But in the beginning the Brits were barely able to defend their own stuff in England, and the battle to the top took centuries.
By 1700 the King of England was using it as a place to send refugees to England or Quakers ~ still, earlier, the Swedes had pretty much dispatched most of the Eastern Sa'ami tribes to cut down pine trees for shipping, and the Dutch had worked out some of their problems and had a piece of the fur business there in manhattan island.
We all know the story ~ don't we.
The pope had granted most of North and South America to Spain, and the rest of it to Portugal. England was protestant, so didn’t have to listen to the Pope. Spain, anyway, was in decline, so couldn’t really exploit its empire. The Protestant countries started sending privateers to prey off their shipping, and then outright colonized. The Dutch were originally part of Spain, then gained independence, which is why they felt free to go after the pine trees, since they were also Protestant, I think. So if King Henry VIII hadn’t been randy for Ann Bolin, America would never have happened, or everyone would be speaking Spanish or Dutch, or something.
Also the Brits were set up in India thanks to a dowry from the other Iberian power — Charles II got Bombay as a dowry for his marriage to the Princess of Portugal