As Therefore Our Skill In Nauigation Hath Hitherto Bene Very Much Bettered And Increased Vnder The Admiraltie Of Your Lordship;

So if this one thing be added thereunto, together with seuere 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 whensoeuer 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 discouerie of many rich lands and territories of heathens and gentiles as yet vnknowen, to the honest employment of many thousands of our idle people, to the great comfort and reioycing of our friends, to the terror, daunting and confusion of our foes. To ende this matter, let me now I beseech you speake vnto your Lordship, as in times past the elder Scipio spake to Cornelius Scipio Africanus: Quo sis, Africane, alacrior ad tutandam Rempublicam, sic habeto: Omnibus, qui patriam conseruauerint, adiuuerint, auxerint, certum esse in coelo, ac definitum locum, vbi beati auo sempiterno fruantur. It remaineth therefore, that as your Lordship from time to time vnder her most gracious and excellent Maiestie, haue shewed your selfe a valiant protectour, a carefull conseruer, and an happy enlarger of the honour and reputation of your Countrey; so at length you may enioy those celestial blessings, which are prepared to such as tread your steps, and seeke to aspire to such diuine and heroical vertues. And euen 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 vpon your honourable Lordship, the noble and vertuous Lady your bedfellow, and those two rare iewels, your generous off-springs, but also vpon all the rest wheresoeuer of that your noble and renowmed family. From London the 7. day of this present October 1598.

Your honours most humble alwayes to be commanded:

Richard Hakluyt Preacher.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

A preface to the Reader as touching the principall Voyages and discourses in this first part.

Hauing for the benefit and honour of my Countrey zealously bestowed so many yeres, so much trauaile and cost, to bring Antiquities smothered and buried in darke silence, to light, and to preserue certaine memorable exploits of late yeres by our English nation atchieued, from the greedy and deuouring lawes of obliuion: to gather likewise, and as it were to incorporate into one body the torne and scattered limmes of our ancient and late Nauigations by Sea, our voyages by land, and traffiques of merchandise by both: and hauing (so much as in me lieth) restored ech particular member, being before displaced, to their true ioynts 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 vnto thy view this first part of my threefold discourse.

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