SOURCE: Steele, Colin. “1603-1626: Richard Hakluyt and Samuel Purchas.” In English Interpreters of the Iberian New World from Purchas to Stevens: A Bibliographical Study, 1603-1726, pp. 15-51. Oxford: The Dolphin Book Co. Ltd., 1975.

[In the following essay, Steele examines the skill with which Purchas and Hakluyt put together travel narratives by which “they, more than any others, made the New World and its narratives known to the Old.”]

The translations which appeared between 1603 and 1626 were largely the result of the activity of two men, Richard Hakluyt and Samuel Purchas. Hakluyt continued the work he began in the Elizabethan era, albeit with slightly less intensity, and after his death in 1616 the tradition was maintained by his self-appointed successor, Samuel Purchas. Purchas's Pilgrimage was published in 1613, 1614, 1617 and 1626, whilst his four volumes Pilgrimes was published in 1625. Hakluyt and Purchas had few rivals as translators for no men emerged from the merchant background, as Frampton and Nicholas had done in the earlier period. The changed political situation was one reason for this. A new ruler, James I, had brought a new policy towards Spain. Peace was officially sealed between Spain and England by the Treaty of London, the terms of which were ratified in 1605. James pursued a generally pro-Spanish policy throughout his reign and involved first Prince Henry who died in 1612, and then Charles in abortive marriage schemes with the Spanish crown. The mass of the populace, however, remained generally hostile towards Spain and anti-Spanish feeling, which constantly bubbled beneath the surface of society, often erupted as in 1618 and 1623.¹ The prevailing political climate meant that translations could not be too openly anti-Spanish, as they had been in the Elizabethan period, although they often expressed strong expansionist sentiments, which implicitly challenged Spain's rights in the New World. James I actively discouraged maritime ventures, especially unsuccessful ones, which entered the Spanish sphere of influence. English merchants were warned in 1607 “they that went thither must run their own peril.”² Thus Sir Walter Ralegh paid the price of failure in 1617 with his head. The unsuccessful nature of the limited English activity in South America during the reign of James meant a reduction in the demand for translations of Spanish and Portuguese works. English colonisation as such was concentrated on the North American coastline, on which few suitable Spanish narratives existed. Indeed between 1603 and 1626 only four translations appeared outside Purchas's volumes.

The first of these, published in 1604, was of José de Acosta's important Historia natural y moral de las Indias.³ It is rather surprising that neither Hakluyt or Purchas appear to have been connected with it. Hakluyt is nowhere mentioned, yet he had read Acosta and made an abstract of it for the government in 1597 or 1598.⁴ The translator was, in fact, “E.G.,” Edward Grimeston, one of the most prolific translators of his day, who specialised in translations from the French.⁵ It was from the French that he translated Acosta. Hakluyt had used the Spanish edition of Acosta but Grimeston translated from either the 1598 or the 1600 French edition, probably the latter, since the English translation was entered in the Stationers' Register on 4 January 1601. It is possible that Hakluyt did not have time to make a full translation from the Spanish and, knowing Grimeston, encouraged him to make one from the French. Hakluyt was heavily involved up to 1600 with his Principal navigations and then with his revised translation of Antonio Galvão's Discoveries of the world, which appeared in 1601. Indeed Galvão “cost me more trauaile to search out the grounds thereof, and to annexe the marginall quotations vnto the worke, then the translation of many such bookes would haue put me vnto.”⁶ Hakluyt was therefore probably only too pleased to see someone else translate Acosta into English for the first time.

Grimeston was not a scrupulously accurate translator but he was competent by the standards of the time. He certainly does not appear to have been imbued with expansionist ideals, as was the 1598 Dutch translator of Acosta, Jan Huyghen van Linschoten. Grimeston's only other translation to relate remotely to the Americas was of Pierre d'Avity's huge world geography published in 1612.⁷ This book, however, contains elements of the fabulous and the American descriptions can in no way compare with those of Acosta. Grimeston's other translations include histories of France, the Netherlands and Spain and were generally popular. Lady Anne Clifford was one who found pleasure in reading his General historie of the Netherlands published in 1608.⁸ Grimeston's knowledge of French came from eight years residence in France. In 1610 he became sergeant-at-arms to the Speaker in Parliament, a post he was to hold for thirty years.⁹ His prefaces reveal comparatively little about his personal life and his 1604 Acosta preface practically nothing at all. This book, however, was dedicated to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, who was also one of Hakluyt's patrons.

It was a timely translation of Acosta, whatever Grimeston's motives, for it made available much new information, both geographical and philosophical, to English readers just before the new Virginia colony expeditions. Acosta (1539-1600) had sailed to South America as a Jesuit missionary in 1570 and only returned to Spain in 1587. The first two “books” of his work, written in Latin in Peru, were published at Salamanca in 1589. In 1590 these were translated into Spanish and published at Seville with the rest of his work. The first four “books” were devoted to the natural history of the Indies and the last three to its moral history. Early in the book Acosta resolved “upon this point, that the true and principall cause to people the Indies, was, that the lands and limits thereof are ioyned and continued in some extremities of the world, or at the least were very neere.”¹⁰ Thus important and rational ideas concerning the nature of the origins of the American Indians were revealed to the English reader. Acosta used geographical and faunal data in books three and four to reinforce the theory of Indian entry into America via a strait or land bridge linking it with Asia. His ideas had a profound impact on later English writers on the subject such as Strachey, Brerewood and Purchas.¹¹ Books five to seven of Acosta provided valuable information on the governments and religion of the native Indian populations of Peru and Mexico. Acosta can be termed a moderate in his attitude towards the indigenous populations of the New World, for while he believed in the justice of the Spanish conquest he saw the virtues of the native civilisations, and disapproved of excessive Spanish cruelty.

Acosta was translated into all the major European languages and his influence on contemporary chroniclers, such as Antonio Herrera y Tordesillas and Garcilaso de la Vega, was great. Edward Grimeston noted that “everyone may sucke out some profit for himselfe” and without doubt many did.¹² Grimeston's translation was the only edition in English of Acosta until modern times, although Samuel Purchas quoted extensively from it in his 1625 Pilgrimes. It was printed for Edward Blount and William Aspley, both members of the group of stationers responsible for the printing of Shakespeare's first folio in 1623. Blount, in particular, had hispanic interests, being partly responsible in 1612 for the publication of Shelton's translation of the first part of Don Quixote and in 1622 for James Mabbe's translation of Aleman's The rogue. This latter translation was commissioned by Blount, who was friendly with Mabbe.¹³ Blount's interests also extended to Spanish linguistics, with his publication of a translation of Oudin's Spanish grammar and a new edition of Percival's Spanish-English dictionary. It is unclear what part Blount played in Grimeston's decision to translate Acosta, but again, as with Richard Hakluyt, it is possible to surmise that it was a significant one.

There is no doubt, however, of Hakluyt's part in the next translation of the reign of James I, namely the account of the travels of Hernando de Soto, as described by the anonymous “Gentleman of Elvas.”¹⁴ This translation, aptly titled Virginia richly valued, was one of the few Spanish or Portuguese narratives to relate directly to the areas of English colonisation in North America. The title leaves little doubt as to Hakluyt's motives. The book was dedicated to the Council and Company of Virginia and was published by the Felix Kyngston—Mathew Lownes combination, who were also responsible for other Virginia Company publications. It is perhaps surprising that Hakluyt did not produce any direct promotional pamphlets for the Company, but then translations and collections of first hand accounts were always his particular interest. Nevertheless Soto was intended as a work of propaganda and in the same year, 1609, Hakluyt encouraged a French Huguenot, Pierre Erondelle, to translate parts of Marc Lescarbot's Histoire de la nouvelle France.¹⁵

