Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, vol 6 | Page 4

yere one thousand fiue hundred eighty and seuen, when I had caused the foure voyages of Ribault, Laudonniere, and Gourges to Florida, at mine owne charges to bee printed in Paris, which by the malice of some too much affectioned to the Spanish faction, had bene aboue twentie yeeres suppressed, as soone as that booke came to the view of that reuerend and prudent Counseller Monsieur Harlac the lord chiefe Iustice of France, and certaine other of the wisest Iudges, in great choler they asked, who had done such intolerable wrong to their whole kingdome, as to haue concealed that woorthie worke so long? Protesting further, that if their Kings and the Estate had throughly followed that action, France had bene freed of their long ciuill warres, and the variable humours of all sortes of people might haue had very ample and manifold occasions of good and honest emploiment abroad in that large and fruitfull Continent of the West Indies. The application of which sentence vnto our selues I here omit, hastening vnto the summarie recapitulation of other matters contained in this worke. It may please your Honour therefore to vnderstand, that the second part of this first Treatise containeth our auncient trade and traffique with English shipping to the Ilands of Sicilie, Candie, and Sio, which, by good warrant herein alleaged, I find to haue bene begun in the yeere 1511. and to haue continued vntill the yeere 1552. and somewhat longer. But shortly after (as it seemeth) it was intermitted, or rather giuen ouer (as is noted in master Gaspar Campions discreet letters to Master Michael Lock and Master William Winter inserted in this booke) first by occasion of the Turkes expelling of the foure and twentie Mauneses or gouernours of the Genouois out of the Ile of Sio, and by taking of the sayd Iland wholie into his owne hand in Aprill, 1566. sending thither Piali Basha with fourescore gallies for that purpose; and afterward by his growing ouer mightie and troublesome in those Seas, by the cruell inuasion of Nicosia and Famagusta, and the whole Ile of Cyprus by his lieutenant Generall Mustapha Basha. Which lamentable Tragedie I haue here againe reuiued, that the posteritie may neuer forget what trust may bee giuen to the oath of a Mahometan, when hee hath aduauntage and is in his choler.
Lastly, I haue here put downe at large the happie renuing and much increasing of our interrupted trade in all the Leuant, accomplished by the great charges and speciall Industrie of the worshipfull and worthy Citizens, Sir Edward Osborne Knight, M. Richard Staper, and M. William Hareborne, together with the league for traffike onely betweene her Maiestie and the Grand Signior, with the great priuileges, immunities, and fauours obteyned of his imperiall Highnesse in that behalfe, the admissions and residencies of our Ambassadours in his stately Porch, and the great good and Christian offices which her Sacred Maiestie by her extraordinary fauour in that Court hath done for the king and kingdome of Poland, and other Christian Princes: the traffike of our Nation in all the chiefe Hauens of Africa and Egypt: the searching and haunting the very bottome of the Mediterran Sea to the ports of Tripoli and Alexandretta, of the Archipelagus, by the Turkes now called The white sea, euen to the walles of Constantinople: the voyages ouer land, and by riuer through Aleppo, Birrha, Babylon and Balsara, and downe the Persian gulfe to Ormuz, and thence by the Ocean sea to Goa, and againe ouer-land to Bisnagar, Cambaia, Orixa, Bengala, Aracan, Pegu, Malacca, Siam, the Iangomes, Quicheu, and euen to the Frontiers of the Empire of China: the former performed diuerse times by sundry of our nation, and the last great voyage by M. Ralph Fitch, who with M. Iohn Newbery and two other consorts departed from London with her Maiesties letters written effectually in their fauour to the kings of Cambaia and China in the yere 1583, who in the yeere 1591. like another Paulus Venetus returned home to the place of his departure, with ample relation of his wonderfull trauailes, which he presented in writing to my Lord your father of honourable memorie.
Now here if any man shall take exception against this our new trade with Turkes and misbeleeuers, he shall shew himselfe a man of small experience in old and new Histories, or wilfully lead with partialitie, or some worse humour. [Marginal note: 1. King. cap. 5., 2. Chron. cap. 2.] For who knoweth not, that king Solomon of old, entred into league vpon necessitie with Hiram the king of Tyrus, a gentile? Or who is ignorant that the French, the Genouois, Florentines, Raguseans, Venetians, and Polonians are at this day in league with the Grand Signior, and haue beene these many yeeres,