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THE BOY’S HAKLUYT
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IN THE SAME SERIES
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
=The Boy’s Catlin.= My Life Among the Indians, by GEORGE CATLIN.
Edited by MARY GAY HUMPHREYS. Illustrated. 12mo
_net_ $1.50
=The Boy’s Hakluyt.= English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery,
retold from Hakluyt by EDWIN M. BACON. Illustrated. 12mo
_net_ $1.50
=The Boy’s Drake.= Edited by EDWIN M. BACON.
(_In Preparation_)
[Illustration:
QUEEN ELIZABETH GOING ABOARD THE “GOLDEN HIND.”
From a painting by Frank Brangwyn.
]
THE
BOY’S HAKLUYT
ENGLISH VOYAGES OF
ADVENTURE AND DISCOVERY
BY
EDWIN M. BACON,
AUTHOR OF “HISTORIC PILGRIMAGES IN NEW ENGLAND,”
“LITERARY PILGRIMAGES IN NEW ENGLAND,” “THE CONNECTICUT RIVER
AND THE VALLEY OF THE CONNECTICUT,” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1910
COPYRIGHT 1908, 1909, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
--
Published September, 1908
[Illustration: logos]
PREFACE
This account of Richard Hakluyt and his narratives of English
exploration and adventure, from the earliest records to the
establishment of the English colonies in North America, has been
prepared at the instance of Edwin D. Mead, the fine mainspring of the
far-reaching system of historical study widely known as the “Old South
Work,” for the instruction of young folk, by engaging methods, in
genuine American history. The purpose of the book was to draw the youth
of to-day to a source of American history of first importance, and a
work of eternal interest and value.
To this end I have sought to utilize the huge foolscap volumes of the
_Principal Navigations_ and to summarize or compress the narratives into
a coherent story from the earliest adventures chiefly for conquest to
those for discovery and expansion of trade, and finally for
colonization, down to the settlement of Virginia. The American note is
dominant throughout this animated story of daring, pluck, courage,
genuine heroism, and splendid nerve displayed by the English captains of
adventure and discovery North, East, and West.
I have endeavored also to recall Hakluyt’s significant work in his
publications which preceded the _Principal Navigations_, and in his
equally important personal efforts to forward American colonization by
England, in order to re-present him in his true position, recognized by
the earlier historians—that of a founder hand in hand with Raleigh of
the English colonies, out of which developed the national life of the
United States.
The dictum of William Robertson in his eighteenth century _History of
America_ (1777), that to Hakluyt England was more indebted for her
American possessions “than to any other man of that age,” was sustained
by Sir Clements Robert Markham, the English traveller, geographer, and
historian, upon the occasion, in 1896, of the fiftieth anniversary of
the founding of the Hakluyt Society, of which Sir Clements was then the
president, when he said: “Virtually Raleigh and Hakluyt were the
founders of those colonies which eventually formed the United States. As
Americans revere the name of Walter Raleigh, they should give an equal
place to Richard Hakluyt.”
Sir Clements further observed: “Excepting, of course, Shakspere and the
Dii Majores, there is no man of the age of Elizabeth to whom posterity
owes a deeper debt of gratitude than to Richard Hakluyt, the saviour of
the records of our explorers and discoverers by land and sea.”
Americans may well claim the pride of inheritance in these brave annals
of adventure on untried seas and to unknown lands. Hakluyt’s quaint
language ought not to be a hard nut to crack for the American boy when
such rich meat is within.
E. M. B.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. BEGINNINGS OF AMERICA 1
II. RICHARD HAKLUYT THE MAN 17
III. “THE PRINCIPAL NAVIGATIONS” 32
IV. THE EARLY VOYAGES 36
V. QUEST FOR THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE 53
VI. THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 62
VII. THE ENGLISH CLAIM TO AMERICA 77
VIII. VENTURES IN THE CABOTS’ TRACK 90
IX. THE NORTHEAST PASSAGE 96
X. THE OPENING OF RUSSIA 104
XI. VOYAGES FOR THE MUSCOVY COMPANY 124
XII. REVIVAL OF THE NORTHWEST THEORY 143
XIII. FROBISHER IN ARCTIC AMERICA 150
XIV. THE LUST FOR GOLD 176
XV. HAWKINS IN FLORIDA 197
XVI. DRAKE’S GREAT EXPLOITS 227
XVII. ON THE PACIFIC COAST 253
XVIII. GILBERT’S VOYAGES 285
XIX. FOOTPRINTS OF COLONIZATION 308
XX. “VIRGINIA” 322
XXI. RALEIGH’S LOST COLONY 351
XXII. JAMESTOWN 381
ILLUSTRATIONS
QUEEN ELIZABETH GOING ABOARD THE “GOLDEN HIND”
From a painting by Frank Brangwyn. _Frontispiece_
FACING
PAGE
FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF “DIVERS VOYAGES” 10
From the copy in the New York Public Library
(Lenox Building).
FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF THE THIRD, OR AMERICAN, 32
VOLUME OF HAKLUYT’S “VOYAGES,” EDITION OF 1598–1600
From a copy of the original edition in the New
York Public Library (Lenox Building).