The account of Soto's travels through the south eastern portion of what is now North America revealed, in some detail, whole new geographical areas to the English reader. Hakluyt's dedication emphasised that his translation “doth yeeld much light to our enterprise now on foot: whether you desire to know the present and future commodities of our countrie; or the qualities and conditions of the Inhabitants, or what course is best to be taken with them.”¹⁶ Hakluyt listed for the benefit of potential investors the many profitable commodities to be found in America, such as gold, copper and pearls. The other contemporary impulse for exploration was also dragged in via “the notice of the South Sea, leading vs to Japan and China, which I finde here twice to be spoken of.”¹⁷ Such colonisation as Hakluyt propounded necessitated the development of a policy towards the native Indian population: “To handle them gently, while gentle courses may be found to serue, it will be without comparison the best: but if gentle polishing will not serue, then we shall not want hammerours and rough masons enow, I meane our old soldiours trained up in the Netherlands, to square and prepare them to our Preachers hands.”¹⁸ A firm policy towards the Indians obviously pleased the investors but potential colonists may well have been suspicious by the need for such strong words. Here the literature of translation had already presented conflicting accounts with the anti-Indian writings of López de Gómara, translated in 1578, and the vivid pro-Indian stance of Las Casas, translated in 1583. These translations failed however to generate any great philosophical or moral debate in England. The English attitude towards the Indian was essentially pragmatic based on an often muted but decided sense of superiority.¹⁹

The impact of Hakluyt's translation of Elvas was nullified to a large extent by the disasters suffered by the Virginia colony during 1609-1610. Hakluyt therefore felt impelled to re-issue the unused sheets with a new title page in 1611.²⁰ The title now gave a more accurate description of the narrative, although understandably stress was still laid upon the “divers excellent and rich Mynes, of Golde, Silver, and other Mettals, … which cannot but give us a great and exceeding hope of our Virginia, being so neere of one Continent.”²¹ This commercial aspect of America was a theme that had to be constantly reiterated throughout most of the century, irrespective of the truth, for exploration and conquest to take place. Little evidence remains of Hakluyt's activity in the Virginia Company after 1611 and he issued no more translations, although he was most probably the driving force behind the publication in 1612 of Michael Lok's translation of the Decades of Peter Martyr.²² Hakluyt always believed in stressing the achievements of others as examples for the English to follow.

Spain was not, of course, unconcerned about English activity in America.²³ It regarded the Virginia colony, in particular, as a challenge to its territorial rights as outlined by the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. Hakluyt's works always contained the assumption that Spain was the enemy of England. This was more difficult to express openly after 1603 but nevertheless his translation of Soto was a challenge to the authority of Spain. The Spanish ambassadors in England were aware of the dangers from the Virginia colony, but their information to Philip III was often confused and garbled. Philip, himself, was reluctant to act until he had detailed information on the state of the colony. This information he derived from various sources, but, in particular, from two expeditions he sent out to Virginia in 1609 and 1611 under Captains Francisco Fernández de Écija and Diego de Molina. It would appear from Philip's lack of action that he believed that the colony did not merit a punitive expedition.²⁴ Indeed, the English themselves were often pessimistic as to the actual fate of the colony; John Chamberlain could write on 9 July 1612 to Sir Dudley Carleton: “The Spanish Ambassador Don Pedro de Zúñiga marqués de Villa Flores had his first audience on Sonday last at Hampton court … Yt is generally looked for that he will expostulate about our planting in Virginia, wherein there will need no great contestation, seeing yt is to be feared that that action will fall to the ground of yt self, by the extreem beastly ydlenes of our nation.”²⁵ Thus, no war occurred to act as a stimulus to the production of translations. The focussing of attention on Virginia had also meant that Englishmen, like Captain John Smith, were now writing their own narratives.²⁶ Once the immediate demand for news of the colony's struggle for survival was satiated however even these narratives dwindled.

The translating and publication of Spanish and Portuguese narratives at this time depended on war, extreme anti-Spanish feeling, the lure of gold and wealth, or an evangelical crusade, and none of these factors existed in sufficient intensity. The reading public moreover was not large enough, as it would be a century later, to accept an “uncommitted” type of travel literature. Instead the market was dominated by the numerous small geographical compendiums, whose popularity provides a useful perspective when considering the sale and use of the large folios of Hakluyt and Purchas. The English translation of Botero entitled The theatre of the earth was little more than a geographical dictionary. Its title page proclaimed that it contained “very short and compendious descriptions of all countries, gathered out of the cheefest Cosmographers, both ancient and moderne, and disposed in Alphabeticall order. For the benefit of all such as delight to be acquainted with the knowledge of strange countries, and the scituation thereof, and especially for travellers, to whom the portabilitie of this small volume will not be little commodious.” References to Latin America were brief and often inaccurate; “Mexico or Texmixtita” being “A famous and rich citty of the Mexican province in Hispania noua, in the greatest street of this city sixty thousand may be seene buying and selling daily. Their Idols be made of flower and mans bloud, vnto which they doe oftentimes offer the hearts of men, plucked out of their living bodies.”²⁷ Peru was not mentioned at all.

A similar disregard for Latin America is seen in the early editions of George Abbot's A briefe description of the whole worlde, which was first published in 1599. Abbot wrote this work whilst Master of University College, Oxford and its brevity must surely have pleased his student audience.²⁸ The Briefe description saw eight more editions by 1636, which shows that it appealed to a far wider audience than merely the student one. Abbot's work with its strong reliance on biblical and classical sources captured the attention of a public whose reading habits were still firmly linked to the past.²⁹ The section on the New World in the first edition of A briefe description was short and jumbled, but Abbot managed to improve matters by the third edition of 1608. In this he used such sources as Pedro Cieza de León and Jean de Léry. He was also not slow to utilise the main anti-Spanish sources of Las Casas and Benzoni: “In Hispaniola alone, there were supposed to be by computation of the Spanyardes (first arriving there) not so few as 2000000, which yet by the cruelty of the Spaniards were not so murthered, and otherwayes made away, that within 50 yeares after, as their writers report, there were scant any thousands in that Iland remaining of them.”³⁰ His religious views dictated his attitude towards Spain, especially after he became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1611.³¹ The Venetian Secretary later wrote on 19 January 1617: “he personally is not greatly inclined to the Spaniards … the marriage with Spain shall not be made and the Spaniards shall never set their feet in this island.”³² Abbot believed that England could play a leading part in the colonisation of the New World and in particular that the expansion of the Virginia colony would help to check Spain's power. To this end he held a £75 share in the Virginia Company under its third charter of 1612.³³ He offered the usual encouragement to potential colonists that “the quantity of Golde and Silver which was found in those parts (The New World) was incredible … the thing it selfe it is testified by all writers.”³⁴ He was wise enough however to realise that a challenge to Spain's power in South America posed greater problems than in Virginia.³⁵ He was also dubious about the personal benefits of what was to become the mainstay of Virginia's economy, tobacco: “the smoak of it being received thorow a leafe, or such hollow thing, into the nostrils, head and stomacke, and causing the party which receiued, to lie as if he were drunke or dead for a space, needing no food or nourishment in the meane while … the vaine and wanton vse which many of our country men have of late taken vp in receiuing of this Tobacco, not onely many times in a day, but euen at meat, and by the way, to the great wast both of their purse, and of their bodies”.³⁶ His words in this instance were to be of no avail, for tobacco was to be of more value economically to the English in the New World than gold or silver.

Abbot's success with his Briefe description and his eminent position in the church made him the ideal patron for the Reverend Samuel Purchas (1577-1626). Purchas dedicated his 1613 Purchas his pilgrimage to Abbot and was rewarded in the following year by being made his Chaplain. The historical reputation and image of Purchas, however, has suffered from a constant comparison with Richard Hakluyt. G. B. Parks fervently declared that “To dwell on the contrast is to discover a growing deslike to Purchas, whose features gradually and irresistibly resolve into the features of Pecksniff.”³⁷ Even more recently the Master of Balliol College, Oxford, has observed “the fussy and self-important Samuel Purchas constituted himself heir to the dedicated patriot Richard Hakluyt.”³⁸ Other critics of Purchas have included Sir John Knox Laughton, Sir William Foster and Richard S. Dunn.³⁹ More sympathetic writers however have emerged in Professors E. G. R. Taylor, Louis B. Wright and Loren E. Pennington who have emphasised that Purchas must be judged by the standards of his own time and not by those of the twentieth century.⁴⁰ These standards apply equally, of course, to Richard Hakluyt, but his vision and achievement manages to surmount the centuries. It is far more realistic, if comparisons have to be made, to compare Samuel Purchas with the editors who came after him, such as John Harris and John Stevens, rather than with Hakluyt. Purchas's editorial pruning and rigid organisation of material can then be seen as a natural symptom of contemporary publishing and editing.

