Motives for Exploration Wealth and Religion. The motives for Spanish, French and English explorers were all different, although in some ways, they were the same. They all wanted to find the Northwest Passage, which they believed was a direct and efficient route to the Orient - home of spices, silks and wealth.
The mercantile system is an economic system, which in its essence has it that a nation should be increasing its trade in order to make bigger wealth, and that should be done by using protectionism.
The European powerhouses were trying to implement this type of economic theory, so they were conquering new territories in order to get more materials and goods. They were exploiting the local populations as a cheap labor force, developing their own industry and manufacture more and more, as well as opening up new markets in order to sell the final products.
