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1、【英文读物】The Boys HakluytPREFACEThis 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 s
2、ystem 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.T
3、o 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 expansion of trade, and finally for colonization, down to the sett
4、lement of Virginia. The American note is dominant throughout 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 Hakluyts significant work in his publica
5、tions which preceded the Principal Navigations, and in his equally important personal efforts to forward American colonization by England, in order to re-present him in his true position, recognized by the earlier historiansthat of a vifounder hand in hand with Raleigh of the English colonies, out o
6、f which developed the national life of the United States.The dictum of William Robertson in his eighteenth century History of America (1777), 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
7、English traveller, geographer, and historian, upon the occasion, 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 founders of those colonies which eventually formed the Uni
8、ted 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 Richa
9、rd 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. Hakluyts quaint language ought not to be a hard nut to crack for the American boy when s
10、uch rich meat is within.E. M. B.I BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAIn the year 1582, a quarter of a century before the founding of Jamestown, in 1607, and thirty-eight years before the establishment of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in 1620, there appeared in London a pamphlet-volume entitled Divers Voyages touching
11、 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 English colonization on the American continent, where Spain at the South and Franc
12、e at the North then had firm foothold. Its mission 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 Americans who would k
13、now their country, as a first source of the True History of the American Nation.2The name of the compiler was modestly veiled in the earlier impressions under the initials “R. H.” appended to an “Epistle Dedicatorie,” addressed to “Master Phillip Sydney, Esquire,” which served for a preface. In subs
14、equent 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 und
15、er thirty when Divers Voyages appeared, he had already attained an assured place among scholars for his learning in cosmography, or the science of geography, and was particularly known to English men of affairs as an authority on Western discovery.Divers Voyages was skilfully designed for its specia
16、l 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 enlighten his laggard countrymen and to inflame their ambition and their desire for gain
17、. By way of introduction was presented an informing list of writers of “geographie with the yeare wherein they wrote,” beginning 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 ow
18、n “travayles” and voyages: Venetians, Genoese, Portuguese, Spaniards, and Frenchmen, as well as Englishmen. Next followed a note 3intended 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 worshipfu
19、ll and most vertuous gentleman” Master Sidney (not then knighted as Sir Philip Sidney), in which was detailed the compilers 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 ope
20、ning sentence, cleverly calculated to sting the English 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 plantings of the Spaniardes and Portingales Portuguese there that wee of Englande cou
21、ld 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 whi
22、le 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 discoveries of the mainland
23、 of North America for England a year before Columbus had sighted the continent.This evidence comprised the letters-patent of King 4Henry the seventh issued to John Cabot and his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Santius, authorizing the exploration of new and unknown regions, under date of the fifth
24、 of March, 1495/6, distinguished in American history as “the most ancient American state paper of England”; a “Note of Sebastian Gabotes voyage of Discouerie taken out of an old Chronicle written by Robert Fabian, sometime alderman of London”; a memorandum of “three sauage men which hee brought home
25、 and presented vnto the King”; and another reference to the Cabot voyages made by the Venetian historian, Giovanni Battista Ramusio, in the preface to one of his volumes of voyages and travels published in 1550-1563. Next followed, in the order named, a “Declaration” by Robert Thorne, a London merch
26、ant long resident in Seville, Spain, setting forth the discoveries made in the Indies for Portugal, and demonstrating to Henry the eighth of England that the northern parts of America remained for him to “take in hande,” which he failed to do; a “Booke” by Thorne, still in Seville, later prepared, i
27、n 1527, at the request of the British ambassador in Spain, being an “Information” on the same subject; the “Relation” of John Verazzano, the Florentine corsair, in the service of France, describing his voyage of discovery, made in 1524, along the eastern coast of America from about the present South
28、 Carolina to Newfoundland; an account of the discovery of Greenland and various phantom islands, with the coast of North America, by the brothers Zeno, Venetian navigators, in the late fourteenth century; 5and a report of the “true and last” discovery of Florida made by Captain John Ribault for Fran
29、ce, in 1562.The pamphlet closed with a chapter of practical instructions for intending colonists and an inviting list of commodities growing “in part of America not presently inhabited by any Christian from Florida northward.”Its publication was a revelation to the English public. Before it appeared
30、 the people in general of that day had little knowledge of the accomplishments of either their own or foreign voyagers in discovery and for commercial advantage. Merchants engaged in foreign trade or venturesand adventurous mariners, to be surekept themselves informed on what was going on and had go
