Northern Europe - The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques And Discoveries Of The English Nation - Volume 1 - Collected By Richard Hakluyt
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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 haue indured; how many long &
chargeable iourneys I haue trauailed; how many famous
Libraries I haue
searched into; what varietie of ancient and moderne writers I haue perused;
what a number of old records, patents, priuleges, letters, &c. I haue
redeemed from obscuritie and perishing; into how manifold acquaintance I
haue entered; what expenses I haue not spared; and yet what faire
opportunities of priuate game, preferment, and ease I haue neglected;
albeit thyselfe 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 liue and breathe, hath made all difficulties seeme easie, all
paines and industrie pleasant and all expenses of light value and moment
vnto me.
For (to conteine myselfe 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 vnto our English nation to haue bene the first discouerers of a
Sea beyond the North cape (neuer certainly knowen before) and of a
conuenient passage into the huge Empire of Russia by the bay of S. Nicholas
and the riuer of Duina; as for the Portugales to haue 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 haue discouered vnknowen
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 trauersed 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-spinted Genuois escried
vnknowen 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 Iackman accoast Noua Zembia, Colgoieue,
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 vnto theirs: yet in this our attempt the vncertaintie 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 iudicial in Cosmographie, who writ aboue 2000. yeeres ago) in his 4.
booke called Melpomene, signified vnto the Portugales in plaine termes;
that Africa, except the small Isthmus between the Arabian gulfe and the
Mediterran sea, was on all sides enuironed with the Ocean? And for the
further confirmation thereof, doth he not make mention of one Neco an
Agyptian 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 vpon their sterbourd (that is to say hauing crossed
the Aquinoctial and the Southerne tropique) after a long Nauigation
directed their course to the North and in the space of 3.
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