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Founded in 1846, the Hakluyt Society seeks to advance knowledge and education by the publication of scholarly editions of primary records of voyages, travels and other geographical material. In partnership with Ashgate, and using print-on-demand and e-book technology, the Society has made re-available all 290 volumes comprised in Series I and Series II of its publications in both print and digital editions. For information about the Hakluyt Society visit www.hakluyt.com.
ISBN 13: 978-1-4094-1273-1 (hbk)
WORKS ISSUED BY
The Hakluyt Society
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DIVERS VOYAGES TOUCHING THE
DISCOVERY OF
AMERICA,
ETC.
M.DCCC.L.
DIVERS
VOYAGES
TOUCHING THE DISCOVERY
OF
AMERICA
AND THE ISLANDS ADJACENT.
COLLECTED AND PUBLISHED
BY RICHARD HAKLUYT,
PREBENDARY OF BRISTOL,
IN THE YEAR 1582.
EDITED,
With Notes and an Introduction,
BY
JOHN WINTER JONES,
OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.
______
M.DCCC.L.
LONDON:
RICHARDS, PRINTER.
THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.
____________
Council.
SIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, G.C.St.S., Corr. Mem. Inst. Fr.,
Hon. Mem. Imp. Acad. Sc. St. Petersburg, &c., &c., PRESIDENT.
REAR-ADMIRAL SIR FRANCIS BEAUFORT, K.C.B.
CHARLES T. BEKE, Esq., Phil. D., F.S.A.
CAPTAIN C. R. DRINKWATER BETHUNE, R.N., C.B.
THE LORD ALFRED S. CHURCHILL.
WILLIAM DESBOROUGH COOLEY, Esq.
BOLTON CORNEY, Esq., M.R.S.L.
THE RIGHT REV. LORD BISHOP OF ST. DAVISS.
SIR HENRY ELLIS, K.H., F.R.S.
R.W. GREY, Esq., M.P.
THOMAS HODGKIN, Esq., M.D.
JOHN HOLMES, Esq.
JOHN WINTER JONES, Esq.
P. LEVESQUE, Esq.
THE VERY REV. THE DEAN OF ST. PAULS.
THOMAS RUNDALL, Esq.
THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD ADVOCATE OF SCOTLAND.
THE HON. HENRY E. J. STANLEY.
R.H. MAJOR, Esq., F.R.G.S., HONORARY SECRETARY.
INTRODUCTION.
______
THE Divers Voyages touching the Discoverie of America, was the first publication of the activeminded and public-spirited clergyman from whose name the Hakluyt Society has derived its designation. To many members the question will naturally suggest itself, why, having thought the name worthy adoption, the work should have been so long postponed. The following is the explanation of this circumstance. When the Hakluyt Society was instituted, the first work proposed for publication was the Divers Voyages; but it having been ascertained that the late intelligent American bookseller, Mr. Rich, had contemplated publishing a fac-simile reprint, and that he had had cut a fount of black-letter type for that purpose, application was made to him, in order to ascertain whether he still proposed carrying that design into effect. Mr. Rich, in reply, stated that he was willing to leave the work in the hands of the Society, provided the Council would print it as he himself had proposed to do, and would purchase the type he had had cast for it. As it was not deemed advisable to adopt this proposition, and as a separate publication by the Society would have interfered prejudicially with Mr. Richs prior right, it was considered proper to forego what would certainly have been the most appropriate leader of their series, and to adopt some other work. When, however, after the lapse of three years, the subject was again mentioned to Mr. Rich, he stated that he had abandoned his intention of publishing the book; and the Society, being now unfettered, lost no time in placing it in course of preparation.
Before making any remarks upon the work itself, it will be proper to say something of the compiler; than whom few, perhaps, have better deserved an honourable place in the memory of their countrymen, and none have commanded more general respect with those who have taken the trouble to make themselves acquainted with his far-seeing and patriotic views, and the untiring perseverance with which he sought to make his views effective. It is hardly necessary to refer here to the solitary exception to this feeling of admiration for the labours of an honest, upright man, which is presented in the person of Mr. Biddle, in his Memoirs of Sebastian Cabot. Mr. Tytler, in his Historical View of the Progress of Discovery on the more Northern Coasts of America, has sufficiently exposed the animus of Mr. Biddles strictures.
The ancestors of Hakluyt were established at a very early period in the county of Hereford. The family seat was at Yatton; and they must have ranked amongst the principal landowners of the county. In the list of sheriffs, given by Duncumb in his History of Herefordshire, we find that Walter de Hackluit filled that office in the first, second, third, and fourth years of Edward II; Hugh Hackluit, in the tenth and eleventh years of the same reign; Edward Hackluit, in the thirty-first, thirty-second, and thirty-third years of Edward III; Leonard Hackluit, knt., in the second year of Hen. IV; and a Ralph Hackluit in the seven-teenth year of Edw. IV, and again in the twenty-third of Hen. VII, and tenth of Hen. VIII. The list of members for the county, contained in the same work, presents us with Walter de Hackluite, in the sixth year of Ed. II; Edmund Hakelute, in the first year of Ed. III; Edmund Fitz-Edmund Hackluit, in the twenty-eighth of Ed. III; Edward Hackluit, in the thirty-first of Ed. III; and Leonard Hakkluyt, in the ninth, eleventh, and seventeenth years of Rich. II. We also learn, from the General Introduction to the same work, that Walter Hakelut was knighted, with several others, in the thirty-fourth year of Ed. I; and in a return of the principal inhabitants of Here-fordshire, made to royal commissioners in the twelfth year of Henry VI, we find, in the list of knights, Walter Hackluit, and in that of the gentlemen, William Hackluit, Hugh Hackluit, and Egidius Hackluit. One Thomas Hakeluyt was chancellor of the diocese of Hereford in the year 1349. It appears also, from the two following documents, that Thomas Hakeluytt, probably the head of the family, was in the wardship of Henry VIII, and Edward VI. Vizt.:
1. An indenture, made the 8th day of August, anno 28 Hen. VIII, between William J3euyle, gentleman, Roger Acton, gentillman, twoo of the cousins and heyres of John Suggewas, deceased, Philip Baskerwile, Esq., and Elizabeth, his wife, late wife of James May, one other of the cousins and heyres of the said John Suggewas, and Richard Watkyn, gentilman, the kings comittee of the body and lands of Thomas Hakeluytt, sonne and heyre of John Hakeluytt, Esq., deceased, one other of the cousins and heyres of the said John Suggewas, on the one partie, and John White, on the other partye, etc., for a messuage in Grafton in com. Heref. Datum Ao. 21, H. 8.