“THE GREAT HARRY,” AN ENGLISH SHIP OF THE FIFTEENTH 50
CENTURY
KIDDER’S SKETCH-MAP OF JOHN CABOT’S VOYAGE IN 1497 69
KING HENRY VIII 94
From a photograph, copyrighted by Walker and
Boutall, of a painting.
SEBASTIAN CABOT AT ABOUT EIGHTY YEARS OF AGE 136
Reproduced from the engraving in Seyer’s "History
of Bristol," published in 1823. The original
painting was attributed to Holbein and was
destroyed by fire in 1845.
MARTIN FROBISHER 144
QUEEN ELIZABETH 180
SIR JOHN HAWKINS 198
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE 228
DRAKE OVERHAULING A SPANISH GALLEON 268
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-FOUR 310
From a photograph, copyrighted by Walker and
Cockerell, of the portrait attributed to
Federigo Zaccaro in the National Portrait
Gallery.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISHMEN IN VIRGINIA 324
From a drawing by John White, of Raleigh’s first
colony, 1585.
A MAP OF VIRGINIA, 1585 350
From the map in Hariot’s “Relation.”
THE LOST COLONY 376
A SPANISH GALLEON OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 382
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE BOY’S HAKLUYT
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
BOY’S HAKLUYT
I
BEGINNINGS OF AMERICA
In the year 1582, a quarter of a century before the founding of
Jamestown, in 1607, and thirty-eight years before the establishment of
the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in 1620, there appeared in London a
pamphlet-volume entitled _Divers Voyages touching the Discouerie of
America and the Hands adaicent vnto the same, made first of all by our
Englishmen and afterwards by the Frenchmen and Britons_.
The direct and practical object of this little book was the promotion of
English colonization on the American continent, where Spain at the South
and France at the North then had firm foothold. Its mission was fully
accomplished in giving the first effective impulse to the movements
which led up to the ultimate establishment of the colonies that
eventually formed the United States.
So it has a peculiar interest, especially for all Americans who would
know their country, as a first source of the True History of the
American Nation.
The name of the compiler was modestly veiled in the earlier impressions
under the initials “R. H.” appended to an “Epistle Dedicatorie,”
addressed to “Master Phillip Sydney, Esquire,” which served for a
preface. In subsequent editions, however, the author declared himself as
“Richard Hakluyt, Preacher.”
He might with propriety have added to this simple clerical distinction
other and broader titles. For, worthy as they may have been and
doubtless were, the least of his accomplishments were those of a cleric.
Yet under thirty when _Divers Voyages_ appeared, he had already attained
an assured place among scholars for his learning in cosmography, or the
science of geography, and was particularly known to English men of
affairs as an authority on Western discovery.
_Divers Voyages_ was skilfully designed for its special purpose. The
various accounts then extant in print or in manuscript, giving
particulars of the discovery of the whole of the coast of North America,
were brought together and so artfully arranged as at once to enlighten
his laggard countrymen and to inflame their ambition and their desire
for gain. By way of introduction was presented an informing list of
writers of “geographie with the yeare wherein they wrote,” beginning
with 1300 and ending with 1580; and another of travellers “both by sea
and by lande,” between the years 1178 and 1582, who also, for the most
part, had written of their own “travayles” and voyages: Venetians,
Genoese, Portuguese, Spaniards, and Frenchmen, as well as Englishmen.
Next followed a note intended to show the “great probabilitie” by way of
America of the much-sought-for Northwest Passage to India. Then came the
“Epistle Dedicatorie” to “the right worshipfull and most vertuous
gentleman” Master Sidney (not then knighted as Sir Philip Sidney), in
which was detailed the compiler’s argument for the immediate
colonization of the parts of North America claimed by England by right
of first discovery made under her banners by the Cabots, with this
pungent opening sentence, cleverly calculated to sting the English
pride:
“I maruaile [marvel] not a little that since the first discouerie of
America (which is nowe full fourescore and tenne yeeres) after so great
conquests and plantings of the Spaniardes and Portingales [Portuguese]
there that wee of Englande could neuer have the grace to set footing in
such fertill and temperate places as are left as yet vnpossessed of
them.”
And farther along this tingling snapper:
“Surely if there were in vs that desire to aduaunce the honour of our
countrie which ought to bee in euery good man, wee woulde not all this
while haue foreslowne [forborne] the possessing of those landes whiche
of equitie and right appertaine vnto vs, as by the discourses that
followe shall appeare more plainely.”
With these preliminaries the compiler first proceeded alluringly to
exhibit “testimonies” of the Cabot discoveries of the mainland of North
America for England a year before Columbus had sighted the continent.
