English North American settlement by English speakers began in the seventeenth century, g at that time to about 150.000 migrants from all parts of Britain (Bailyn 1986. Earlier European incursions in the New World were not without consequences the Spanish had brought European diseases for which the Native Americans had no resistance, and the native population had seriously declined before the English arrived no doubt English gems contributed further. Dobyns has estimated that up to 95 per cent of the aboriginal population in the eastern region was lost by these means a loss rate of 20: 1. More conservative estimates suggest loss rates on the order of 647: and 486: 1 in the south east, but even these indicate that about 80 per cent or more of the abnormal population was lost.