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Transcriber's Note:

  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
  been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.




THE BIRTH OF THE NATION




  [Illustration: The First English Church in America.]




     'Tis just three hundred years ago
       We sailed through unknown Narrows
     And landed on an unknown coast
       Amid a flight of arrows.
     We planted England's standard there,
       And taught the Western savage.
     In its defence we lightly held
       His tomahawk and ravage.

     And there, between two forest trees,
       We raised our first rude altar;
     Roofed by a storm-rent sail we read
       Old England's Prayers and Psalter,
     An echo in the strange, new land
       Awoke to slumber never:
     It caught old England's battle-word--
       "God and my Right" forever!




     THE BIRTH OF THE NATION

     JAMESTOWN, 1607

     BY
     MRS. ROGER A. PRYOR

     AUTHOR OF "THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON AND HER TIMES," "REMINISCENCES
     OF PEACE AND WAR"


     ILLUSTRATIONS
     BY WILLIAM DE LEFTWICH DODGE


     New York
     THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
     LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
     1907

     All rights reserved




     COPYRIGHT, 1907,
     BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.


     Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1907.


     Norwood Press
     J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
     Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




     To
     M. GORDON PRYOR RICE

     IN TOKEN OF
     HER MOTHER'S LOVE
     AND ADMIRATION




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER I                                                       PAGES

  Jamestown Celebration. Legends of the Discovery of America.       1-7
  Columbus. The Cabots. Pope Alexander VI. Amerigo Vespucci. The
  Power of Spain. Queen Elizabeth's Patent. Sir Humphrey
  Gilbert. Our Shores only sighted by the English before 1600

  CHAPTER II

  Sir Walter Raleigh. Expedition to Islands near North