Purchas intended in his 1613 Pilgrimage to “bring Religion from Paradise to the Arke, and thence follow her round about the World, and (for her sake) obserue the World it selfe.”⁴¹ It was his fusion of the religious and the exotic that was to prove extremely successful. Purchas was born in Thaxted in Essex on 20 November 1577, of relatively humble parentage. He went to St. John's College, Cambridge where he took his M. A. in 1600.⁴² He became Curate of Purleigh in Essex in 1601, the same year as his marriage to Jane Lease, daughter of a Suffolk yeoman. From Purleigh and later Eastwood he worked his way upwards in society until by his death his works were well known to both King James I and Charles I. In this sense he was his own “Pilgrim” and thereby his own propagandist, which perhaps leads Christopher Hill to call Purchas “self-important”. Purchas's move from Purleigh on 24 August 1604 to become vicar of Eastwood, was a crucial one, for Eastwood was only two miles from the maritime centre of Leigh-on-Thames.⁴³ Here Purchas came into contact with many who had travelled abroad. He collected their reminiscences, as is witnessed by the many references to Leigh scattered throughout his volumes. He wrote in 1613, “To returne to Angola, we may adde the report of another of our Countrey-men, Andrew Battell (my neere neighbour, dwelling at Leigh in Essex).”⁴⁴ Even closer to home was John Vassall “(a friend and neighbour of mine)”, who, “tolde mee that he brought out of Barbary a Lyons skinne, which from the snoute to the top of the Taile contained one and twenty foote in length.”⁴⁵ Purchas, unlike Hakluyt, hardly travelled—he therefore needed centres like Leigh, and later London, in order to be able to collect his narratives. He later wrote in his defence: “Least trauellers may be greatest writers. Even I which have written so much of trauellers and trauells, never trauelled 200 miles from Thaxted in Essex, where I was borne.”⁴⁶ His circle of contacts however was extensive including the noted jurist John Selden and several of the leading figures of the Virginia colony such as Captain John Smith and George Barkeley, the latter being “my friend Master Barkley a Merchant.”⁴⁷

By 1612 Purchas had collected sufficient material to bring his Pilgrimage to the press. It was entered in the Stationers' Register on 7 August 1612 and although the dedication is dated 5 November 1612 the book was not issued until 1613. Thomas Coryate, the famous traveller, who left England in 1612 was one who knew “M. Samuel Purkas, the great collector of the Lubrications of sundry classical authors for the description of Asia, Africa and America.”⁴⁸ Purchas always intended to cover Europe in another volume but he never found time to compile it. Nevertheless the scope of the Pilgrimage was ambitious enough with the intention being, as the title-page indicated, to relate “The Religions Obserued in all Ages and places discouered, from the creation unto this Present.” It was a sort of religious world gazeteer and its impact was not inconsiderable in a theologically dominated book market. This religious framework, however, whilst making for the popularity of the Pilgrimage, meant that Purchas had to organise his source material far more rigidly than Hakluyt had done in the Principal navigations. This factor, allied with Purchas's obsessive fear of boring his readers, contributed much to the resulting editorial techniques, which have so infuriated some later historians. On the credit side, however, Purchas did rescue a great deal of material which otherwise would probably have been lost for ever and his works constitute a significant contribution to the literature of overseas expansion.

Purchas's reading had been wide ranging in order to produce the Pilgrimage. This “first Voyage of Discouerie, besides mine owne poore stocke laide thereon, hath mee indebted to seven hundred Authors, of one or other kind, in I know not how many hundreds of their Treatises, Epistles, Relations and Histories, of diuers subiects and Languages.”⁴⁹ Purchas placed on record his debt to previous collections, in particular those of Ramusio and Hakluyt, although he had also consulted “many manuscripts and many Relations from friends of mine yet liuing.”⁵⁰ Nevertheless Purchas can be termed a static collector when it came to collecting material from other countries, whereas Hakluyt had been in communication with correspondents in countries such as France and Spain. Purchas listed in alphabetical order the authors he had consulted and, although a large proportion were of classical origin, he did range widely amongst other more recently published narratives.

The Pilgrimage was divided into nine books, but only books eight and nine dealt with the Americas, the first seven being primarily concerned with Asia and Africa. In the early part of the American section Purchas relied heavily on Grimeston's translation of José de Acosta and did not copy directly, preferring rather to paraphrase Grimeston. Purchas used the writings of Las Casas in a similar way to bring back into currency the account of the Spanish massacre of the native population of Hispaniola: “The Ilanders had no other defence against them but the woody hilles, and swiftest heeles: to which they betooke them at the Spaniards arriual, thinking them (as is said) to be Cannibals. And such haue they since proued, in effect, not leauing of 3 millions of people which here they found, 200: and that long since.”⁵¹ This apparently anti-Spanish attitude was quickly rectified by Purchas's publication of extensive extracts from other early Spanish chroniclers, whose views of the Indians were noticeably less sympathetic.⁵² Even Acosta had taken exception to the barbaric nature of the Aztecs, who “surmounted all the Nations of the world in beastly butcheries”.⁵³ Purchas by the nature of his sources presented a largely pro-Spanish version of the conquest of New World. This was not exactly to his liking, for he was above all anti-Catholic, and anti-Catholicism was inextricably linked with anti-Hispanism. Purchas therefore at the end of his survey felt the need to redress the balance by condemning the Spanish cruelties, although he did not write “in hatred of their Nation, because they are Spaniards, but of their pseudo-chatholike Religion, vnder shew whereof, they there did, and heere would have executed those butcheries.”⁵⁴

Purchas was also aware that English success in Virginia posed a challenge to Spain's territorial claims in the New World. As he relied extensively on the writings of Thomas Harriot and John Smith for his account of Virginia he became almost a propagandist for the colony. He was careful not to ascribe any of the failures of the Virginia colony to its physical geography. He stressed the need for perseverance, for success might not be immediately attained: “But now we haue mentioned the first Spaniards which planted these parts, it shall not be amisse to mention some hardships the Spaniards sustained before they could here settle themselues, which may bee an answer to those nice and delicate conceits that in our Virginian expedition cast off all hope, because of some disasters.”⁵⁵ Perhaps it was inevitable that Purchas would become personally involved in the fortunes of the colony. He was in contact with several of the colony's leading figures, the most prominent of these being John Smith, the early president of the colony, who communicated “partly by word of mouth, partly by his Mappe thereof in print, and more fully by a Manuscript which hee courteously communicated to mee.”⁵⁶ Purchas and Smith became close friends and Purchas contributed a long introductory verse to Smith's General historie of Virginia published in 1624.⁵⁷

Purchas was therefore following in the footsteps of Hakluyt by espousing the cause of the Virginia colony. Purchas, to his credit, always acknowledged the debt he owed to Hakluyt, who “of his Countri-men meriteth an euerlasting name, and to me (though knowne at this time, only by those portraitures of his industrious Spirit) hath beene as Admirall, holding out the light vnto me in those seas, and as diligent a guide by land (which I willingly, yea dutifully, acknowledge) in a great part of this my long and wearisome Pilgrimage.”⁵⁸ Purchas moved geographically southwards from Virginia by publishing extracts from Hakluyt's translation of the Gentleman of Elvas and López de Gómara's account of Mexico from the Thomas Nicholas translation. Book nine of the Pilgrimage covered South America where “I rather intend Indian superstitions then Spanish Plantations.”⁵⁹ This attitude was largely determined by the sources available to him. In the Pilgrimage Purchas relied on previously translated narratives and did not actively seek out new sources. Nevertheless by combining extracts from several translations in one source he made the Iberian New World more well known than it had been through the previous individual editions.

The Pilgrimage was a great success with the reading public and further editions quickly appeared in 1614 (two issues) and 1617. Purchas saw himself “leaping out of the Dungeon of obscuritie.”⁶⁰ A parallel can be drawn with the present day publishing success of a first novel or non-fiction work which suddenly throws an author into the public eye. From relatively humble beginnings he now found his book read with appreciation even by James I himself, who “shewing me it by him in his Bed-chamber, said, that he had read it seuen times.”⁶¹ The general reader also found the book of interest for Purchas had obtained an agreeable blend of history, religion and travel. Small wonder therefore that he was appointed Chaplain to Archbishop Abbot in 1614 and that later in the same year, John King, Bishop of London, appointed him Rector of St. Martin's, Ludgate. At the time of writing the preface to the 1614 Pilgrimage however, Purchas was not aware of the latter appointment and he publicly bemoaned his mental and physical isolation in Essex: “the grossenes of the Aire where I liue, which (some say) makes a chiller wit, I am sure, a sicklier body.”⁶² Purchas's zeal for self advancement continued unabated.

