ABSTRACT
The assurance of the physical integrity and inviolability of the island was seminal to the developing national awareness. So too was the recognition of especially favourable qualities or circumstances, which gave the national land a distinctive character to be defended. A few years after the Armada campaign, Shakespeare wrote Richard II and included a famous speech celebrating not just the glory of the Elizabethan nation but its happy establishment and proven viability. The whole world was now a potential market. The Elizabethan nation had come to believe that there was nowhere that the sea could carry them that could not be 'opened' to their profit and advantage. Hakluyt sought to promote the exploration and exploitation of the Americas as especially profitable. But if that was the area where the greatest gains were to be expected, it was also the place where the power of Spain comprised the most considerable obstacle.