This evidence comprised the letters-patent of King Henry the seventh
issued to John Cabot and his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Santius,
authorizing the exploration of new and unknown regions, under date of
the fifth of March, 1495/6, distinguished in American history as “the
most ancient American state paper of England”; a “Note of Sebastian
Gabotes voyage of Discouerie taken out of an old Chronicle written by
Robert Fabian, sometime alderman of London”; a memorandum of “three
sauage men which hee brought home and presented vnto the King”; and
another reference to the Cabot voyages made by the Venetian historian,
Giovanni Battista Ramusio, in the preface to one of his volumes of
voyages and travels published in 1550–1563. Next followed, in the order
named, a “Declaration” by Robert Thorne, a London merchant long resident
in Seville, Spain, setting forth the discoveries made in the Indies for
Portugal, and demonstrating to Henry the eighth of England that the
northern parts of America remained for him to “take in hande,” which he
failed to do; a “Booke” by Thorne, still in Seville, later prepared, in
1527, at the request of the British ambassador in Spain, being an
“Information” on the same subject; the “Relation” of John Verazzano, the
Florentine corsair, in the service of France, describing his voyage of
discovery, made in 1524, along the eastern coast of America from about
the present South Carolina to Newfoundland; an account of the discovery
of Greenland and various phantom islands, with the coast of North
America, by the brothers Zeno, Venetian navigators, in the late
fourteenth century; and a report of the “true and last” discovery of
Florida made by Captain John Ribault for France, in 1562.
The pamphlet closed with a chapter of practical instructions for
intending colonists and an inviting list of commodities growing “in part
of America not presently inhabited by any Christian from Florida
northward.”
Its publication was a revelation to the English public. Before it
appeared the people in general of that day had little knowledge of the
accomplishments of either their own or foreign voyagers in discovery and
for commercial advantage. Merchants engaged in foreign trade or
ventures—and adventurous mariners, to be sure—kept themselves informed
on what was going on and had gone on. But the information they collected
was exclusively for the purposes of their own traffic. They were not
interested in making it public. The real object, too, of many
expeditions professing to aim at higher purposes, was, as John Winter
Jones points out in his Introduction to the modern reprint of _Divers
Voyages_, a gold-mine, or a treasure-laden galleon on the high seas.
Hakluyt’s little book immediately gave a fresh turn to public interest.
Its practical effect was the speedy forwarding of the expedition of Sir
Humphrey Gilbert in the summer of 1583, the first of the English nation
to carry people directly to erect a colony in the north countries of
America. This was an unsuccessful attempt at an establishment at
Newfoundland, and was followed by the loss of Sir Humphrey with the
foundering of his cockle-shell of a ship on the return voyage.
Two years after the appearance of _Divers Voyages_ a second work came
from the same hand for the same general object.
This was a work of broader scope and of larger significance. It was
prepared not for the press but for private and confidential circulation.
It was, in effect, a state paper, marshalling arguments in behalf of a
specific policy, and was intended expressly for the eye of queen
Elizabeth, and her principal advisers. It exhibited the political,
commercial, and religious advantages to be derived by England from
American colonization at a critical juncture of affairs. The Catholic
Philip the second of Spain was now aiming at the “suppression of
heretics throughout the world,” and Elizabeth of England was his main
object of insidious attack as “the principal of the princes of the
reformed religion.” The particular purpose of the work was to enlist the
throne in the large projects formed by Walter Raleigh in continuation of
the scheme of Sir Humphrey Gilbert (Raleigh’s half-brother) after the
lamentable fate of that chivalrous gentleman.
Only three or four copies of this paper are supposed to have been made.
Its existence was unknown to the historians for more than two and a half
centuries. The credit for bringing it to public light and for its
reproduction in print was due to American bibliophiles and scholars.
The discovery of it came about in this wise. In the eighteen fifties a
copy of a “Hakluyt Manuscript” appeared at an auction sale of a famous
private library in London, and was bought by a shrewd and indefatigable
collector of rare Americana, Henry Stevens of Vermont, at that time
resident in London. On a blank leaf of the manuscript the purchaser
found this pencilled memorandum, evidently made by the owner of the
library, Lord Valentia:
“This unpublished Manuscript of Hakluyt is extremely rare. I procured it
from the family of Sir Peter Thomson. The editors of the last edition
[meaning the collection of Hakluyt’s works published in 1809–1812] would
have given any money for it had it been known to have existed.”
Sir Peter Thomson was an eighteenth century collector of choice books,
manuscripts, and literary curiosities. After his death in 1770, his
collection went to the hammer. Here the trace ends, for how Sir Peter
got the manuscript is not disclosed. Mr. Stevens endeavored to find a
permanent place for the precious thing in the library of some American
historical society or in the British Museum. At length, these endeavors
failing, after two or three years, he disposed of it in England to Sir
Thomas Phillips, another noteworthy collector, whose library at
Thirlestane House, Cheltenham, became a storehouse of historical
treasure. Here it lay till 1868, when it was practically rediscovered by
another American—the learned Reverend Doctor Leonard Woods, fourth
president of Bowdoin College, in Maine. President Woods was at that time
in England searching for certain papers of Sir Fernandino Gorges, the
founder of Maine, and in this quest he visited Thirlestane House. He was
one of those whose attention had been called to the manuscript by Mr.
Stevens when it was in the latter’s possession. But then the Maine
scholar did not fully comprehend its nature. As soon, however, as he had
examined it at Thirlestane House he recognized its historical worth.
