Henry VII. had no liking for wars and turbulence; he preferred peace
and quiet and the general prosperity which such conditions create. He
liked to sit on that kind of eggs on his own private account as well as
the nation’s, and hatch them out and count up the result. When he died
he left his heir 2,000,000 pounds, which was a most unusual fortune for
a king to possess in those days. Columbus’s great achievement gave him
the discovery-fever, and he sent Sebastian Cabot to the New World to
search out some foreign territory for England. That is Cabot’s ship up
there in the corner. This was the first time that England went far
abroad to enlarge her estate—but not the last.