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Ask any British gentleman in the middle of the 18th century to draw you a map of the British Empire, and it would have looked like this.
若让十八世纪中叶任何一位英国绅士来画一幅英帝国的版图，它将会是这样的。
To the east, there were trading posts in India, tiny enclaves that had been there for 100 years, shipping home printed cottons and silks.
向东，在印度有贸易点，这些小的据点已经存在100年了，将印花的棉布和丝绸运回国内。
A commercial enterprise run by the East India Company, not the government. There would be no colonies in Asia.
这一商业活动由东印度公司运作，而不是政府。所以亚洲没有英国殖民地。
But Britain could look west as well as east. And west was a whole different story.
但英国东进之余还有西拓。而西面是个截然不同的世界。
To the west was America -- Britain West, in fact. Two million people living between the Atlantic seaboard and the Appalachian Mountains.
向西便是美洲，对英国来说是英国西部。先后有两百万人移居到美洲东海岸和阿巴拉契亚山脉间。
They came from York to New York, from Hampshire to New Hampshire.
英国人从约克郡来到纽约，从汉普郡来到新罕布什尔。
And they all ate, slept, breathed the same mantra -- liberty and Britishness.
他们在同一信念下同甘共苦--自由和英国精神。
They had first arrived in the early 17th century, seeking their fortune or religious tolerance.
第一批居民于十七世纪初期抵达，为了淘金或是躲避宗教迫害。
Time enough to build farms, communities, towns, cities even.
他们有足够时间建造农场、社区、小镇甚至城市。
Certainly time enough to deal with the troublesome natives -- to make alliances where possible, and, if not, to wipe them out, or drive them inland.
绝对有时间对付麻烦的原住民们--可行的话与他们联盟，否则将他们悉数消灭，或是赶往内陆。
Within the settlements and houses of the Virginia tobacco planters and Massachusetts merchants, the silverware was a little simpler, the furniture not quite so Hepplewhite as back home in England,
在弗吉尼亚的烟草种植者和马萨诸塞商人们的家中，银器没有那么奢华，家具也不像在英国时那么考究，
but that very simplicity spoke to their origins, the quest for liberty and the drive for honest self-improvement.
朴素中可看出他们的初衷，对自由的追求以及对自我完善的渴望。
But it was rather small potatoes, shall we say, if what you really had in mind, was a palazzo in England, rather than a picket fence in New England.
但这些都是微不足道的，如果你真正想要的是英格兰的宫殿，而不是新英格兰的尖桩篱笆。
Suppose you wanted to make a serious fortune, now, where could that happen?
但如果你想要大肆赚一笔，又到哪才能实现呢？
In the mid-17th century, the Caribbean was where.
在十七世纪中叶，加勒比地区就是财富的天堂。
Nobody settled in the West Indies in order to read the Bible unmolested. This was not Massachusetts.
没人会为了能静下心来读《圣经》而在西印度群岛定居。这里和马萨诸塞不同。
No, you braved the fevers and swamps for one reason alone -- to make yourself very rich very fast.
你在这忍受高温和沼泽的唯一理由，便是迅速发家致富。
Serious profits were already being raked in catering to Europe's little addictions -- chocolate, coffee and, in England of course especially, tea.
许多人已经通过迎合欧洲人的嗜好而暴富，巧克力、咖啡，还有英格兰人的最爱，茶叶。
But, as a money spinner, nothing compared with the stuff you added to make them more palatable -- sugar.
但精明的商人都熟知，没什么能比得上一种让食品更加美味的调料，糖。
