And Therein I Have Devised To Amend The Errors Of Usual Sea-Cards,
Whose Common Fault Is To Make The Degrees Of Longitude In Every
Latitude Of One Like Bigness.
And have also devised therein a spherical instrument, with a compass
of variation for the perfect knowing of the longitude.
And a precise order to prick the sea-card, together with certain
infallible rules for the shortening of any discovery, to know at the
first entering of any strait whether it lies open to the ocean more
ways than one, how far soever the sea stretcheth itself into the
land.
Desiring you hereafter never to mislike with me for the taking in
hand of any laudable and honest enterprise, for if, through pleasure
and idleness, we purchase shame, the pleasure vanisheth, but the
shame remaineth for ever.
And therefore, to give me leave without offence always to live and
die in this mind, THAT HE IS NOT WORTHY TO LIVE AT ALL THAT FOR FEAR
OR DANGER OF DEATH SHUNNETH HIS COUNTRY'S SERVICE AND HIS OWN
HONOUR, seeing death is inevitable, and the fame of virtue immortal.
Wherefore, in this behalf, Mutare vel timere sperno.
CERTAIN OTHER REASONS OR ARGUMENTS TO PROVE A PASSAGE BY THE NORTH-
WEST
Learnedly written by Master Richard Willes, Gentleman.
Four famous ways there be spoken of to those fruitful and wealthy
islands, which we do usually call Moluccas, continually haunted for
gain, and daily travelled for riches therein growing. These
islands, although they stand east from the meridian, distant almost
half the length of the world, in extreme heat under the equinoctial
line, possessed of infidels and barbarians, yet by our neighbours
great abundance of wealth there is painfully sought in respect of
the voyage dearly bought, and from thence dangerously brought home
to us. Our neighbours I call the Portuguese, in comparison of the
Molucchians for nearness unto us, for like situation westward as we
have for their usual trade with us; for that the far south-
easterings do know this part of Europe by no other name than
Portugal, not greatly acquainted as yet with the other nations
thereof. Their voyage is very well understood of all men, and the
south-eastern way round about Africa, by the Cape of Good Hope, more
spoken of, better known and travelled, than that it may seem needful
to discourse thereof any farther.
The second way lieth south-west, between the West Indies, or South
America, and the south continent, through that narrow strait where
Magellan, first of all men that ever we do read of, passed these
latter years, caving thereunto therefore his name. This way, no
doubt, the Spaniards would commodiously take, for that it lieth near
unto their dominions there, could the eastern current and Levant
winds as easily suffer men to return as speedily therewith they may
be carried thither; for the which difficulty, or rather
impossibility of striving against the force both of wind and stream,
this passage is little or nothing used, although it be very well
known.
The third way, by the north-east, beyond all Europe and Asia, that
worthy and renowned knight Sir Hugh Willoughbie sought to his peril,
enforced there to end his life for cold, congealed and frozen to
death. And, truly, this way consisteth rather in the imagination of
geographers than allowable either in reason, or approved by
experience, as well it may appear by the dangerous trending of the
Scythian Cape set by Ortellius under the 80th degree north, by the
unlikely sailing in that northern sea, always clad with ice and
snow, or at the least continually pestered therewith, if haply it be
at any time dissolved, beside bays and shelves, the water waxing
more shallow towards the east, to say nothing of the foul mists and
dark fogs in the cold clime, of the little power of the sun to clear
the air, of the uncomfortable nights, so near the Pole, five months
long.
A fourth way to go unto these aforesaid happy islands, the Moluccas,
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a learned and valiant knight, discourseth of
at large in his new "Passage to Cathay." The enterprise of itself
being virtuous, the fact must doubtless deserve high praise, and
whensoever it shall be finished the fruits thereof cannot be small;
where virtue is guide, there is fame a follower, and fortune a
companion. But the way is dangerous, the passage doubtful, the
voyage not thoroughly known, and therefore gainsaid by many, after
this manner.
First, who can assure us of any passage rather by the north-west
than by the north-east? do not both ways lie in equal distance from
the North Pole? stand not the North Capes of either continent under
like elevation? is not the ocean sea beyond America farther distant
from our meridian by thirty or forty degrees west than the extreme
points of Cathay eastward, if Ortellius' general card of the world
be true? In the north-east that noble knight - Sir Hugh Willoughbie
perished for cold, and can you then promise a passenger any better
hap by the north-west, who hath gone for trial's sake, at any time,
this way out of Europe to Cathay?
If you seek the advice herein of such as make profession in
cosmography, Ptolemy, the father of geography, and his eldest
children, will answer by their maps with a negative, concluding most
of the sea within the land, and making an end of the world
northward, near the 63rd degree. The same opinion, when learning
chiefly flourished, was received in the Romans' time, as by their
poets' writings it may appear. "Et te colet ultima Thule," said
Virgil, being of opinion that Iceland was the extreme part of the
world habitable toward the north. Joseph Moletius, an Italian, and
Mercator, a German, for knowledge men able to be compared with the
best geographers of our time, the one in his half spheres of the
whole world, the other in some of his great globes, have continued
the West Indies land, even to the North Pole, and consequently cut
off all passage by sea that way.
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