A LETTER FROM JOHN LOK ad. 



1561, 



A letter of M. John Lok to the worshipfull 

 company of Marchants adventurers for Guinie, 

 written 1 56 1 , shewing reasons for his not 

 proceeding in a voyage then intended to the 

 foresayd countrey. 



Orshipfull sirs ; since the arrivall of M. 

 Pet and Buttoll Monjoy (as I understand) 

 for the voyage it is concluded that the 

 Minion shall proceed on her voyage, if 

 within 20 dayes she may be repaired of 

 those hurts she hath received by the last 

 storme : or in the moneth of January 

 also, if the wind wil serve therfore. Wherefore for that 

 your worships shall not be ignorant of my determined 

 purpose in the same, with the reasons that have perswaded 

 me thereunto ; I have thought good to advertise you 

 thereof, trusting that your worships will weigh them, as I 

 uprightly and plainly meane them. And not for any feare 

 or discouragement that I have of my selfe by the raging 

 of the stormes of the sea, for that (I thanke the Lord) 

 these have not beene the first that I have abiden, neither 

 trust I they shalbe the last. First the state of the ship, in 

 which, though I thinke not but M. Pet can do more 

 for her strengthening then I can conceive, yet for all that, 

 it will neither mend her conditions, nor yet make her 

 so stanch that any cabin in her shalbe stanch for men to 

 lie drie in : the which sore, what a weakening it will be to 

 the poore men after their labour, that they neither can 

 have a shift of apparell drie, nor yet a drie place to rest in, 

 I referre to your discretion. For though that at Harwich 

 she was both bound and caulked as much as might be, 

 both within and without, yet for all that she left not, 

 afore this flaw, in other weathers, being stressed, to open 

 those seames, and become in the state she was before ; I 

 meane, in wetting her men : notwithstanding her new 

 worke. And my judgement, with that little experience 



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