Success also brought Purchas new material and new collaborators. His stock of authors in the 1614 Pilgrimage increased from seven hundred to over a thousand. One reason for this expansion was that Purchas had “growne into acquaintance with many studious in this kinde, whose Bookes and Relations might much further mine.”⁶³ Among those who came forward with advice or material were Sir Walter Ralegh, Archbishop Ussher, Sir Dudley Digges, John Vassal and William Pursglove. Not least was Richard Hakluyt himself, who now obviously regarded Purchas as the man to continue his task of publishing and collecting material on travel and exploration. Purchas wrote “in this Edition I haue beene much beholden to M. Hakluit for many written Treatises in this kinde.”⁶⁴ This was the material Hakluyt had been gathering since the publication of the last volume of his Principal navigations in 1600. Hakluyt, who had made his will in 1612, may have seen in Purchas the vigour and energy which he could no longer bring to bear on the material he had collected.⁶⁵ Hakluyt's material helped swell the 1614 Pilgrimage to 918 pages compared to 752 in 1613. The section on the Americas was expanded from 151 pages to 201 with “the help of my painful friend Mr. Hakluyt (to whose labours these of mine are so much indetted).”⁶⁶ The North American section was expanded; the section on northern New Spain included Hakluyt's information culled from Ludovicus Tribaldus Toletus and Martin Pérez; the Mexico section, while not increased significantly, included Hakluyt's notes on various Mexican codices; the section on Brazil benefited from accounts such as those of Anthony Knivet and Fernāo Cardim. The narrative of Cardim was described as “A booke taken from a Frier written in Portuguese, sold by Fr. Cook to M. Hakluyt.”⁶⁷ Purchas summarised Cardim's account, rather than quoting more fully, as he was to do in the 1625 Pilgrimes. The section on Brazil was an improvement over that in the 1613 edition, when Purchas had relied almost entirely on the narratives of Thevet, Léry and Staden.

The influx of new material caused Purchas to stress more and more the geographical and descriptive elements of his synthesis, even though “Religion is my proper aime.”⁶⁸ In this volume Hakluyt and Purchas were united willingly in print for the first and only time in Hakluyt's life and Purchas was grateful for Hakluyt's aid: “His helpes in this second edition, haue much more obliged me (that I say not thee) vnto his laborious Collections … and your poore Pilgrime, with praiers for him, and praises of his paines in getting and bountie in communicating, doth according to his wit, without hacking, professe Hakluit (in this kinde) his greatest Benefactor.”⁶⁹ This situation, however, had changed dramatically by the time of the third edition of the Pilgrimage in 1617.⁷⁰ In the catalogue of authors Purchas did not single out Hakluyt, as he had done in the previous two editions, but merely listed him in the body of the entries. Purchas lamented that for this edition:

I could not obtaine like kindness from him, I know not how affected or infected with emulation or iealousie; yet shall his Name liue whiles my writings endure, as without whose helpes and industrious Collections, perhaps I had neuer troubled the world in this kinde. And this is my Epitaph in his memorie; who hath yet a better, his owne large Volumes being the best and truest Titles of his Honour: and if some Iuno Lucina would help to bring forth the Posthume issue of his Voyages not yet published, the world should enjoy a more full Testimony of his paines in that kind.⁷¹

Richard Hakluyt had died on 23 November 1616 and some kind of quarrel must have occurred between the two men. One can only guess why, but it is possible that Hakluyt, aged and perhaps ill, resented the success of Purchas's volumes or Purchas's use of his materials. Unfortunately one is left with only Purchas's cryptic account of the misunderstanding. Without doubt Purchas had wanted to be Hakluyt's official successor. Hakluyt's will made in 1612 did not mention Purchas but this is not surprising since Hakluyt and Purchas did not meet until some time in 1613.⁷² It is therefore puzzling to read that when referring to the Codex Mendoza, which Purchas obtained after Hakluyt's death, Purchas wrote: “it remained amongst his papers till his death, whereby (according to his last will in that kinde) I became possessour thereof.”⁷³ Purchas must surely only have been referring to a verbal promise he had received from Hakluyt during their period of co-operation. Nevertheless Purchas did manage to acquire Hakluyt's papers, for he wrote in the Pilgrimes:

As for Master Hakluyt's many yeeres Collections, and what stocke I receiued from him in written Papers, in the Table of Authours you shall find: whom I will thus farre honour, that though it be but Materials, and that many Bookes haue not one Chapter in that kind yet that stocke encouraged me to vse my endeauours in and for the rest. I was therein a Labourer also, both to get them (not without hard conditions) and to forme and frame those Materials to their due place and order in this Aedifice, the whole Artifice (such as it is) being mine owne.⁷⁴

The phrase “not without hard conditions” is significant for this probably means that Purchas had to buy the documents from the executors of Hakluyt's will. Edmond Hakluyt, who was only 23 when his father died, had shown little interest in his father's work.⁷⁵ Purchas was not rich at this time and buying Hakluyt's material probably caused him financial hardship. In the 1625 Pilgrimes he indicated: “Many haue applauded my endeuours, but ‘probitas laudatur et alget.’ If I had not liued in great part vpon Exhibition of charitable friends, and on extraordinary labours of lecturing (as the terme is) the Pilgrime had beene a more agreeing name to me, then Purchas.”⁷⁶ Purchas to his credit always remained faithful to the memory of Hakluyt and never resorted to underhand references at a time when his own name was becoming more well known than that of Hakluyt.

The 1617 Pilgrimage was an even larger volume than that of 1614, totalling 1102 pages and covering some 1300 authors. Purchas noted with pleasure that his “Relations of the world have found so good entertainment and acceptance in the world.”⁷⁷ On 11 July, 1615 he had been incorporated into Oxford University as a Bachelor of Divinity, which led Anthony à Wood to later comment on “this worthy divine, who is by some stiled our English Ptolemy.”⁷⁸ His move to London from Essex had benefited him by the “opportunities of bookes, conference and manifold intelligences.”⁷⁹ This time, however, additions to the text of the Pilgrimage were concentrated in books one to seven. The Americas section was not increased significantly, although Purchas did include new information on the Virginia Colony and the North-West Passage ventures. The withdrawal of Hakluyt's aid may well have been crucial in the quest for sources on the Iberian New World, although Purchas did introduce a new author in the Augustinian Jerónimo Román y Zamora. Unfortunately Purchas restricted him to a page of text, for “if I should follow this Fryer in his large obseruations of the American Rites, I might soone out-goe your patience and somewhere perhaps the Truth.”⁸⁰ Román's narrative, Repúblicas del mundo was originally published in 1575, and being based on the writings of Las Casas and Motolinía, would have been a useful supplement to Purchas's extracts from Acosta and Las Casas. Purchas restricted himself to a summary of Román's description of the organisation of religion in Mexico. The seeking out of new material on Latin America may well have proved too time-consuming, given the vast editorial problems of producing editions of the Pilgrimage. “There hath been scarsly any sheet (if any) which I haue not perused and corrected my selfe: but sometimes through their slow negligence in sending them, or ouer-hastie diligence in printing many off, before they could be corrected, many faults have been passed in many Copies.”⁸¹ Similar problems were to beset Purchas in his four-year struggle to produce his Pilgrimes, a publication which was to occupy much of his time from 1617 onwards.

