doubted of your Lordships forwardnes in settling and establishing of this Lecture; but rather when your Lordship shall see the noble and rare effects thereof, you will be heartily sory that all this while it hath not bene erected. As therefore our skill in Navigation hath hitherto bene very much bettered and increased under the Admiraltie of your Lordship; so if this one thing be added thereunto, together with severe and straight discipline, I doubt not but with Gods good blessing it will shortly grow to the hiest pitch and top of all perfection which whensoever it shall come to passe, I assure my selfe it will turne to the infinite wealth and honour of our Countrey, to the prosperous and speedy discoverie of many rich lands and territories of heathens and gentiles as yet unknowen, to the honest employment of many thousands of our idle people, to the great comfort and rejoycing of our friends, to the terror, daunting and confusion of our foes. To ende this matter, let mee now I beseech you speake unto your Lordship, as in times past the elder Scipio spake to Cornelius Scipio Africanus: Quò sis, Africane, alacrior ad tutandam Rempublicam, sic habeto: Omnibus, qui patriam conservaverint, adjuverint, auxerint, certum esse in cœlo, ac definitum locum, ubi beati ævo sempiterno fruantur. It remaineth therefore, that as your Lordship from time to time under her most gracious and excellent Majestie, have shewed your selfe a valiant protectour, a carefull conserver, and an happy enlarger of the honour and reputation of your Countrey; so at length you may enjoy those celestial blessings, which are prepared to such as tread your steps, and seeke to aspire to such divine and heroical vertues. And even here I surcease, wishing all temporal and spirituall blessings of the life present and that which is to come to be powred out in most ample measure, not onely upon your honourable Lordship, the noble and vertuous Lady your bedfellow, and those two rare jewels, your generous off-springs, but also upon all the rest wheresoever of that your noble and renowmed family. From London the 7. day of this present October 1598. Your honours most humble alwayes Richard Hakluyt Preacher. THE PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION, 1598. A preface to the Reader as touching the principall Voyages and discourses in this first part. HAVING for the benefit and honour of my Country zealously bestowed so many yeres, so much traveile and cost, to bring Antiquities smothered and buried in darke silence, to light, and to preserve certaine memorable exploits of late yeeres by our English nation atchieved, from the greedy and devouring jawes of oblivion: to gather likewise, and as it were to incorporate into one body the torne and scattered limmes of our ancient and late Navigations by Sea, our voyages by land, and traffiques of merchandise by both and having (so much as in me lieth) restored ech particular member, being before displaced, to their true joynts and ligaments; I meane, by the helpe of Geographie and Chronologie (which I may call the Sunne and the Moone, the right eye and the left of all history) referred ech particular relation to the due time and place: I do this second time (friendly Reader, if not to satisfie, yet at least for the present to allay and hold in suspense thine expectation) presume to offer unto thy view this first part of my three-fold discourse. For the bringing of which into this homely and rough-hewen shape, which here thou seest; what restlesse nights, what painefull dayes, what heat, what cold I have indured; how many long & chargeable journeys I have traveiled; how many famous libraries I have searched into; what varietie of ancient and moderne writers I have perused; what a number of old records, patents, privileges, letters, &c. I have redeemed from obscuritie and perishing; into how manifold acquaintance I have entred; what expenses I have not spared; and yet what faire opportunities of private gaine, preferment, and ease I have neglected; albeit thy selfe canst hardly imagine, yet I by daily experience do finde & feele, and some of my entier friends can sufficiently testifie. Howbeit (as I told thee at the first) the honour and benefit of this Common weale wherein I live and breathe, hath made all difficulties seeme easie, all paines and industrie pleasant, and all expenses of light value and moment unto me. For (to conteine my selfe onely within the bounds of this present discourse, and in the midst thereof to begin) wil it not in all posteritie be as great a renowme unto our English nation, to have bene the first discoverers of a Sea beyond the North cape (never certainly knowen before) and of a convenient passage into the huge Empire of Russia by the bay of S. Nicolas and the river of Duina; as for the Portugales to have found a Sea beyond the Cape of Buona Esperanza, and so consequently a passage by Sea into the East Indies; or for the Italians and Spaniards to have discovered unknowen landes so many hundred leagues Westward and Southwestward of the streits of Gibraltar, & of the pillers of Hercules? Be it granted that the renowmed Portugale Vasques de Gama traversed the maine Ocean Southward of Africke : Did not Richard Chanceler and his mates performe the like Northward of Europe? Suppose that Columbus that noble and high-spirited Genuois escried unknowen landes to the Westward of Europe and Africke: Did not the valiant English knight sir Hugh Willoughby; did not the famous Pilots Stephen Burrough, Arthur Pet, and Charles Jackman accoast Nova Zembla, Colgoieve, and Vaigatz to the North of Europe and Asia? Howbeit you will say perhaps, not with the like golden successe, not