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A testimony of the said Wil. of Malmesbury concerning traffique
to Bristow in his time,

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A Charter of the Merchants of Almaine, or the Stilyard-
merchants,

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King Edw. the first his great Charter granted to forreine
Merchants, Anno Dom. 1303,

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The letters of Edward the second unto Haquinus King of

Norway, concerning certain English Merchants arrested

in Norway,

Another letter of Edw. the second unto the said Haquinus for
the merchants aforesaid,

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A third letter of King Edward the second to the said Haquinus
in the behalfe of our English merchants,

An agreement made by the Ambassadours of England and

Prussia, confirmed by king Richard the second,

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THE PRINCIPALL NAVIGATIONS-Continued.

An agreement made betweene kind Henry the fourth, and
Conradus de Jungingen, .

An agreement betweene king Henry the fourth, and the Hans-

townes,

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139

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The names of the twelve Counsellers appointed in sir Hugh
Willoughbies voyage,

The letters of king Edward the sixt, written at that time to all
the Kings, Princes, and other Potentates of the Northeast,

The voyage of sir Hugh Willoughby knight, wherein he un-

fortunately perished at Arzina Reca in Lapland, Anno 1553,

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Instructions given to the Pursers of the Moscovie voyage,

The voyage of Stephen Burrough toward the River of Ob,
intending the discovery of the Northeast passage, Anno
1556,

333

The landing of Richard Johnson among the Samoeds, Anno
1556,

352

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INTRODUCTION.

RICHARD HAKLUYT, the scholar who edited these Voyages, was born (it is thought) in London, of a good Herefordshire family, about the year 1553. He was educated at Westminster School; and it was as a Westminster boy that he received his bent towards the study of books of travel. While on a visit to the Temple his cousin (another Richard Hakluyt) showed him a map of the world, and gave him "a lesson in geography," to such good purpose that the boy, full of "rare delight," resolved, "by good assistance, to prosecute that knowledge and kind of literature," if ever he should go to the University. In 1570, while Drake was "prospecting" for his Nombre de Dios voyage, he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he soon acquired some five or six languages to help him in his study. He read all the books of Voyages, and all the mariners' journals, to be obtained at Oxford; and besides this, he studied the arts of map-making and navigation; and began to put together a first collection of Voyages (to America and the West Indies) which was published long after he had taken his degree, in the year 1582.

A year after the publication of this book he went to Paris, as chaplain to the English ambassador, with whom he remained for five years. During his stay in France he worked at his great collection, The Principal Navigations, which was published, in one folio volume, in 1589, the year after the Armada. In 1590 he became rector of Wetheringsett in Suffolk, where he must have lived until 1602, when he was made prebendary (and afterwards archdeacon) of Westminster. In 1612, he became rector of Gedney, Lincs., where, in 1616, he died, aged sixty-three.

His Principal Navigations were issued in their final form (three black letter folios) in 1599; but they contain only a small fraction of his life's work. He published besides these folios, a Discourse of Western Planting, and three or four translations from the French and the Portuguese. An immense mass of manuscript was in his possession when he died; and this was afterwards published by Samuel Purchas, in the four huge quartos of the

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