Bradford described: "They began to consider how to raise more corn, and obtain a better crop ... that they might not continue to endure the misery of want ... After much debate, the Governor, with the advice of the chief among them, allowed each man to plant corn for his own household ... So every family was assigned a parcel of land ... This was very successful."
James Madison, March 2, 1819: "The English Church was originally the established religion ... Of other sects there were but few adherents, except the Presbyterians who predominated on the west side of the Blue Mountains ... Previous to the Revolutionary struggle, the Baptists sprang up, and made very rapid progress ...At present the population is divided, with small exceptions, among the Protestant Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the Baptists and the Methodists."
Though the secret hearings started with the intention of cutting through the red tape of bureaucracy, Britain's Court of Star Chamber proceeded to usurp power.It became a political weapon for auditing, intimidating and punishing opponents to the King's policies, similar to modern-day IRS audits or partisan secret special counsel investigations.
Spain saved Europe by defeating the Ottoman Turkish navy in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Afterwards, though, instead of freeing the Mediterranean from Ottoman control, King Philip II sent the Iron Duke of Alba to commit the Spanish Fury, killing 10,000 Dutch Reformed in Antwerp, Belgium, and sending its Invincible Armada to conquer Anglican England.
Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations, 1776: "The Spaniards ... claimed all America as their own, and ... such was ... the terror of their name, that the greater part of the other nations of Europe were afraid to establish themselves in any other part of that great continent ... But ... the defeat ... of their Invincible Armada ... put it out of their power to obstruct any longer the settlements of the other European nations."