Thereupon he caused an exact transcript to be made, and printed it for
the first time in the Maine Historical Society’s Collections for 1877.
The thesis originally bore the caption _Mr. Rawley’s Voyage_; but
subsequently a title more explicitly defining its character was affixed
to the copy from which the print is made; and this title in turn has
been reduced for popular service to _A Discourse on Western Planting_.
This “Discourse” boldly set forth the bearings of Raleigh’s enterprise
upon the power of Spain (with which war was ultimately proclaimed). If
pursued at once it would be “a great bridle of the Indies of the King of
Spain,” and stay him from “flowing over all the face” of the firm land
of America. Raleigh’s plan contemplated a flank movement upon Spain in
the seas of the West Indies and the Spanish Main, while England was
preparing for intervention in the Netherlands. From her American
possessions, in the wealth which her treasure-ships brought thence,
Spain was deriving the sinews of her strength. With this wealth she was
enabled to support her armies in Europe, build and equip fleets, keep
alive dissensions, bribe, in her interests, “great men and whole
states.” Her power in her American possessions Raleigh would break.
English colonies planted on the North American continent would be in
position to attack her at a vulnerable point and arrest her
treasure-ships. A surprising weakness of her defences in Spanish
America, through the withdrawal of her soldiers to maintain her armies
in the Netherlands, had been discovered by Sir John Hawkins and Sir
Francis Drake in recent voyages. In this unprotected condition of the
region was found a powerful inducement to English colonization as now
proposed.
The necessity of “speedy planting in divers fit places” upon these
“lucky western discoveries” was also urged to prevent their being
occupied by other nations which now had “the like intentions.” The queen
of England’s title to America, “at least to so much as is from Florida
to the circle artic,” by virtue of the Cabot discoveries, was reasserted
as “more lawful and right than the Spaniard’s or any other prince’s.”
The various “testimonies” to this claim were again enumerated. Stress
also was again laid upon the “probability of the easy and quick finding
of the Northwest Passage.” The value to England, through her opening of
the West, in the yield to her of “all the commodities of Europe, Africa,
and Asia,” as far as her adventurers might travel, and in the supply of
the wants of England’s decayed trades, was dwelt upon. It was shown
that, with the possession of this region planted by Englishmen, England
would obtain every material for creating great navies—goodly timber for
building ships, trees for masts, pitch, tar, and hemp—all for “no
price.” Thus it was apparent “how easy a matter it may be to this realm
swarming at this day with valiant youths rusting and hurtful for lack of
employment, and having good makers of cable and all sorts of cordage,
and the best and most cunning shipwrights of the world, to be lords of
all those seas, and to spoil Philip’s Indian navy, and to deprive him of
yearly passage of his treasure into Europe.” As for the religious
argument, the zealous Protestant advocate reasoned that by planting in
America from England the “glory of the gospel” would be enlarged,
“sincere religion” be advanced therein, and a safe and sure place be
provided “to receive people from all parts of the world that are forced
to flee for the truth of God’s word.”
The first copy of this illuminating Discourse was delivered to the queen
by Hakluyt in person, in August, shortly before the return of Raleigh’s
“twoo barkes.” Another copy was given to Elizabeth’s chief secretary,
Walsingham; and a third, it is believed, to Sir Philip Sidney.
[Illustration:
FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF “DIVERS VOYAGES.”
From the copy in the New York Public Library (Lenox Building).
]
Like _Divers Voyages_ it had a signal effect. The two barks had been
sent out in April, within a month from the issue of a patent to Raleigh,
as a preliminary expedition, under two experienced navigators, to
reconnoitre the southern coast above Florida and report. They were back
in September, bringing glowing accounts of the region visited—the
islands of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds—together with report of their
having taken formal possession of the country for the queen of England,
and, as tangible evidence, two tawny natives of the wilderness. With
this happy outcome the Hakluyt Discourse clinched the matter, and
Raleigh’s policy was adopted. Elizabeth immediately bestowed upon the
region the name of Virginia, in token of her state of life as a virgin
queen; Raleigh was knighted for his valour and enterprise; Parliament
confirmed his patent of discovery; and in April following, 1585, his
first colony of one hundred and eight persons sailed from Plymouth in a
fleet of seven vessels and landed at Roanoke.
From that time for twenty years, till the forfeiture of Elizabeth’s
grant by the attainder of James, in 1603, all that was done for American
colonization by the English race was under Raleigh’s title, and with
every step Hakluyt was repeatedly contributing informing literature to
the cause to keep aflame the now aroused spirit of adventure.
