Slave labour was
also the economic basis of the colonies established on various West
Indian islands during the first half of the seventeenth century; and
this distinction between colonies used for exploitation and colonies
used for settlement has led to important constitutional variations in
the empire. Only those colonies in which large white communities are
settled have received self-government; those in which a few whites
exploit a large coloured population remain subject to the control of
the home government. The same economic and social differences were
responsible for the great American civil war between North and South in
the nineteenth century.
There are three periods in British colonial expansion. The first, or
introductory period, was marked by England's rivalry with Spain and
Portugal; the second by its rivalry with the Dutch; and the third by
its rivalry with France; and in each the rivalry led to wars in which
Britain was victorious. The Elizabethan war with Spain was followed by
the Dutch wars of the Commonwealth and Charles II's reign, and then by
the French wars, which lasted, with longer or shorter intervals, from
1688 to 1815. The wars with the Dutch showed how completely, in the
latter half of the seventeenth century, commercial interests outweighed
those of religion and politics. Even when English and Dutch were both
living under Protestant republics, they fought one another rather than
the Catholic monarchies of France and Spain.
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