Empire On The Development Of British Essay

In 1715, Great Britain ended the War of the Spanish Succession as an emergent imperial power, with a new base at Gibraltar and her naval victory at Malaga. Over the next century, she became as a true world power. Her emergence as an intellectual and scientific power helped stimulate the growth of her empire, and in the empire in turn fostered the blossoming of the scientific and intellectual life in Britain. , England’s quest for colonies came late. In 1600, she had no permanent settlements outside of Europe. 1 In the seventeenth century, however, this had changed dramatically, with the settlement of the colonies in North America, of sugar plantations in the Caribbean, and the beginnings of a large scale slave trade between West Africa and the New World. 2 In these colonial enterprises, the English proved themselves more efficient in supplying the necessities than did their rivals, and were thus largely able to exclude other countries from trade with these colonies. 3 Further, almost from the outset, the English were interested in preserving the territories they seized. Very early on they showed a remarkably sophisticated and highly practical understanding of potential environmental problems involved with settlement and cultivation. Well before other settlers, the British learned to protect forests to prevent drastic erosion. Learning this, they fostered ways to work with the tropical environment rather than against it. 4 The colonies in the Caribbean, with their sugar and tropical produce, and Newfoundland, with its vast quantities of fish, were especially profitable. 5 On the other hand, by the mid-sixteenth century, exploration of the Pacific had all but stopped. The sheer size of the ocean and the difficulties of navigating it intimidated mariners. The few voyages that were made into the Pacific were often largely buccaneering ventures, which brought back wild accounts of these tales for the reading public in England. 6 While English diplomats trying to keep peace sometimes paid lip service to Spain’s claim of the entire Pacific Ocean,7 the course of advancement would not be stayed. An important reason for the influence that the expansion of the empire had on the intellectual climate in England was the influence that the intellectual climate in England had on the expansion of the British empire. In terms of timing, the English came late to the business of exploration. When they turned their energies to exploration, they were already absorbed in the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution. The English translated the Bible into English and quickly followed this with the production of other major works such as Homer into English. They also began producing their own works, including William Turner’s Herball of 1651. In a remarkable flowering of her intellectual prowess, the English produced many of the finest minds of the age, Isaac Newton, William Herschel, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith, Joseph Priestley, and Robert Boyle to name only a few of these luminaries. A great deal of the English learning was driven by pragmatic considerations. Navigation required expertise in astronomy and cartography. As the colonists settled property, they needed competent surveyors, a need that Raleigh recognized, dispatching a mathematician to help map the new world. Knowledge of new rocks, plants, and animals was essential to determine what could be exploited. 8 Coming out of this intellectual ferment, British attitudes about colonies and exploration were very different from those of earlier explorers, notably the Spanish. The English did less to proselytize to the natives they found,9 but early on made science a part of their efforts. They did not find the gold that drove Pizarro; Spain produced no match for James Cook or Joseph Banks. 10 The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge was a key to intellectual ferment and exploration. Chartered 1662, Royal Society won praise as the finest intellectual body in Europe. British exploration and settlement often involved scientific efforts. Discoveries, ranging from observations of native peoples to a growing interest in exotic plants and animals fed the intellectual climate, which in turn injected new energy into exploratory efforts. 11 By contrast, Spain had the Inquisition, proud that fewer works were published in Spain in the eighteenth century than had been published in the sixteenth. An oppressive censorship meant that in every field of intellect except orthodox theology, Spain lagged behind the rest of Europe.