1617 had seen the publication of the first translation outside of Purchas since 1609, namely of the eighth “memorial” of Pedro Fernández de Quirós.⁸² Quirós, a Portuguese in the service of Spain, was a fervent believer in the existence of a still undiscovered southern continent “Terra Australis.”⁸³ Quirós's main attempt to find the austral land began on 21 December 1605 when his expedition set off from Callao in Peru. Quirós discovered the northern New Hebrides in May 1606, whilst his second in command Luis Váez de Torres sailed to New Guinea and came extremely close to discovering Australia itself. Quirós however was never to reach Australia before his death in 1615 at Panama.⁸⁴ His memorials, presented as petitions to the King of Spain, aroused wide interest throughout Europe and the 1617 English translation came via the Latin and French versions.⁸⁵ This translation of Quirós confirmed an English desire for knowledge of the Pacific area. Quirós, like others before and after him, laid stress on the material side of exploration: “The riches which I haue seene in those parts, is Siluer and Pearle; another Captaine in his Relation, doth report that he hath seen Gold, which are the three most precious darlings that be and are cherished in the bosom of Nature.”⁸⁶ Quirós believed that the austral land, which stretched to the Straits of Magellan, would provide an outlet for the products of Chile, Peru and the other Spanish possessions in this area.⁸⁷ The identity of the English translator is not known, but since the translation came from the French, it would not have been too difficult to find someone to undertake the translation. The memorials of Quirós continued to influence exploration for the austral lands and further extracts from them appeared in 1625, 1704 and 1723.

No more translations from the Spanish or Portuguese appeared until 1623. The failure of English voyages to South America, such as Sir Walter Ralegh's in 1617-18, provided little encouragement for prospective publishers or translators. Even those narratives that were published rarely went into more than one edition.⁸⁸ Similarly the number of publications on Virginia declined after 1616. It was as if readers were unenthusiastic about detailed narratives of English activity in the Americas unless they contained news of wealth or spectacle. Short simple gazetteers and compendiums continued to be popular, but these could skip like stones on the readers' sea of consciousness, whilst weightier travel narratives sank once and for all to the bottom. Thus, Heylyn's Microcosmus went through eight editions between 1621 and 1639.⁸⁹ Heylyn's short account of America was heavily dependent on the published works of Abbot and Purchas; an indication of how the two men by their selection of sources could influence and shape the popular image of the Iberian New World.⁹⁰

English voyages to South America during this period were concentrated on an exploration and settlement of the coastal lands between the Amazon and the Orinoco. Ships went out in 1604-6, 1609, 1610-11, 1613, 1617 and 1620, but none resulted in a permanent colony or significant financial gain.⁹¹ Ralegh had been executed on 29 October 1618, a death in which the Spanish ambassador Don Diego Sarmiento de Acuña was heavily involved.⁹² Gondomar, who arrived in England in 1614, had quickly established a considerable rapport with James I, so much so that they even referred to themselves as the “two Diegos”⁹³ Gondomar was soon regarded as anti-Christ by the more vehement Puritan clergy.⁹⁴ However much it is argued that James and Gondomar had similar aims in Europe there is no doubt that James acquiesced in Gondomar's desire to keep the English out of the Spanish spheres of influence in the New World. Ralegh was therefore executed and the official Declaration published after his death accused him of: “casting abroad onely this tale of the Mine as a lure to get aduenturers and followers; hauing in his eye the Mexico Fleete, the sacking and spoyle of Townes planted with Spaniards, the depredation of Ships, and such other purchase.”⁹⁵ This was not strictly true, as Professor Quinn has noted: “Most of his contemporaries regarded the Spanish empire as something to be robbed. Ralegh thought of it as something to be replaced by an English empire.”⁹⁶ He may have failed to establish his empire but his dreams and his name lived on. Thomas Scott, the Puritan polemicist, soon invoked “Sir Walter Rawleigh's Ghost” to warn England of Spanish threats and there were no less than four ghosts circulating in print between 1620 and 1631.⁹⁷

No real progress could be envisaged, however, until the political situation changed. Gondomar had been away from England from July 1618 to May 1620, but on his return he soon confirmed the failure of Captain Roger North's “Amazon” colony project. Gondomar's immediate aim was a marriage between Prince Charles and the Infanta, a marriage which would lure the English away from the German Protestant alliance and turn England towards Catholicism. Such a marriage was anathema to the Puritan clergy, “los puritanos” as Gondomar called them. A flurry of pamphlets against the marriage resulted. Thomas Scott, Rector of St Saviours Norwich, was a prominent writer of these, his 1620 publication Vox populi being a severe indictment of the policies of James. It purported to be a translation of a report by Gondomar on his work in England but was, in fact, a complete fabrication. Nevertheless it was believed by many to represent actual Spanish policy, such as when Gondomar is made to say: “As for their West Indian voyages, I withstand them in earnest because they begin to inhabit there and to fortifie themselves; and may in tyme there perhaps raise another England to withstand our new Spaine in America.”⁹⁸ The Venetian Ambassador reported that Gondomar “foams with wrath in every direction.”⁹⁹ Scott's work proved to be too popular and he had to flee to the Netherlands, where Vox populi was reprinted.¹⁰⁰ The numerous references to Scott in contemporary journals and letters indicate his impact. For example, Sir Simonds D'Ewes commented that Vox populi had become “the subject of many mens discourses.”¹⁰¹ Scott continued to produce anti-Spanish pamphlets until he was assassinated in 1626. One such work, which appeared in 1623, focussed attention on the cruelties of the Spaniards in America and decried the “monstrous, outrageous, and new devised cruelties, which these divelish and tyrranous Spaniards hath unhumanely practised amongst the simple and innocent people, as appeareth by Don Bartholomew de las Casas.”¹⁰² Scott most probably derived his knowledge of Las Casas from the extracts in Purchas's Pilgrimage. Scott urged England to expand its influence in the New World, so that Spain's grand design for world control would be thwarted. He believed, like most of the Puritan clergy, that the Spaniards were “loathsome Swines, theevish Owles and bragging Peacocks.”¹⁰³

Scott's views were soon repeated, as feelings grew over the proposed Spanish marriage. James had to issue on 24 December 1620 a proclamation against lavish and licentious speech relating to matters of state and further proclamations followed in succeeding years.¹⁰⁴ On 10 March 1621 John Chamberlain wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton: “and now this weeke Dr. Everard (reader at St. Martins in the feild) was sent to the Gatehouse, for glauncing on Sonday was sevenight at the Spanish match, and discifring the craft and crueltie of the Spaniards in all places where they come specially the West Indies, all or most of what he saide, cited and taken out of theyre owne authors.”¹⁰⁵ As the Spanish marriage negotiations developed translations of Spanish fiction grew in popularity. In 1620 the second part of Don Quixote was published; in 1621 Lope de Vega's The pilgrime of Casteele and in 1622 Alemán's The rogue.¹⁰⁶ When Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham went to Spain in 1623 public interest was reflected in a sizeable literature.¹⁰⁷ While James I saw the marriage as an obvious way of retaining peace and increasing England's prestige few others shared his feelings.¹⁰⁸

Despite the interest in things Spanish the only translation on the New World of the decade, other than in Purchas's volumes, was a news item printed in 1623.¹⁰⁹ On 4 September 1622 the Spanish Tierra Firme fleet sailed from Havana and a short news pamphlet detailed the violent storm which caused the loss of nine vessels and many lives. Such a loss was of interest to the English readers, not only because of its news value, but also because of the Spanish dependence on the safe arrival of the treasure fleets from the New World. Publication owed much to the initiative of the printers, who included Nathaniel Butter and Nicholas Bourne, two of the leading figures in early English news printing.¹¹⁰ The title page indicated that it was “Faithfully translated out of the Spanish Originall, as it is printed and published in Madrid, Sevill, Lishbonne, and other places,” whilst the preface “tooke the advantage of my liking it and sudden apprehension that it would please the Reader.”¹¹¹ It was entered on 5 May 1623 in the Stationers' Register, a survey of which reveals many other accounts of sea fights and natural disasters. A translation of a Spanish sea fight in the New World was printed by Butter and Bourne in 1639, but it was not till 1688 that a news item was translated purely on Spanish America.