In 1586, then in Paris, he had published, at his own expense, a
manuscript account of Florida, written after the explorations of the
French navigators Ribault and Laudonnière, in 1562–1564, and the
attempted planting of Huguenot colonies there, ending tragically in a
massacre by Spaniards. This manuscript he had come upon in archives,
where it had lain hidden for above twenty years, “suppressed,” as he
averred, “by the malice of some too much affectioned to the Spanish
cause.” The narrative was brought out in French, edited by a friend and
fellow scholar, Martin Basanière, a professor of mathematics, and
dedicated by the editor to Raleigh with high praise for his efforts to
open the Western country. The following year Hakluyt issued in London an
English translation of this book under the enticing title, _A Notable
Historie containing four Voyages made by certayne French captaynes into
Florida, wherein the Great Riches and Fruitfulness of the country with
the Maners of the people, hitherto concealed, are brought to light_; and
to this edition he prefixed his own “Epistle Dedicatorie” to Raleigh,
encouraging him, undismayed by previous failure, in the good work of
Virginia colonization, which must ultimately prosper as these French
captains’ exposition of the advantages and resources of the region
demonstrated.
The same year, 1587, again in Paris, he published, also dedicated to
Raleigh, and accompanied by a rare map, a revised edition in Latin of
_De Orbe Novo_, the work of the Italian historian, Peter Martyr, giving
the history of the first thirty years of American discovery.
Next, in 1589, appeared the first volume of the magnum opus of our
author, under the general title of _The Principall Navigations, Voiages,
and Discoueries of the English Nation made by Sea or over Land to the
most remote and farthest distant Quarters of the Earth at any time
within the compasse of these 1500 years_—an elaborate work of which the
_Divers Voyages_ was the germ, having the same direct object in view.
Its scheme embraced a collection, in three volumes, of narratives and
records, in the original, of voyages and discoveries made by Englishmen
from earliest times to the compiler’s day, sprinkled with accounts of
the more important explorations for foreign nations having relation to
those for England. The initial volume opened with an extended “Epistle
Dedicatorie” addressed to Sir Francis Walsingham, the queen’s chief
secretary, and a more detailed “Preface to the Favourable Reader.” It
included the main part of the _Divers Voyages_.
Nine years later, in 1598, the first volume of a second edition, revised
and enlarged, to include voyages made “within the compasse of these 1600
yeares,” instead of fifteen hundred, made its appearance. The second
volume of this edition followed the next year, 1599, and the last in
1600. They were of large size, fools-cap folio, and contained altogether
the impressive number of five hundred and seventeen separate narratives
of adventures by Englishmen from the time of King Arthur to and through
Elizabeth’s reign.
Extended “Epistles Dedicatorie” were also prefixed to each of these
volumes. That to the first was addressed to Charles Howard, the
vanquisher of the Spanish Armada, 1588. Both of those to the second and
third were to Sir Robert Cecil, Walsingham’s successor in the chief
secretaryship, and afterward the Earl of Salisbury.
With the completion of the third volume Hakluyt’s work of research by no
means ended. It was continued untiringly till the close of his life, and
sufficient material was left by him in manuscript to constitute a fourth
volume. This material passed to the hands of Samuel Purchas, the author
of _Purchas his Pilgrimages, or Relations of the World_, etc., 1613, who
utilized it, together with matter from the _Principall Navigations_, in
a work of four volumes, published in 1625, under the title of _Hakluytus
Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes: containing a History of the World
in Sea Voyages and Land Travels by Englishmen and Others_. Afterward the
_Purchas his Pilgrimages_ was added as a fifth volume to the set. The
combined work became most popularly known as _Purchas’s Pilgrims_, and
was treated by some of the early historians as the first source of
American history.
Nor did Hakluyt’s publications of an important nature and with the same
general object—the fostering of naval enterprise generally and of
American colonization in particular—end with the issue of his magnum
opus. In 1601 he brought out, under the title of _The Discoveries of the
World_, an English translation of a treatise by a Portuguese, Antonio
Galvano. After that came an English version of Peter Martyr under this
taking title: _The Historie of the West Indies: Containing the Actes and
Aduentures of the Spaniards, which have conquered and peopled those
Countries, inriched with varietie of pleasant relation of the Manners,
Ceremonies, Lawes, Governments, and Warres of the Indians: Published in
Latin by Mr. Hakluyt and translated into English by M. Lok, Gent._ This
appeared a short time before the permanent colonization was effected,
and was evidently timed to stimulate that movement.
Next, in 1609, he produced a translation from the Portuguese of an
account of De Soto’s discoveries in 1539–1543, with a description of
Florida and its riches, designed to encourage and foster the Virginia
colony. To this Hakluyt gave the English title _Virginia Richly Valued
by the description of the mainland of Florida her next neighbour_. The
dedication was addressed to the “Right Worshipfull Counsellors and
others the cheerefull aduenturors for the aduancement of that Christian
and noble plantation of Virginia,” and the booklet was commended to them
as a “worke ... though small in shew yet great in substance,” yielding
much light to the enterprise in which they were with him concerned,
whether it was desired “to know the present and future commodities of
our countrie, or the qualities and conditions of the Inhabitants, or
what course is best to be taken with them.”
