The Portuguese, Though They Were
Straitly Handled There At The First, Yet In The End They Found Great
Favour At The Prince's Hands, Insomuch That The Loutea Or President
That Misused Them Was Therefore Put To Death.
The rude Indian canoe
voyageth in those seas, the Portuguese, the Saracens, and Moors
travel continually up and down
That reach from Japan to China, from
China to Malacca, from Malacca to the Moluccas, and shall an
Englishman better appointed than any of them all (that I say no more
of our navy) fear to sail in that ocean? what seat at all do want
piracy? what navigation is there void of peril?
To the last argument our travellers need not to seek their return by
the north-east, neither shall they be constrained, except they list,
either to attempt Magellan's strait at the south-west, or to be in
danger of the Portuguese on the south-east; they may return by the
north-west, that same way they do go forth, as experience hath
showed.
The reason alleged for proof of the contrary may be disposed after
this manner: And first, it may be called in controversy, whether
any current continually be forced by the motion of primum mobile,
round about the world or no; for learned men do diversely handle
that question. The natural course of all waters is downward,
wherefore of congruence they fall that way where they find the earth
most low and deep: in respect whereof, it was erst said, the seas
do strike from the northern lands southerly. Violently the seas are
tossed and troubled divers ways with the winds, increased and
diminished by the course of the moon, hoisted up and down through
the sundry operations of the sun and the stars: finally, some be of
opinion that the seas be carried in part violently about the world,
after the daily motion of the highest movable heaven, in like manner
as the elements of air and fire, with the rest of the heavenly
spheres, are from the east unto the west. And this they do call
their eastern current, or Levant stream. Some such current may not
be denied to be of great force in the hot zone, for the nearness
thereof unto the centre of the sun, and blustering eastern winds
violently driving the seas westward; howbeit in the temperate climes
the sun being farther off, and the winds more diverse, blowing as
much from the north, the west, and south, as from the east, this
rule doth not effectually withhold us from travelling eastwards,
neither be we kept ever back by the aforesaid Levant winds and
stream. But in Magellan strait we are violently driven back
westward, ergo through the north-western strait or Anian frith shall
we not be able to return eastward: it followeth not. The first,
for that the north-western strait hath more sea room at the least by
one hundred English miles than Magellan's strait hath, the only want
whereof causeth all narrow passages generally to be most violent.
So would I say in the Anian Gulf, if it were so narrow as Don Diego
and Zalterius have painted it out, any return that way to be full of
difficulties, in respect of such straitness thereof, not for the
nearness of the sun or eastern winds, violently forcing that way any
Levant stream; but in that place there is more sea room by many
degrees, if the cards of Cabot and Gemma Frisius, and that which
Tramezine imprinted, be true.
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