Relations with Spain itself had changed dramatically in 1623 following the breakdown of the Spanish marriage negotiations. James continued to be pro-Spanish but Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham were now able to grasp the reins of power.¹¹² A pamphlet published in 1624 captured the feelings of many: “In the hot month of Iune last past, viz Anno 1623 when the courages of our truehearted English people were generally much cooled through the absence of our rising Sunne, the illustrious Prince Charles then detained too long in Spaine … Jesuites those hot lovers of the Romish Babylon enraged with the lusts of that proud whore, and puffed up with hope of prevailing in this land, were as busie as waspes and hornets about our bee-hives.”¹¹³ English trade had temporarily declined with Spain because of the effect of the abortive marriage negotiations, the economic consequences of the outbreak of the Thirty Years War and Spanish internal reforms.¹¹⁴ Englishmen were still interested, however, in all they could learn about Spain's trade with its New World colonies. James Howell wrote from Madrid on 16 August 1623 to Lord Colchester: “I Receiv'd the Letter and Commands your Lordship pleas'd to send me by Mr. Walsingham Gresley, and touching the Constitutions and Orders of the Contratacion House of the West-Indies in Sevill, I cannot procure it for love or money, upon any terms; though I have done all possible diligence therein: And some tell me it is dangerous, and no less than Treason in him that gives the copy of them to any, in regard 'tis counted the greatest Mystery of all the Spanish Government.”¹¹⁵ Not until the translation by John Stevens in 1702 of the description of the Casa de Contratación from José de Veitia Linaje's Norte de la contratación de las Indias Occidentales, would the English reader have an accurate description of the workings of the Spanish trade with the Indies.

The attractions of the Indies did not escape the attention of Charles and Buckingham, especially after a trip to Madrid. It was here that Don Fennyn, a Spanish Secretary, made a secret report to Buckingham on the existence of gold mines in Hispaniola, Jamaica and Florida.¹¹⁶ A transcription of the report, made in 1652, noted that it was given by a “Spanish revolted discontented Secretary who was afterward poysoned by the King of Spaines favourite for conferring with the Duke.”¹¹⁷ The account's information concerning gold mines was rather fabulous but the advice and the map on “the taking of all the gold and Silver of the plate Fleete” was not.¹¹⁸ Buckingham and Charles failed to capitalise on this advice, although it was in their minds when they assembled the naval expedition to attack Spain in 1625.

In the prevailing political climate of 1624 it is not difficult to see why London audiences received Thomas Middleton's A game at chesse with approbation. A satire on the relations of England and Spain, it drew heavily on the works of Thomas Scott, John Gee and other contemporary polemicists. It opened on 6 August 1624, and soon drew the complaints of the Spanish Ambassador, Don Carlos Coloma, who wrote to the Duke of Olivares on 20 August: “The last act ended with a long, obstinate struggle between all the whites and the blacks, and in it he who acted the Prince of Wales heartily beat and kicked the ‘Count of Gondomar’ into Hell, which consisted of a great hole and hideous figures … All these people come out of the theatre so inflamed against Spain that, as a few Catholics have told me who went secretly to see the play, my person would not be safe in the streets.”¹¹⁹ Middleton had to spend a short period in the Tower but this was merely to appease Spanish anger. The 1624 publication Vox coeli even claimed to be printed in Elisium and to bring “Newes from heaven.”¹²⁰ Previous rulers of England, such as Henry VIII, commented on the contemporary situation and were particularly scathing about Spanish cruelties in the Indies. Queen Mary, heavily out-numbered, and “biting the lip at her checke and disgrace” sent Mercury to England with letters for Gondomar and all Roman Catholics.¹²¹ Political feeling was therefore running strongly against Spain, and Purchas, with his extracts from Spanish authors, can now be seen as one of the major sources for contemporary pamphleteers.

Purchas had throughout the period been working towards publication of his major work, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes. He had obtained Hakluyt's papers but, as has been noted, at the cost of personal financial hardship. In his 1619 religious publication, Purchas his pilgrim, he talked of himself “almost executed by Executorship.”¹²² In 1618 and 1619 his brother-in-law, brother, mother and daughter had died, it is not surprising that he had “spent the time from Lent to Lent, in Death's seruice.”¹²³ These were therefore troublesome years for Purchas, although he was to resolve his financial problems by the time of his death in 1626.

Purchas was also able to obtain help, particularly in the form of leave from official duties, by “the opportunities of his Maiesties Colledge of Chelsie, where these foure last Summers I haue retired my selfe (without Pulpit Non-Residence) to this Worke.”¹²⁴ Chelsea College had been founded in 1609 by Matthew Sutcliffe, Dean of Exeter, with the support of both James I and Archbishop Bancroft.¹²⁵ Indeed Bancroft had provided for his books to be given to Chelsea College if the foundation of Lambeth Palace Library had failed.¹²⁶ In Fuller's words Chelsea College “was intended for a Spirituall Garrison, with a Magazine of all Books for that purpose; where learned Divines should study and write, in maintenance of all Controversies against the Papists.”¹²⁷ In fact, the College virtually died with Sutcliffe in 1629, although it admirably served its purpose for Samuel Purchas.

Purchas acknowledged his debt throughout these arduous years to Henry Fetherstone, his publisher, “I must acknowledge the aduenturous courage of the Stationer Master Henry Fetherstone (like Hercules helping Atlas) so long to beare this my heauy World at such expenses.”¹²⁸ Stansby and Fetherstone were responsible for all of Purchas's volumes. Both were important figures in the book trade, although neither could afford to specialise in travel literature. Purchas's debt to his patrons is not documented but it must have been a significant one.¹²⁹ Of the four volumes of the Pilgrimes Purchas dedicated the first to Prince Charles, the second to the Duke of Buckingham, the third to John, Lord Bishop of Lincoln, and the fourth understandably to George, Archbishop of Canterbury. Unfortunately it is not recorded what sort of aid, particularly financial, Purchas received from his patrons, but the sums were probably considerable given the size of the Pilgrimes. The four huge volumes, which appeared in 1625 contain more than 4000 pages and constituted one of the largest, if not the largest, publication in the English language to that date.

Purchas began taking copy to the press in 1621 and the Pilgrimes were entered in the Stationers' Register on 11 December 1621. The sheer bulk of material entailed a vast editorial task of which Purchas lamented: “neither in so many Labyrinthian Perambulations thorow, and Circumnauigations about the World in this and his other Workes, was euer enabled to maintaine a Vicarian or Subordinate Scribe, but his own hands to worke, as well as his head to contriue these voluminous Buildings; except in some few Transcriptions or Translations, the most also of them by his sonne S.P. that one and the same name might both father and further the whole.”¹³⁰ It is rather puzzling in this context, that Thomas Coryate wrote in November 1615 of Purchas, “Pray commend mee vnto him and his (assistant) Maister Cooke, by the same token, that he gaue me a description of Constantinople.”¹³¹ Since Coryate had left England in 1612 it is possible that Cooke was someone being used by Purchas in the preparation of the first edition of the Pilgrimage, i.e., before Purchas's son, Samuel had grown up. Coryate's letter was addressed “To the High Seneschall of the right Worshipfull Fraternitie of Sirenaical Gentlemen, that meet the first Fridaie of every Moneth, at the signe of the Meremaide in Bread streete in London.”¹³² Purchas wrote in the Pilgrimes that “This Letter by M. Rogers was deliuered to my selfe,” thereby indicating that Purchas could have been the “High Seneschall” in 1616.¹³³ If “Sirenaical” is taken as referring to the Cyrenaic philosophers, for whom pleasure was a main purpose of life, this would hardly seem to square with the melancholy Purchas of the prefaces to the Pilgrimage and Pilgrimes. Indeed Coryate asked the “Fraternitie” to entertain Rogers, the bearer of the letter, “with the purest quintessence of the Spanish, French and Rhenish Grape, which the Mermaid yieldeth.”¹³⁴ It is possible that Purchas became aware of the “Fraternitie” through Laurence Whitaker, whom Coryate referred to as, “quondam Seneschall of the noblest society.”¹³⁵ Whitaker (1578?-1654) took his B.A. at St. John's College, Cambridge in 1596-1597 and his M.A. in 1600, and so was Purchas's contemporary as a student. Certainly the traditional image of Purchas must be revised, if Coryate is to be taken at face value. If Purchas was indeed a member of such a group as the “Sirenaics,” it would have been an ideal place at which to gather new information. He even continued to collect material after the Pilgrimes had begun to go to press. He only obtained access to the journals of the East India Company in 1622, thanks to the good offices of Maurice Abbot, the brother of Purchas's patron, George.

