Little wonder if in such an age colonies were regarded as providentially designed to promote the trade's increase. The recall of the Massachusetts charter was but one of many circumstances which reveal the rise in England of renewed interest in the plantations. Faith in colonial ventures had never, indeed, quite disappeared, nor had the early Stuarts ever been wholly indifferent to their American possessions. But the fate of the Virginia Company had cooled the ardor of moneyed men, and the Civil War, focusing attention for a generation upon fundamental questions of morals and politics, absorbed the energies of government and nation. With the establishment of the Protectorate imperial interests again claimed attention. Cromwell, calling the merchants to counsel, inaugurated a vigorous policy of maritime and colonial expansion. The Dutch war and the conquest of Jamaica recalled to men's minds the triumphs of Elizabeth; and those who gathered round Charles II--bankrupt nobles, pushing merchants, and able statesmen--turned to the business of trade and colonies with an enthusiasm unknown since the days of Gilbert and Raleigh.
Yet it was an enthusiasm well tempered to practical ends, purged of resplendent visions and vague idealisms. The plantations, regarded as incidents in the life of commerce, were thought to be important when they were found to be prosperous. In 1661 the king was assured that his American possessions were "beginning to grow into Commodities of great value and Esteeme, and though some of them continue in tobacco yet upon the Returne hither it smells well, and paies more Custome to his Majestie than the East Indies four times ouer." It was a statement of which the new king was not likely to miss the significance. Determined to preserve the prerogative without offending the nation, Charles was never indifferent to the material welfare of England; the expansion of trade would increase his own revenue, while the vigilance which preserves liberty he thought likely to be relaxed among a prosperous and well-fed people. To commercial and colonial expansion the merry monarch therefore gave his best attention. If he yawned over dull reports in council, he listened to them with ready intelligence, and was prepared to encourage every reasonable project for the extension of the empire.