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The Boy's Hakluyt : English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery

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The Boy's Hakluyt : English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery mBHiBiBRnmsHBnnMBBaaBDay THE BOYS HAMIYT ENGLISH VOYAGES OF 7y)YENTURE AND DISCOVERY EDWIN M.BACON c| REFEHtNC£ M io^lO'-^ If tKou art borrxrwcd by a frv^nd Ri^ht vreXcomc shall he be iZ? lb read . to study, rid to Ictid ^jp BlcI to return to me. £^rrsij:r ti Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/boyshakluytengliOObaco 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 Hum- phreys. Illustrated. i2mo ... net $1.60 The Boy's Hakluyt. English Voyages of Adventure and Discovery, retold from Hakluyt by Edwin M. Bacon. Illustrated. i2mo . net $1.50 The Boy's Drake. Edited by Edwin M. Bacon. (In Preparation) THE BOY'S HAKLUYT ENGLISH VOYAGES OF ADVENTURE AND DISCOVERY BY EDV^IN 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 y C) PROPERTY OF CITY OF rJEW YORK 6/7 H W. 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 ex- pansion of trade, and finally for colonization, down to the set- tlement of Virginia. The American note is dominant through- out 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 Amer- ican colonization by England, in order to re-present him in his true position, recognized by the earlier historians—that of a vi Preface 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 {I'J'J']), 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 occa- sion, 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 found- ers 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 i 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 vii viii Contents CHAPTER PAGE 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" . lo From the copy in the New York Public Library (Lenox Building). Fac-simile of Title-page of the Third, or American, Volume of Hakluyt's "Voyages," Edition of 1598-1600 32 From a copy of the original edition in the New York Public Library (Lenox Building). "The Great Harry," an English Ship of the Fif- teenth Century 50 Kidder's Sketch-map of John Cabot's Voyage in 1497 69 King Henry VHI 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 i8o ix Illustrations FACING PAGE 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 Por- trait 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 BEGINNINGS OF AMERICA the year 1582, a quarter of a century before the INfounding of Jamestown, in 1607, and thirty-eight years before the establishment of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in 1620, there appeared in London a pam- phlet-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 Enghsh colonization on the American continent, where Spain at the South and France at the North then had firm foothold. Its mis- sion 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 Amer- icans who would know their country, as a first source of the True History of the American Nation. I 2 Voyages of Adventure and Discovery The name of the compiler was modesdy veiled in the earlier impressions under the initials "R. H." appended to an "Epistle Dedicatorie," addressed to "Master PhiUip 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 geog- raphy, and was particularly known to EngHsh 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 en- lighten his laggard countrymen and to inflame their ambition and their desire for gain. By way of intro- duction was presented an informing list of writers of "geographie with the yeare wherein they wrote," be- ginning 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: Vene- tians, Genoese, Portuguese, Spaniards, and French- men, as well as Englishmen. Next followed a note Beginnings of America 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 PhiHp 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 Eng- lish 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 plant- ings 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 dis- coveries of the mainland of North America for England a year before Columbus had sighted the continent.
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