with such deductions of Colonies, nor attaining of conquests. True it is, that our successe hath not bene correspondent unto theirs: yet in this our attempt the uncertaintie of finding was farre greater, and the difficultie and danger of searching was no whit lesse. For hath not Herodotus (a man for his time, most skilfull and judicial in Cosmographie, who writ above 2000. yeeres ago) in his 4. booke called Melpomene, signified unto the Portugales in plaine termes; that Africa, except the small Isthmus between the Arabian gulfe and the Mediterran sea, was on all sides environed with the Ocean? And for the further confirmation thereof, doth he not make mention of one Neco an Egyptian King, who (for trials sake) sent a fleet of Phoenicians downe the Red sea; who setting forth in Autumne and sailing Southward till they had the Sunne at noonetide upon their sterbourd (that is to say, having crossed the Equinoctial and the Southerne tropique) after a long Navigation, directed their course to the North, and in the space of 3. yeeres environed all Africk, passing home through the Gaditan streites, and arriving in Ægypt? And doth not Plinie tel them, that noble Hanno, in the flourishing time and estate of Carthage, sailed from Gades in Spaine to the coast of Arabia fœlix, and put downe his whole journal in writing? Doth he not make mention, that in the time of Augustus Cæsar, the wracke of certaine Spanish ships was found floating in the Arabian gulfe? And, not to be over-tedious in alleaging of testimonies, doth not Strabo in the 2. booke of his Geography, together with Cornelius Nepos and Plinie in the place beforenamed, agree all in one, that one Eudoxus fleeing from king Lathyrus, and valing downe the Arabian bay, sailed along, doubled the Southern point of Africk, and at length arrived at Gades? And what should I speake of the Spaniards? Was not divine Plato (who lived so many ages ago, and plainely described their West Indies under the name of Atlantis) was not he (I say) instead of a Cosmographer unto them? Were not those Carthaginians mentioned by Aristotle lib. de adm y) auscult. their forerunners? And had they not C he to stirre them up, and pricke them forward unto their Westerne discoveries; yea, to be their chiefe loads-man and Pilot? Sithens therefore these two worthy Nations had those bright lampes of learning (I meane the most ancient and best Philosophers, Historiographers and Geographers) to shewe them light; and the loadstarre of experience (to wit those great exploits and voyages layed up in store and recorded) whereby to shape their course: what great attempt might they not presume to undertake? But alas our English nation, at the first setting foorth for their Northeasterne discovery, were either altogether destitute of such cleare lights and inducements, or if they had any inkling at all, it was as misty as they found the Northren seas, and so obscure and ambiguous, that it was meet rather to deterre them, then to give them encouragement. iso; But besides the foresaid uncertaintie, into what dangers and difficulties they plunged themselves, Animus meminisse horret, I tremble to recount. For first they were to expose themselves unto the rigour of the sterne and uncouth Northren seas, and to make triall of the swelling waves and boistrous winds which there commonly do surge and blow: then were they to saile by the ragged and perilous coast of Norway, to frequent the unhaunted shoares of Finmark, to double the dreadfull and misty North cape, to beare with Willoughbies land, to run along within kenning of the Countreys of Lapland and Corelia, and as it were to open and unlocke the seven-fold mouth of Duina. Moreover, in their Northeasterly Navigations, upon the seas and by the coasts of Condora, Colgoieve, Petzora, Joughoria, Samoedia, Nova Zembla, &c. and their passing and returne through the streits of Vaigatz, unto what drifts of snow and mountaines of yce even in June, July, and August, unto what hideous overfals, uncertaine currents, darke mistes and fogs, and divers other fearefull inconveniences they were subject and in danger of, I wish you rather to learne out of the voyages of sir Hugh Willoughbie, Stephen Burrough, Arthur Pet and the rest, then to expect in this place an endlesse catalogue thereof. And here by the way I cannot but highly commend the great industry and magnanimity of the Hollanders, who within these few yeeres have discovered to 78. yea (as themselves affirme) to 81. degrees of Northerly latitude: yet with this provay that our English nation led them the dance, brake ryce before them, and gave them good leave to light their candle at our torch. But nowe it is high time for us to weigh our ancre, to hoise up our sailes, to get cleare of these boistrous, frosty, and misty seas, and with all speede to direct our course for the milde, lightsome, temperate, and warme Atlantick Ocean, over which the Spaniards and Portugales have made so many pleasant prosperous and golden voyages. And albeit I cannot deny, that both of them in their East and West Indian Navigations have indured many tempests, dangers and shipwracks: yet this dare I boldly affirme; first that a great number of them have satisfied their fame-thirsty and gold-thirsty mindes with that reputation and wealth, which made all perils and misadventures seeme tolerable unto them; and secondly, that their first attempts (which in this comparison I doe onely stand upon) were no whit more difficult and dangerous, then ours to the Northeast. For admit that the way was much longer, yet was it never barred with yce, mist, or darknes, but was at all seasons of the yeere open and Navigable; yea and that for the most |