THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



Benefits of 

 long voyages. 



Commercial 

 Geography. 



in 1563, had ordained that Wednesday should be ^a new 

 fish day,' the eating of meat being restrained to the end 

 that fishermen and mariners should find a market for 

 their takings. Yet little benefit to shipping had followed 

 from indirect measures like this. 'At this day/ says 

 Hakluyt, writing in 1584, * I am assured that there are 

 scarce two ships of two hundred tons belonging to the 

 whole city of Bristol, and very few or none of the like 

 burden along the channel of the Severn, from Gloucester 

 to the Lands End on the one side, and Milford Haven 

 on the other. Now, to remedy this great and unknown 

 want, no enterprise possibly can be devised more fit to 

 increase our great shipping than this Western fortifying 

 and planting. . . . Moreover, in the judgment of those 

 that are expert in sea causes, it will breed more skilful, 

 cunning and stout pilots and mariners than other belong- 

 ing to this land. For it is the long voyages (so they 

 be not too excessive long, nor through intemperate 

 climates, as those of the Portingales into their West 

 Indies) that harden seamen, and open unto them the 

 secrets of navigation.' Hakluyt, in short, perceived that 

 the supremacy of the sea could hardly be achieved by a 

 nation whose ships were mainly occupied in the coasting 

 trade. He is no less concerned for the welfare of trade. 

 From his cousin of the Middle Temple he had early 

 learned the value of what is now called commercial 

 geography. In his Voyages are printed many papers of 

 minute and careful instruction for factors and merchants 

 visiting foreign countries. The most remarkable of these. 

 Remembrances for a Factor at Constantinople^ is written by 

 Richard Hakluyt the elder, and contains a reasoned 

 defence of the practical study of beasts and fowls, herbs 



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