The four volumes of the Pilgrimes were, in fact, two more than Purchas had originally intended.¹³⁶ The work itself was divided into two main sections, the Old and the New, as Purchas termed them, with two volumes devoted to each section. Each section had ten books with each of the four volumes containing five books. Purchas's “Elder World” was concerned with those areas of the world inhabited by or known to the ancient civilisations, while the “New World” was that “which the Ancients knew not.”¹³⁷ Purchas admitted that his scheme was not without its faults:

Now for the Method, I confesse, I could not be therein exact: first because I had such a confused Chaos of printed and written Bookes, which could not easily be ordered: partly because this Method by way of Voyages often repeates the same Countries and (though I haue often pruned repetitions) yet, sometimes admitted for more full testimonie) the same things, by diuers of our Authors trauelling the same parts, obserued, in which my Method brings in ordinarily the Authors whole Voyage there, where that part of Countrey, in which and for which we entertaine him, principally occasioneth his memorie.¹³⁸

The method of presentation of the Pilgrimes differed from the Pilgrimage in that the latter was “mine own in matter (though borrowed) and in forme of words and method: Whereas my Pilgrims are the Authors themselues, acting their owne parts in their owne words, onely furnished by me with such necessaries as that stage further required.”¹³⁹ In the Pilgrimes therefore Purchas came to the form of presentation that Hakluyt had adopted in the Principal navigations. The Pilgrimes benefited greatly from the infusion of the material that Purchas had acquired from the executors of Hakluyt's will. In his table of contents Purchas indicated that these items: “such as haue H. added, I borrowed from Master Hakluyt's papers, and such as haue H. and P. pertaine to both, beeing otherwise printed or in my possession written, wherein yet I made vse of some labour of his.”¹⁴⁰ …

The Spanish and Portuguese authors printed in the Pilgrimes have only been analysed when they form an extract of a page or more. No regard has been taken of brief marginal references or short textual comments, such as when Purchas wrote of Christopher Columbus: “He is reported by Gomara, Mariana and others, to haue beene first moued to this Discouerie by a Pilot.”¹⁴¹ Such references are too numerous to detail. The first significant extract from a Portuguese or Spanish author occurs in volume two of the Pilgrimes and was of the Portuguese author Antonio Galvāo.¹⁴² Galvāo's Tratado was separated from the main section on the Americas in volumes three and four because book ten of chapter two “came later to hand, and therefore is rather a Supply to all, then any well ordered part of the Worke, being therefore printed after the rest.”¹⁴³ Purchas used Galvāo, via Hakluyt's 1601 version, to provide a chronological survey of the discoveries of the New World. Galvāo, in turn, had himself relied heavily on Francisco López de Gómara, Oviedo y Valdés and Peter Martyr for his knowledge of Spanish activities in the New World.

The translation from Antonio Herrera y Tordesillas's Historia general was more substantial.¹⁴⁴ Purchas had only made passing reference to the writings of Herrera in his volumes of the Pilgrimage. The contents list is annotated “HP” for this item, thereby indicating Purchas's debt to Hakluyt, but showing he had done considerable work on the piece himself. He wrote, “I found this Worke translated in M. Hakluyt's Papers: but I can scarsly call it English, it had so much of the Spanish garbe.”¹⁴⁵ Purchas did not retranslate Herrera but rather amended Hakluyt's English version, while referring to the Spanish original and to the Latin and French translations. Herrera had been appointed Cronista mayor de las Indias on 15 May 1596 and the first four decades of his work appeared in 1601. Purchas noted: “This author hath written eight Decades of the Spanish Acts in the West Indies, which give great light to those parts, but would be too long for this Worke.”¹⁴⁶ He therefore extracted from Herrera a general description of the New World to provide a background for the succeeding authors. This constituted the only publication of Herrera in English until the translation of John Stevens in 1724-6.¹⁴⁷

Purchas followed Herrera with four selections from the writings of José de Acosta.¹⁴⁸ He had relied heavily on Acosta in the Pilgrimage and he now quoted directly from the 1604 Grimeston translation, albeit in an unsequential pattern to suit his own narrative structure. This surprisingly remained the last major translation of Acosta into English until modern times. Acosta has been termed a pro-Indian writer, but Purchas's next author Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés had definite anti-Indian attitudes.¹⁴⁹ Purchas's extracts from Oviedo did not overstress this aspect because Purchas wished to concentrate on the physical landscape of the New World, “as for the Spanish acts we have them sufficiently written by others.”¹⁵⁰ Oviedo, who actually visited the New World, had been named by Charles V as Cronista de Indias in 1532. Purchas produced his selections from Oviedo by combining the Eden/Willes and Ramusio translations. He quoted from the former on pages 970-994, while Ramusio is restricted to the last six pages. Professor Stoudemire has attacked this selection as “fragmentary, inaccurate, unedited and merged with translations of similar works from the same period,” but like many others he is viewing Purchas from a twentieth century viewpoint.¹⁵¹ Purchas's account, despite its faults, was yet again the only version to appear in English until modern times.

Purchas moved from the general geographical descriptions of Oviedo to the particulars of Mexico, as depicted in the Codex Mendoza.¹⁵² This was the first publication in England of a Mexican pictographic manuscript and Purchas called it “the choicest of my Iewels.”¹⁵³ The codex was produced in 1541-2 by native scribes in Mexico working for the Viceroy of New Spain, Don Antonio de Mendoza, under the guidance of one Francisco Gualpuyogualcal.¹⁵⁴ It was then translated with additions by Juan González, of the Cathedral of Mexico, from the nahuatl into Spanish.¹⁵⁵ The finished codex was intended for presentation to Charles V but, en route from Mexico in 1549, the ship carrying it was captured by French privateers. It eventually reached the hands of André Thevet, the French king's cosmographer, in 1553. It remained in France until 1587 when Richard Hakluyt, who was then chaplain to the English ambassador in France bought it for twenty crowns. Hakluyt in 1591 “procured Master Michael Locke in Sir Walter Raleigh's name to translate it.”¹⁵⁶ Or, as the Atlas geographus later put it, “Sir Walter Raleigh got it translated into English.”¹⁵⁷ This was probably the same Lok who had been treasurer of the Frobisher venture. Ralegh as patron probably provided the money for him to make the translation.

Sir Henry Spelman, the noted antiquary and collector (1564-1641), was another supporter of the project to publish parts of the codex.¹⁵⁸ Purchas indicated that the codex had not previously been published because “none were willing to be at the cost of cutting the Pictures” and only he, Purchas, had “obtained with much earnestnesse the cutting thereof for the Presse.”¹⁵⁹ Purchas produced a somewhat abridged version of the codex:¹⁶⁰ “Obscure places I have explained (besides what before in Acosta thou hast read) comparing the translation with the originall, adding many of mine owne.”¹⁶¹ The codex consists of three distinct sections and Purchas published parts of each.¹⁶² The first part details the pre-conquest history of Mexico from the founding of Tenochtitlán; the second is a record of tributes and the third is a picture of daily life in Mexico. Purchas supplemented his text with wood-cuts, although J. C. Clark has observed they “are of little value.”¹⁶³ Nevertheless Purchas brought a new kind of source material to the attention of the English reader, who was probably not concerned about the accuracy of the wood-cuts.¹⁶⁴ To them the codex was a source of wonder comparable with the other treasures Purchas had assembled. At Purchas's death the codex passed into the hands of John Selden, the noted jurist, who had written an introductory verse to the Pilgrimage. Selden had the codex bound in vellum and after his death it came with most of his library to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where it still remains.¹⁶⁵

Purchas continued his coverage of Mexico, with extracts from Francisco López de Gómara.¹⁶⁶ Gómara (1510-1560) was never actually in the New World, but as Cortés's secretary and chaplain from 1541-1547 he had access to important information. Purchas accordingly presented accounts of the Moctezuma/Cortés confrontation and of Mexican social and religious practices. As Gómara was one of the leading anti-Indian writers his descriptions of the latter are decidedly vivid. Benjamin Keen has commented: “by the last decades of the sixteenth century Gómara's view of the Indian had become the dominant viewpoint of Spanish writers dealing with America.”¹⁶⁷ The following passage is typical: “To the Snakes and other venemous Beasts they gaue the blood of men sacrificed, to feede them, and some say, they gaue vnto them mans flesh, which the great Lizarts doe eate very well. The Spaniards saw the floore covered with bloud like a iellie in a Slaughter-house, it stunke horribly … in the night season it seemed a Dungeon of Hell … and this was the Oratory where Mutezuma prayed in the night season, and in that Chappell the Deuill did appeare vnto him, and gaue him answere according to his prayers.”¹⁶⁸ Purchas based his extracts from Gómara on the 1556 Italian and the 1578 English translations, indeed he often copied word for word from the latter.¹⁶⁹ In this instance Purchas was unable to refer back to the original Spanish because “the Spanish originall I haue not.”¹⁷⁰

The extracts from Gómara end the third volume of the Pilgrimes and the fourth begins with English voyages to South America. The first translation was that of Fernāo Cardim's account, which Purchas had previously used in the Pilgrimage.¹⁷¹ He now described it as:

the exactest Treatise of Brasil which I haue seene written by any man … It was written (it seemeth) by a Portugall Frier (or Iesuite) which had lived thirtie yeares in those parts, from whom (much against his will) the written Booke was taken by one Frances Cooke of Dartmouth in a Voyage outward bound for Brasil, An. 1601 who sold the same to Master Hacket for twenty shillings; by whose procurement it was translated out of Portugall into English: which translation I haue compared with the written Originall, and in many places supplied defects, amended errours, illustrated with notes, and thus finished and furnished to the publike view … I may well adde this Iesuite to the English Voyages, as being an English prize and captive.¹⁷²

“Hacket” is without doubt Hakluyt, so as with Codex Mendoza Hakluyt obtained stolen material which Purchas published.

