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The Tudors
(1485-1603), however, could not occupy so vast a territory, nor were
there any fences for the exclusion of intruders. Consequently the
actual English settlements in North America, made wholly under the
Stuarts, [Footnote: However much modern Englishmen may condemn the
efforts of the Stuart sovereigns to establish political absolutism at
home, they can well afford to praise these same royal Stuarts for
contributing powerfully to the foundations of England's commercial and
colonial greatness abroad.] were confined to Newfoundland, to a few fur
depots in the region of Hudson Bay, and to a strip of coastland from
Maine to South Carolina; while the French not only had sent Verrazano
(1524), who explored the coast of North America, and Cartier (1534-
1536), who sailed up the St. Lawrence, but by virtue of voyages of
discovery and exploration, especially that of La Salle (1682), laid
claim to the whole interior of the Continent.
Of all the North American colonies, the most populous were those which
later became the United States.


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