THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



love of his country and care for her good name could 

 have induced him to undergo labours so tedious and 

 exhausting. ' I call the work a burden,' he says, ' in 

 consideration that these voyages lay so dispersed, 

 scattered, and hidden in several hucksters' hands, that 

 I now wonder at myself to see how I was able to 

 endure the delays, curiosity, and backwardness of many 

 from whom I was to receive my originals.' And again : 

 'What restless nights, what painful days, what heat, 

 what cold I have endured; how many long and charge- 

 able journeys I have travelled; how many famous 

 libraries I have searched into ; what variety of ancient 

 and modern writers 1 have perused; what a number of 

 old records, patents, privileges, letters, etc., I have re- 

 deemed from obscurity and perishing ; into how manifold 

 acquaintance I have entered ; what expenses I have not 

 spared ; and yet what fair opportunities of private gain, 

 preferment and ease I have neglected ; albeit thyself 

 canst hardly imagine, yet I by daily experience do 

 find and feel, and some of my entire friends can suffi- 

 ciently testify.' In process of time, no doubt, his work 

 grew easier, as his purpose became known to a wider 

 circle, and travellers of their own accord brought him 

 Chance finds, material. The raids on the West Indies yielded him, 

 as he confesses, some good literary profit. In 1592, 

 off the Azores, Robert Crosse captured the huge Madre 

 de T)tos\ a Latin treatise on China, written in the year 

 1590, was found among the spoils, and given to Hakluyt. 

 It was ' enclosed in a case of sweet cedar-wood, and 

 lapped up almost an hundred fold in fine calicut-cloth, 

 as though it had been some incomparable jewel.' But 

 for all his treasure-troves, his labours must have been 



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