Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, vol 6 | Page 5

and haue vsed trade and traffike in his dominions? Who can deny that the Emperor of Christendome hath had league with the Turke, and payd him a long while a pension for a part of Hungarie? And who doth not acknowledge, that either hath traueiled the remote parts of the world, or read the Histories of this latter age, that the Spaniards and Portugales in Barbarie, in the Indies, and elsewhere, haue ordinarie confederacie and traffike with the Moores, and many kindes of Gentiles and Pagans, and that which is more, doe pay them pensions, and vse them in their seruice and warres? Why then should that be blamed in vs, which is vsuall and common to the most part of other Christian nations? Therefore let our neighbours, which haue found most fault with this new league and traffike, thanke themselues and their owne foolish pride, whereby we were vrged to seeke further to prouide vent for our naturall commodities. And herein the old Greeke prouerbe was most truely verified, That euill counsaille prooueth worst to the author and deuiser of the same.
Hauing thus farre intreated of the chiefe contents of the first part of this second Volume, it remayneth that I briefly acquaint your Honor with the chiefe contents of the second part. It may therefore please you to vnderstand, that herein I haue likewise preserued, disposed, and set in order such Voyages, Nauigations, Traffikes, and Discoueries, as our Nation, and especially the worthy inhabitants of this citie of London, haue painefully performed to the South and Southeast parts of the world, without the Streight of Gibraltar, vpon the coasts of Africa, about the Cape of Buona Speran?a, to and beyonde the East India. To come more neere vnto particulars, I haue here set downe the very originals and infancie of our trades to the Canarian Ilands, to the kingdomes of Barbarie, to the mightie riuers of Senega and Gambia, to those of Madrabumba, and Sierra Leona, and the Isles of Cape Verde, with twelue sundry voyages to the sultry kingdomes of Guinea and Benin, to the Ile of San Thom��, with a late and true report of the weake estate of the Portugales in Angola, as also the whole course of the Portugale Caracks from Lisbon to the barre of Goa in India, with the disposition and qualitie of the climate neere and vnder the Equinoctiall line, the sundry infallible markes and tokens of approaching vnto, and doubling of The Cape of good Hope, the great variation of the compasse for three or foure pointes towards the East between the Meridian of S. Michael one of the Islands of the Azores, and the aforesaid Cape, with the returne of the needle againe due North at the Cape Das Agulias, and that place being passed outward bound, the swaruing backe againe thereof towards the West, proportionally as it did before, the two wayes, the one within and the other without the Isle of S. Laurence, the dangers of priuie rockes and quicksands, the running seas, and the perils thereof, with the certaine and vndoubted signes of land. All these and other particularities are plainly and truely here deliuered by one Thomas Steuens a learned Englishman, who in the yeere 1579 going as a passenger in the Portugale Fleete from Lisbon into India, wrote the same from Goa to his father in England: Whereunto I haue added the memorable voyage of M. Iames Lancaster, who doth not onely recount and confirme most of the things aboue mentioned, but also doth acquaint vs with the state of the voyage beyond Cape Comori, and the Isle of Ceilon, with the Isles of Nicubar and Gomes Polo lying within two leagues of the rich Island Sumatra, and those of Pulo Pinaom, with the maine land of Iun?alaon and the streight of Malacca. I haue likewise added a late intercepted letter of a Portugall reuealing the secret and most gainefull trade of Pegu, which is also confirmed by Cesar Fredericke a Venetian, and M. Ralph Fitch now liuing here in London.
And because our chiefe desire is to find out ample vent of our wollen cloth, the naturall commoditie of this our Realme, the fittest places, which in al my readings and obseruations I find for that purpose, are the manifold Islands of Iapan, and the Northern parts of China, and the regions of the Tartars next adioyning (whereof I read, that the countrey in winter is Assi fria como Flandes, that is to say, as cold as Flanders, and that the riuers be strongly ouer frozen) and therefore I haue here inserted two speciall Treatises of the sayd Countries, the last discourse I hold to be the most exact of those parts that is yet come to light, which was printed in Lantine in