Two years later, in 1611, he issued a second edition, for the combined
purpose of buoying up the spirits of the young colony, now disheartened
by much suffering, and of procuring additional aid for it at home. This
appeared with a new and more alluring title, in which particular stress
was laid upon the wealth of gold, silver, and other precious things
supposed to exist in the region, then believed to be the richest in the
world: _The worthie and famous historie of the travails, discovery and
conquest of that great continent of Terra Florida being lively
paralleled with that of our own now inhabited Virginia. As also the
commodities of said country with divers and excellent and rich mynes of
golde, silver, and other metals etc. which cannot but give us a great
and exceeding hope for our Virginia being so neere to one continent
etc._
This was fittingly Hakluyt’s last published work.
II
RICHARD HAKLUYT THE MAN
Beyond the bare data of his birth and antecedents the story of Richard
Hakluyt’s life is gathered largely from his own writings, found for the
most part in shreds of autobiography running through the several
extended “Epistles Dedicatorie” introducing his published volumes. It is
a winsome and an inspiriting story of a man of action behind the scenes
of great performances rather than in the forefront: of a singularly
modest man not forth-pressing among his contemporaries, yet ranking in
great accomplishments with the best of “Queen Elizabeth’s men.”
Even the exact place and date of his birth are not stated by any of his
biographers. All that appears to be definitely fixed is that he was born
near London about the year 1553. That was the year that Edmund Spenser
was born; one year after the birth of Sir Walter Raleigh, and one year
before the birth of Sir Philip Sidney, both of whom were to become his
confrères in schemes of American colonization. He was five years old
when Elizabeth came to the throne. Eleven years after his birth
Shakspere was born, and he died the same year that Shakspere died. Thus
we have the chronology of his life, 1553–1616, his active career
extending through the blossom and the bloom of the dazzling Elizabethan
period.
Richard Hakluyt was of an ancient Hertfordshire family, dating back in
that historic county to the thirteenth century. The family seat was at
Yatton, or Eyton, not far from the old town of Leominster. They were of
Welsh extraction, and our cosmographer may have indulged a personal
pride in the legend of “the most ancient discovery of the West Indies,”
made by a Welshman in the twelfth century, three hundred years before
Columbus. Hakluyts appear to have been early preferred for public
station in Hertfordshire. The name (then generally spelled Hackluit) is
found in the lists of high sheriffs for the county from the reign of
Edward the second to Henry the eighth. In the second year of Henry the
fourth Leonard Hackluit, knight, was sheriff. Walter Hakelut was
knighted in the thirty-fourth year of Edward the first. Others of the
name are seen among early members of Parliament. Thomas Hakeluyt was
chancellor of the diocese of Hertford in 1349, in the latter part of
Edward the third’s reign. Richard Hakluyt of Yatton, afterward of
London, an elder cousin of our Richard, was a cosmographer before him,
and esteemed in his time “as well by some principal ministers of state
as by several most noted persons among the mercantile part of the
kingdom, as a great encourager of navigation and improvement of trade,
art, and manufactures.”
Our Richard Hakluyt was the second of four brothers, all of whom were
liberally educated. The eldest, Thomas, was trained at the Westminster
School and at Trinity College, Cambridge. He became a celebrated
physician. Richard followed Thomas at the Westminster School when he was
fourteen years old, being elected one of the queen’s scholars to that
“fruitfull nurserie,” as he terms it. He remained at Westminster for six
years and then passed up to Christ College, Oxford. While a schoolboy
the love of geography and maritime discovery was implanted in him by his
cousin Richard, and so agreeably that he determined to make the pursuit
of these branches of science his life-avocation. How this came about let
him relate in his own quaint language, translated, for more comfortable
reading, into modern English.
“I do remember that being a youth and one of her Majesty’s scholars at
Westminster, that fruitful nursery, it was my hap to visit the chamber
of M. Richard Hakluyt, my cousin, a Gentleman of the Middle Temple, well
known unto you, at a time when I found lying open upon his board certain
books of Cosmography with an universal Map. He seeing me somewhat
curious in the view thereof began to instruct my ignorance by shewing me
the division of the earth into three parts after the old account, and
then according to the latter & better distribution, into more: he
pointed with his wand to all the known Seas, Gulfs, Bays, Straights,
Capes, Rivers, Empires, Kingdoms, Dukedoms, and Territories of each
part; with declaration also of their special commodities & particular
wants, which by the benefit of traffic & intercourse of merchants, are
plentifully supplied. From the Map he brought me to the Bible, and
turning to the 107 Psalm, directed me to the 23 & 24 verses, where I
read, that they which go down to the sea in ships, and occupy by the
great waters, they see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the
deep, &c. Which words of the Prophet together with my cousin’s discourse
(things of high and rare delight to my young nature) took in me so deep
an impression, that I constantly resolved, if ever I were preferred to
the University, where better time and more convenient place might be
ministered for their studies, would by God’s assistance prosecute that
knowledge and kind of literature, the doors of which whereof (after a
sort) were so happily opened before me.”
Hakluyt entered Oxford in 1570, and took the degree of bachelor of arts
in 1574 and master of arts in 1577. While diligently and faithfully
pursuing the regular college course, true to his boyhood resolution he
devoted all his spare time to his self imposed studies. He became so
proficient in them that after taking his master’s degree he was chosen
to read “public lectures” on the science of cosmography and navigation.
