Part 1
# The Boy's Hakluyt: English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery ### By Hakluyt, Richard
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THE BOY’S HAKLUYT
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IN THE SAME SERIES
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
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=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
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THE BOY’S HAKLUYT
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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.