Purchas believed that this account of Brazil had been written by a Manoel Tristāo but it is almost certainly the work of the Jesuit missionary Fernāo Cardim.¹⁷³ Purchas noted “the name Iesus divers times on the top of the page, and often mention of the Fathers and societie maketh me thinke him a brother of that order.”¹⁷⁴ Cardim was indeed a Jesuit; he had arrived in Brazil on 9 May 1583, was in Bahia from 1587 to 1592 and Rio de Janeiro from 1594 to 1598.¹⁷⁵ He was en route to Rome in 1601 when his ship was captured and, after a short imprisonment in England, he reached Brussels by May 1603, and returned to Brazil in 1604. He died on 27 January 1625 in Bahia, which had fallen to the Dutch in May 1624.¹⁷⁶ He therefore died in the year when Purchas was making his writings, Do clima e terra do Brasil and Do princípio e origem dos índios do Brasil, known to the reading public for the first time. Cardim's account provided much fresh information on Brazil regarding its climate, geography, Indians, etc. It admirably supplemented the relatively few English descriptions of the area.

Purchas's next translation of a Spanish or Portuguese author was of the Viage del mundo of Pedro Ordóñez de Cevallos.¹⁷⁷ Unfortunately he limited his extracts to two pages which only provided a brief review of the towns and riches of Santa Fé de Bogotá, Potosí, Quito, Lima and Mexico City. Cevallos was followed by two relations of Pedro Fernández de Quirós, one in English and one in Spanish.¹⁷⁸ They were prefaced by a short piece written by Walsingham Gresley.¹⁷⁹ Purchas had access to the 1617 English translation and also the 1610 Seville version, but he closely followed the former. It is clear that when he had an English translation and also access to another version, even if it was the original, he preferred to work from the translation and insert and add pieces rather than produce a completely new version. In some cases where reasonably good translations existed, like Grimeston's of Acosta, it was a perfectly justifiable procedure, but in others a new translation would have been desirable. Time was obviously the key factor for Purchas.

The narrative of López Vaz, which Purchas next published, is now lost in its original manuscript form.¹⁸⁰ Again Hakluyt was the source of the material: “Part of this Discourse was published by M. Hak. out of a written copie contayning the whole. I haue added and inserted those things which I thought fit, leauing out such as before have bin by others deliuered.”¹⁸¹ Vaz was captured by Captain Robert Withrington, “with this Discourse about him,” in 1587 in the River Plate. Hakluyt must have acquired the manuscript soon after Withrington's ship returned to England, for it appeared in his Principall navigations of 1589. Although this 1589 edition stated that Vaz was a Spaniard, by 1598 Hakluyt had rightfully acknowledged him to be a Portuguese born in Elvas. Since Vaz was Portuguese his account was by no means sympathetic towards the Spaniards: “The King of Spaine because hee hath many other Countries vnder him, hee doth little esteeme of this Countrey (i.e. Nova Hispania) but doth take out of it all things that are for his profit, hauing vsed those people with great crueltie, and taking of them much Tribute.”¹⁸² Purchas did not quote as extensively from Vaz, as Hakluyt had done, but rather, seemed mainly concerned with providing a résumé of activities in South America. Purchas followed Hakluyt's version quite closely, although using a word structure which was not as concise as that of Hakluyt.

Purchas broke away from the Hakluyt legacy with the first publication in English of parts of Garcilaso de la Vega's Comentarios reales.¹⁸³ Garcilaso (1539-1617) is one of the major sources on colonial Peru, particularly from the Inca viewpoint, but Purchas feared that by this stage of the Pilgrimes he might be beginning to “cloy the Reader with fulnesse.”¹⁸⁴ He had already published extensive extracts on Peru from Acosta and he now felt he should only publish what seemed new or else corrected information previously given. He therefore merely took from Garcilaso descriptions of the religion and society of Inca Peru, plus the specific details of the murder of Manco and the rebellion of Túpac Amarú. He tried to evade the responsibility for his finished version: “If I haue seemed confused, and without exact method, I haue followed my Authour.”¹⁸⁵ The Pilgrimes remained the only source for Garcilaso in English until Sir Paul Rycaut's translation in 1688.

Purchas stayed in Peru with three short extracts from Spanish chroniclers, previously published by Ramusio. These were Cristóval de Meña, Francisco de Xerez and Pedro Sancho de la Hoz. These authors did not appear in English again till 1929, 1872 and 1917 respectively, so that Purchas can be credited with initiative in this instance. Purchas only published a short extract from Meña on the Pizarro-Atahualpa confrontation.¹⁸⁶ He followed this with an extract from Francisco de Xerez, who had been Pizarro's secretary.¹⁸⁷ Raúl Porras Barrenchea thought highly of the narrative of Xerez: “El relato de Xerez es el más importante de todos los que refieren la empresa de la conquista del Perú y la caída del Imperio Incaico.”¹⁸⁸ Purchas believed that God had punished the Spaniards for their cruelties to the Indians, for all those who had a hand in Atahualpa's death died miserably.¹⁸⁹ Pedro Sancho de la Hoz succeeded Xerez as Pizarro's secretary and at Pizarro's request wrote his narrative, whose main purpose was to restore Pizarro in the Emperor's favour.¹⁹⁰

Purchas moved north from Peru with his next extract taken from the writings of Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca.¹⁹¹ Purchas listed this item HP, so Hakluyt had either previously made, or had made, a translation of the relación, which Purchas now published in an abridged form. The narrative detailed the fortunes of the Narváez expedition and de Vaca's subsequent overland journey across the southern United States from 1527 to 1536 finally reaching the Gulf of California at the Mexican province of Sinaloa. This account linked well with the extract from Hernando de Soto which followed.¹⁹² Purchas therefore provided details from the two main Spanish narratives on the northern areas of New Spain. In publishing Soto, Purchas wrote: “This History partly for better knowledge of those parts of the world and partly for the profit of Virginian aduenturers and discouerers, I haue here published.”¹⁹³ Purchas remained faithful to the cause of the Virginia colony. Indeed, as his work included more and more accounts of English exploration, so his interest grew. Purchas at this time also acted in some sort of advisory capacity to the Virginia Company. The Company's records of 21 April 1624 indicate: “the Court entreated Mr. Purchas to conferr with some Civilians and advise what answere was fitt to be returned in such a case.”¹⁹⁴ Purchas had become a propagandist for the colony and certainly furthered the cause of the colony by selecting and printing material which helped to depict it in a favourable light.

Purchas remained in New Spain with a translation of a letter from Nuño Beltrán de Guzmán to Charles V, which was written by Guzmán at Omitlán on 8 July 1530.¹⁹⁵ The item was thought to have been unique to Ramusio until the manuscript version was found in the Archivo General de Indias.¹⁹⁶ Comparing the 1870 with Ramusio and Purchas reveals the considerable condensation carried out by Purchas. Given the nature of his material and Guzmán's importance in the early conquest of New Spain, Purchas could well have published more, but he presumably believed that English interest in a fuller account was not great.

The short references to the travels of “Frier Marco de Nica, Don Fr. