after thither, partly by certain secret commodities already discovered by your servants, and partly by breeding of divers sorts of beasts in those large and ample regions, and planting of such things in that warm climate as will best prosper there, and our realm standeth most in need of. And this I find to have been the course that both Spaniards and Portuguese took in the beginnings of their discoveries and conquests. For the Spaniards at their first entrance into Hispaniola found neither sugar-canes nor ginger growing there, nor any kind of our cattle; but finding the place fit for pasture they sent kine and bulls, and sundry sorts of other profitable beasts thither, and transported the plants of sugar-canes, and set the roots of ginger; the hides of which oxen, with sugar and ginger, are now the chief merchandize of that island. The Portuguese also, at their first footing in Madeira, as John Barros writes in his first Decade, found nothing there but mighty woods for timber, whereupon they called the island by that name; howbeit, the climate being favourable, they enriched it by their own industry with the best wines and sugars in the world. The like manner of proceeding they used in the isles of Azores by sowing therein great quanity of woad. So dealt they in S. Thomas under the equinoctial, and in Brazil, and sundry other places. And if our men will follow their steps, by your wise direction I doubt not but in due time they shall reap no less commodity and benefit. Moreover, there is none other likelihood but that her Majesty, who hath christened and given the name to your Virginia, if need require, will deal after the manner of honourable godmothers, who, seeing ther gossips not fully able to bring up their children themselves, are wont to contribute to their honest education, the rather if they find any towardliness or reasonable hope of goodness in them. And if Elizabeth, queen of Castile and Aragon, after her husband Ferdinando and she had emptied their coffers and exhausted their treasures in subduing the kingdom of Granada, and rooting the Moors,

a wicked weed, out of Spain, was nevertheless so zealous of God's honour, that (as Fernandus Columbus, the son of Christopher Columbus, recordeth in the History of the Deeds of his Father), she laid part of her own jewels, which she had in great account, to gage, to furnish his father forth upon his first voyage, before any foot of land of all the West Indies was discovered; what may we expect of our most magnificent and gracious prince ELIZABETH of England, into whose lap the Lord hath most plentifully thrown his treasures! what may we, I say, hope of her forwardness and bounty in advancing of this your most honourable enterprise, being far more certain than that of Columbus, at that time especially, and tending no less to the glory of God than that action of the Spaniards? For as you may read in the very last words of the relation of New Mexico, extant now in English, the main land, where your last colony meant to seat themselves, is replenished with many thousands of Indians, who are of better wits than those of Mexico and Peru, as hath been found by those that have had some trial of them; whereby it may be gathered that they will easily embrace the gospel, forsaking their idolatry, wherein at this present for the most part they are wrapped and intangled.

A wise philosopher, noting the sundry desires of divers men, writeth, that if an ox be put into a meadow he will seek to fill his belly with grass, if a stork be cast in she will seek for snakes, if you turn in a hound he will seek to start a hare; so sundry men entering into these discoveries propose unto themselves several ends. Some seek authority and places of commandment, others experience by seeing of the world, the most part worldly and transitory gain, and that often times by dishonest and unlawful means, the fewest number the glory of God and the saving of the souls of the poor and blinded infidels. Yet because divers honest and well-disposed persons are entered already into this your business, and that I know you mean hereafter to send some such good churchmen thither, as may truly say with the apostle to the savages, we

seek not yours but you, I conceive great comfort of the success of this your action, hoping that the Lord, whose power is wont to be perfected in weakness, will bless the feeble foundations of your building Only be you of a yaliant courage, and faint not, as the Lord said unto Joshua, exhorting him to proceed on forward in the conquest of the land of promise; and remember that private men have happily wielded and waded through as great enterprises as this, with lesser means than those which God in his mercy hath bountifully bestowed upon you, to the singular good, as I assure myself, of this our com❤ monwealth wherein you live. Hereof we have examples domestical and foreign. Remember, I pray you, what you find in the beginning of the Chronicle of the Conquest of Ireland, newly dedicated unto yourself. Read you not that Richard Strangbow, the decayed earl of Chepstow in Monmouthshire, being in no great favour of his sovereign, passed over into that island in the year 1171, and accompanied only with certain of his private friends, had in short space such prosperous success, that he opened the way for King Henry II to the speedy subjection of all that warlike nation to this crown of England? The like conquest of Brasilia, and annexing the same to the kingdom of Portugal, was first begun by mean and private men, as Don Antonio de Castillio, ambassador here for that realm, and by-office-keeper of all the records and monuments of their discoveries, assured me in this city in the year 1581.

Now if the greatness of the main of Virginia, and the large extension thereof, especially to the west, should make you think that the subduing of it were a matter of more dif ficulty than the conquest of Ireland, first I answer, that as the late experience of that skilful pilot and captain Mr. John Davis to the north-west, (toward which his discovery yourself have thrice contributed with the forwardest), hath shewed a great part to be main sea, where before was thought to be main land, so for my part I am fully persuaded by Ortelius'

late reformation of Culuacan and the gulf of California, that the land on the back part of Virginia extendeth nothing so far westward as is put down in the maps of those parts. Moreover it is not to be denied, but that 100 men will do more now among the naked and unarmed people in Virginia, than 1,000 were able then to do in Ireland against that armed and warlike nation in those days. I say farther, that these two years last experience hath plainly shewed, that we may spare 10,000 able men without any miss. And these are as many as the kingdom of Portugal had ever in all their garrisons of the Azores, Madeira, Arguin, Cape Verde, Guinea, Brasil, Mozambique, Melinde, Zocotora, Ormus, Diu, Goa, Malaca, the Malucos, and Macao upon the coast of China. Yea, this I say by the confession of singular expert men of their own nation, (whose names I suppress for certain causes), which have been personally in the East Indies, and have assured me that their kings had never above 10,000 natural born Portugese (their slaves excepted) out of their kingdom remaining in all the aforesaid territories. Which also this present year I saw confirmed in a secret extract of the particular estate of that kingdom, and of every government and office subject to the same, with the several pensions thereunto belonging. Seeing therefore we are so far from want of people, that retiring daily home out of the Low Countries they go idle up and down in swarms for lack of honest entertainment, I see no fitter place to employ some part of the better sort of them, trained up thus long in service, than in the inward parts of the firm of Virginia, against such stubborn savages as shall refuse obedience to her Majesty. And doubtless many of our men will be glad and fain to accept this condition, when as, by the reading of this present treaty, they shall understand the fertility and riches of the regions confining so near upon yours, the great commodities and goodness whereof you have been contented to suffer to come to light.

In the mean season I humbly commend myself and this my

translation unto you; and yourself, and all those who under you have taken this enterprise in hand, to the grace and good blessing of the Almighty, who is able to build farther, and to finish the good work which in these our days he hath begun by your most christian and charitable endeavour. London the 1" of May 1587.

Your L. humble at commandment,

From

R. HAKLUYT.'

No. III.

THE LETTERS PATENTS GRANTED BY THE QUEEN'S MAJESTY TO MR. WALTER RALEGH, NOW KNIGHT, FOR THE DISCOVERING AND PLANTING OF NEW LANDS AND COUNTRIES, TO CONTINUE THE SPACE OF SIX YEARS AND NO MORE.

[From HAKLUYT's Voyages, III, 243.]

ELIZABETH, by the grace of God, of England, France, and Ireland, queen, defender of the faith, &c. to all people to whom these presents shall come, greeting. Know ye that of our especial grace, certain science and mere motion, we have given and granted, and by these presents for us, our heirs and successors do give and grant to our trusty and well-beloved servant Walter Ralegh, Esq. and to his heirs and assigns for ever, free liberty and licence from time to time, and at all times for ever hereafter, to discover, search, find out, and view such remote, heathen, and barbarous lands, countries, and territories, not actually possessed of any christain prince, nor inhabited by christian people, as to him, his heirs, and assigns, and to every or any of them shall seem good,