31、ne on. But the information they collected was exclusively for the purposes of their own traffic. They were not interested in making it public. The real object, too, of many expeditions professing to aim at higher purposes, was, as John Winter Jones points out in his Introduction to the modern reprin
32、t of Divers Voyages, a gold-mine, or a treasure-laden galleon on the high seas. Hakluyts little book immediately gave a fresh turn to public interest. Its practical effect was the speedy forwarding of the expedition of Sir Humphrey Gilbert in the summer of 1583, the first of the English nation to ca
33、rry people directly to erect a colony in the north countries of America. This was an unsuccessful attempt at an establishment at Newfoundland, and was followed by the loss of Sir Humphrey with the foundering of his cockle-shell of a ship on the return voyage.6Two years after the appearance of Divers
34、 Voyages a second work came from the same hand for the same general object.This was a work of broader scope and of larger significance. It was prepared not for the press but for private and confidential circulation. It was, in effect, a state paper, marshalling arguments in behalf of a specific poli
35、cy, and was intended expressly for the eye of queen Elizabeth, and her principal advisers. It exhibited the political, commercial, and religious advantages to be derived by England from American colonization at a critical juncture of affairs. The Catholic Philip the second of Spain was now aiming at
36、 the “suppression of heretics throughout the world,” and Elizabeth of England was his main object of insidious attack as “the principal of the princes of the reformed religion.” The particular purpose of the work was to enlist the throne in the large projects formed by Walter Raleigh in continuation
37、 of the scheme of Sir Humphrey Gilbert (Raleighs half-brother) after the lamentable fate of that chivalrous gentleman.Only three or four copies of this paper are supposed to have been made. Its existence was unknown to the historians for more than two and a half centuries. The credit for bringing it
38、 to public light and for its reproduction in print was due to American bibliophiles and scholars.The discovery of it came about in this wise. In the eighteen fifties a copy of a “Hakluyt Manuscript” appeared at an auction sale of a famous private library 7in London, and was bought by a shrewd and in
39、defatigable collector of rare Americana, Henry Stevens of Vermont, at that time resident in London. On a blank leaf of the manuscript the purchaser found this pencilled memorandum, evidently made by the owner of the library, Lord Valentia:“This unpublished Manuscript of Hakluyt is extremely rare. I
40、procured it from the family of Sir Peter Thomson. The editors of the last edition meaning the collection of Hakluyts works published in 1809-1812 would have given any money for it had it been known to have existed.”Sir Peter Thomson was an eighteenth century collector of choice books, manuscripts, a
41、nd literary curiosities. After his death in 1770, his collection went to the hammer. Here the trace ends, for how Sir Peter got the manuscript is not disclosed. Mr. Stevens endeavored to find a permanent place for the precious thing in the library of some American historical society or in the Britis
42、h Museum. At length, these endeavors failing, after two or three years, he disposed of it in England to Sir Thomas Phillips, another noteworthy collector, whose library at Thirlestane House, Cheltenham, became a storehouse of historical treasure. Here it lay till 1868, when it was practically redisc
43、overed by another Americanthe learned Reverend Doctor Leonard Woods, fourth president of Bowdoin College, in Maine. President Woods was at that time in England searching for certain papers of Sir Fernandino Gorges, the founder of Maine, and in this quest he 8visited Thirlestane House. He was one of
44、those whose attention had been called to the manuscript by Mr. Stevens when it was in the latters possession. But then the Maine scholar did not fully comprehend its nature. As soon, however, as he had examined it at Thirlestane House he recognized its historical worth. Thereupon he caused an exact
45、transcript to be made, and printed it for the first time in the Maine Historical Societys Collections for 1877.The thesis originally bore the caption Mr. Rawleys Voyage; but subsequently a title more explicitly defining its character was affixed to the copy from which the print is made; and this tit
46、le in turn has been reduced for popular service to A Discourse on Western Planting.This “Discourse” boldly set forth the bearings of Raleighs enterprise upon the power of Spain (with which war was ultimately proclaimed). If pursued at once it would be “a great bridle of the Indies of the King of Spa
47、in,” and stay him from “flowing over all the face” of the firm land of America. Raleighs plan contemplated a flank movement upon Spain in the seas of the West Indies and the Spanish Main, while England was preparing for intervention in the Netherlands. From her American possessions, in the wealth wh
48、ich her treasure-ships brought thence, Spain was deriving the sinews of her strength. With this wealth she was enabled to support her armies in Europe, build and equip fleets, keep alive dissensions, bribe, in her interests, “great men and whole states.” Her power in 9her American possessions Raleig
49、h would break. English colonies planted on the North American continent would be in position to attack her at a vulnerable point and arrest her treasure-ships. A surprising weakness of her defences in Spanish America, through the withdrawal of her soldiers to maintain her armies in the Netherlands, had been discovered by Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake in recent voyages. In this unprotected condition of the region was found a powerful inducement