Not to some... But it is to me. You would have liked the seventeenth century--the great age of piracy and colonial expansion for the world powers. Angleterre and Espagne, Prusse and I, Pays-Bas, Portugal and others--ah but the Spanish and English were so at odds over the New World, which eventually became Amerique and my Canada on the northern continent.

They were the first in Europe in centuries to really, eh what is the phrase... be democratic about how they ran things. Selected a captain by vote, ideally everyone would receive his share and so on.