The lectures were delivered presumably in London and with much
satisfaction to his hearers, among whom we may be sure were found master
mariners and common seamen, as his relation proceeds:
“When not long after I was removed to Christ-Church in Oxford, my
exercise of duty first performed, I fell to my intended course, and by
degrees read over whatsoever printed and written discoveries and voyages
I found extant either in the Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portugal
[Portuguese], French, or English languages, and in my public lectures
was the first that produced and shewed both the old and imperfectly
composed, and the new lately reformed Maps, Globes, Spheres, and other
instruments of this Art for demonstration in the common schools, to the
singular pleasure and general contentment of my auditory.”
Possibly at these lectures, certainly soon after, he was advocating with
much earnestness the pressing need of popular technical education to
produce informed and skilful mariners, and this he continued
persistently to urge in all his after writings. He would have had
established in London a lectureship, or a school of nautical crafts,
from which English seamen might be graduated complete navigators. To
this end he dwelt much upon the advantages of the navigators of rival
nations, gained largely through their scientific training. At that time
Spain was maintaining in Seville, at the “Contractation House,” or
Exchange, a “Learned Reader” in the art of navigation and a board of
examiners, of which the reader was a member, and no man in Spain could
obtain the charge of a ship for the Indies till he had attended the
reader’s course and had passed the examining board. A century earlier
the “hero nation” of Portugal had established a school of navigation,
instituted by that heroic figure in maritime discovery, Prince Henry,
surnamed “The Navigator.” Despite, however, the force of Hakluyt’s sound
arguments, and the endorsement of his proposition by such seasoned
mariners as Sir Francis Drake and by various men of affairs, the
lectureship never was founded, greatly to his regret.
When Hakluyt began his studies in cosmography systematically the only
English work at his hand touching the subject was the _Historie of
Travayle_ by Richard Eden, dating from 1555. This was the first work of
its kind produced in England, and a new edition was brought out while
Hakluyt was a student at Oxford. Although it was a classic from a
scholarly Englishman, it presented only a limited view of maritime
discovery. Consequently the young student was obliged to pursue his
investigations chiefly in various foreign works, and among manuscripts
deposited in private libraries or collections. He had not progressed far
before he had become impressed with the backwardness of England in
Western occupation since the discovery of the North American continent
under her auspices in 1497 and 1498. Great deeds had been performed by
intrepid English explorers to the North and Northeast, and English
commerce had been advanced in the rich regions of the East; but on the
Western continent no further attempt of moment toward exploration or
settlement had been made by Englishmen from the finish of Henry the
seventh’s reign to Elizabeth’s time. Meanwhile other nations had
established foothold in these “fair and fruitful parts,” to England’s
disadvantage. Thus Hakluyt came clearly to see that maritime traffic
united with American colonization must be the means that England should
adopt, without further delay, if she were to improve the condition of
her people and become a naval power in the world.
Imbued with these convictions he early set out, perhaps while still
delivering the “Public Lectures,” definitely to promote this policy with
voice and pen. Early he is found in close touch with men leading in
state affairs and in bold enterprises. He is much in correspondence with
Sir Francis Walsingham, the queen’s chief secretary. He gets points from
Sir Francis Drake after that great navigator’s return, in 1580, from the
first circumnavigation of the globe by an Englishman, loaded with
treasure, the spoil of Spanish harbours on the Pacific, and crowned with
honours for the discovery of California for the English and its
occupation as “New Albion.” He has intimate intercourse with Sir
Humphrey Gilbert, to whom, in 1578, Elizabeth had given her letters
patent to discover and to colonize “remote, heathen, and barbarous
lands”—the first grant of the kind ever made by an English
sovereign,—and, as we have seen, prepares his first book, _Divers
Voyages_, in aid of Sir Humphrey’s project. Walter Raleigh, Gilbert’s
half-brother and associate, who had known Hakluyt and was conversant
with his studies in cosmography when he was at college, became his
patron. Philip Sidney, to whom he dedicates the _Divers Voyages_, had
been his fellow-student at Oxford.
Hakluyt planned to accompany Gilbert’s fatal expedition of 1583, but
before its departure he was appointed chaplain to Sir Edward Stafford,
the queen’s ambassador to Paris. This preferment evidently came to him
directly through his interest in nautical affairs. Those who obtained it
for him believed that his services to the cause of Western discoveries
and colonization would then be most valuable from that post of
observation and influence. Walsingham expected him to make diligent
enquiry of “such things as may yield any light unto our Western
discoveries,” and he justified this hope by undertaking shrewdly to
collect information of the movements of the Spanish and as well the
French, and to recommend measures for the furtherance of the cause which
he had most at heart. No sooner was he established at Paris than he
became absorbed in this special mission, and it continued almost his
sole occupation while he remained with the embassy, which was for a
period of five years.
