244 HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF NEWFOUNDLAND 



The setting foorth of shipping for this service will amounte to 

 no great matter, and the retourne shall certainly be w*^ greate 

 gayne, for the N. F. is a principall and rich and euerie where 

 vendible merchaundise : and by the gayne thereof, shipping, 

 victuall, munition, and the transporting of five or six thousand 

 soldiers may be defrayed. 



It may be said that a fewe shippes cannot possiblie distres so 

 many : and that although by this service yow take or destroy all 

 the shipping you find of theirs in those places : yet are they but 

 subiectes shippes, theire owne particuler navies being nothing 

 lessoned therby, and therefore theire forces shall not so much 

 be diminyshed as yt is supposed whereunto I answere 



There is no doubt to performe it w*^out daunger, for although 

 they be many in number, and great of burthen, yet are they 

 furnished w*^ men, and munition but like fishers, and when they 

 come vpon the coastes, they do alwaies disperse them selves 

 into sundry portes, and do disbarke the most of theire people 

 into small boates for the taking, and drying of theire fish, 

 leaving fewe or none abore theire shippes ; so that there is as 

 little doubt of the easye taking and carying of them away as of 

 the decaying hereby of those princes forces by sea, for theire 

 owne proper shippinges are very fewe, and of small forces in 

 respect of the others, and theire subiectes shipping being once 

 destroyed yt is likely that they will never be repaired, partly 

 through the decaye of the owners, and partly through the losses 

 of the trades whereby they maynteyned the same. For euerie 

 man that is hable to build shippes doth not dispose his wealth 

 that waye, so that theire shipping being once spoyled, it is 

 likely that they will never be recouered to the like number and 

 strength but yf they should, yt will requier a long time to season 

 timber for that purpose, all w^^ space we shall haue good 

 opportunity to proceed in our farther enterprises. And all the 

 meane tyme the foresaid princes shall not only be disapointed 

 of theire forces as aforesaid, but also leese great revenues, w<^^ 

 by traffick they formerly gayned ; and shall there w^^^a 11 endure 

 greate famine for want of such necessarie victualles &c. as they 

 former enioyed by those voyages. . . . 



To prevent theise daungers (that although yo^' highnes may 

 at the first distres both the French Spanyshe, and Portyngall 

 yet there needeth none to be towched but the Spaniardes, and 



