10 RELIGION, COLONISING AND TRADE personal influence was not needed to induce English promoters of discovery and settlement in the reign of Queen Elizabeth to raise on high the missionary banner. Among ‘the principal navigations > will be found numbers of passages in which lip service, if no more, is abundantly paid to the call of the mission field. It is in evidence, where it would not be expected, in the records of Frobishet’s voyages. Edward Hay, in his account of Gilbert’s last voyage, argues that, if Cabot’s discovery of the coast of North America had been followed up by exploration inland, no doubt Her Majesty’s territories and revenue had been mightily enlarged and advanced by this day. And, which is more, the seed of Christian religion had been sowed amongst those pagans which by this time might have brought forth a most plentiful harvest.’ 1 In ‘ Christopher Carlile’s Discourse,” written in 1583 in the hope of inducing the Russia Company to take in hand American discovery, the prospect of © reducing the savage people to Christianity and civility’ is coupled with that of providing for the unemployed ; 2 and—to take one more illustration—the discourse written in the same year by Sir George Peckham in connexion with Gilbert’s voyage, when dealing at great length with the ethics of planting’ among savages, lays down that ¢ the use of trade and traffic (be it never so profitable) ought not to be preferred before the planting of Christian Faith.” ® It is certain that a call to evangelise the heathen was prominently put forward in the days of Queen 1 Hakluyt, vol. viii, p. 35. 2 Ibid., p. 143. 3 Ibid. p. 98.