Upon the failure of the Gilbert enterprise and the loss of Sir Humphrey
he is ardently enlisted in Raleigh’s project, furnishing in its
interest, at Raleigh’s request, “discourses both in print and written
hand.” These “discourses” are supposed to have been embodied in
Raleigh’s memorial to the queen which brought him his patent of March,
1584, as liberal as Gilbert’s. The important document on _Mr. Rawley’s
Voyage_, or _A Particular Discourse_ on Western planting, may have
embodied some of the features of the memorial. Hakluyt wrote the
“Discourse” in London when ostensibly on a summer vacation from his
duties at Paris. At the same time he was busied in judicious
“trumpeting” of the enterprise among statesmen and merchant adventurers.
He continued hand in hand with Raleigh through the latter’s repeated
attempts to plant his Virginia colonies, encouragingly buoyant and
hopeful in each new venture following dismal and sometimes tragic
failure; and he became foremost in the company of gentlemen and
merchants to whom Raleigh was compelled to assign his patent in 1588.
Afterward, upon the accession of James the first, he was the chief
promoter of a petition to the king for a new grant of patents for
Virginia colonization that brought the royal charter of April, 1606,
under which were formed the corporations subsequently known as the
London and the Plymouth companies, between whom was to be equally
divided the great tract of country lying between the thirty-fourth and
the forty-fifth degrees of latitude and reaching to the backwoods
without bound. He was made one of the patentees of the London, or South
Virginia, Company, which effected the first permanent English
settlement—at Jamestown, in 1606.
His great work of _The Principal Navigations_ was in preparation while
Raleigh’s projects were under way. Its scheme was drawn at the outset
with remarkable breadth and on a lofty scale. While in Stafford’s
service at Paris he tells us, “I both heard in speech and read in books,
other nations miraculously extolled for their discoveries and notable
enterprises by sea, but the English of all others, for their sluggish
security, and continual neglect of the like attempts ... either
ignominiously reported or exceedingly condemned [? condensed].... Thus
both hearing and reading the obliquy of our nation, and finding few or
none of our own men able to reply herein; and further, not seeing any
man to have care to recommend to the world the industrious labours and
painful travels of our countrymen; for stopping the mouths of
reproachers, myself ... determined, notwithstanding all difficulties, to
undertake the burden of that work wherein all others pretended either
ignorance or lack of leisure, or want of sufficient argument, whereas
(to speak truly) the huge toil and the small profit to ensue, were the
chief causes of the refusal.”
In the laborious collection of his material, much “dispersed, scattered,
and hidden in several hucksters’ hands,” as he says, he sought the
assistance of the foremost scholars, bibliographers, and writers, and
cultivated the acquaintance of all classes of men who could give him
information. He tells of talking with Don Antonio, the Portuguese
Pretender, when in Paris, and with several of Antonio’s “best captains
and pilots, one of whom was born in the East Indies.” He became friendly
with travelled French sailors. One of them gave him a piece of supposed
silver ore, and showed him “beasts’ skins draped and painted by
Indians.” Another exhibited “a piece of the tree called Sassafras
brought from Florida, and expounded its high medical virtues,” which
afterward was much sought by voyagers to America. He browsed in the
king’s library at Paris. He established friendly relations with foreign
cosmographers and exchanged letters with them and with other foreign
scholars. In London he found and copied rare manuscripts in Lord
Lumley’s “stately library”; had access to the queen’s privy gallery at
Westminster; and to a rich cabinet of curiosities brought home by
travellers. He sought English sea-captains upon their return to port and
had informing interviews with them about their adventures. Some brought
him tales from Spain about the natives of Florida. Once he travelled two
hundred miles on horseback to interview one Thomas Butts, then the only
survivor of a disastrous English voyage to Newfoundland in 1536.
The initial volume was completed after his final return to England at
the end of his term with the French embassy. Its publication was a
distinct event in English letters. The lofty motives that impelled him
to the production of the enlarged edition in three volumes he details in
his picturesquely phrased “Epistle Dedicatorie” to Lord Charles Howard,
prefixed to volume one.
“Right Honourable and my very good Lord,” he here writes, “after I had
long since published in Print many Navigations and Discoveries of
Strangers in divers languages, as well here at London as in the city of
Paris during my five years abode in France with the worthy knight, Sir
Edward Stafford, your brother-in-law, his Majesty’s most prudent and
careful ambassador ligier with the French king; and had waded on still
further and further in the sweet study of the history of Cosmography, I
began at length to conceive that with diligent observation, something
might be gathered which might commend our nation for their high courage
and singular activity in the search and discovery of the most unknown
quarters of the world.... The ardent love of my country devoured all
difficulties, and, as it were, with a sharp goad provoked me and thrust
me forward into this troublesome and painful action. And after great
charges and infinite cares, after many watchings, toils, and travels,
and wearying out of my weak body, at length I have collected three
several volumes of the English Navigations, Traffics, and Discoveries to
strange, remote, and far distant countries. Which work of mine I have
not included with the compass of things duly done in these later days,
as though little or nothing worthy of memory had been performed in
former ages, but mounting aloft by the space of many hundred years, have
brought to light many very rare and worthy monuments which long have
lain miserably scattered in musty corners and wretchedly hidden in misty
darkness, and were very like for the greatest part to have been buried
in perpetual oblivion.”