sixteenth-century documents in 
the collection is ¢ A Declaration of the Indies,’ etc., the 
often quoted letter or ‘ persuasion,’ in which, in 1527, 
Robert Thotne, an English merchant resident in 
Seville, urged King Henry VIII to have a route to 
Cathay sought for by the north. It begins, ¢ Experi- 
ence proveth that naturally all princes be desirous to 
extend and enlarge their dominions and kingdoms.’ 1 
Here was the simplest and most rudimentary motive 
for the expansion of England, from the point of view 
of the King of England. He was presumed to want 
a larger kingdom, just as in better times for landowners 
than the present it would have been natural for a small 
landed proprietor to want to add more acres to his 
estate ; and inasmuch as the Tudor kings and queens 
of England and their subjects were, except in Queen 
Mary’s reign, very much of the same mind, it can be 
taken that the people of England, like their sovereigns, 
were more or less wishful to enlarge the English 
kingdom. This is more than a rather pointless 
truism. The small size of England in comparison 
with some other leading countries of Europe was very 
apparent as the sixteenth century went on its course, 
and so was the fact that a much smaller country, 
Portugal, had vastly enlarged its borders and propot- 
tionately raised its status in the world. Modern his- 
tory was then very young. By the young size is taken 
for strength, and peoples cannot afford to ignore 
1 Hakluyt, vol. ii, p. 159.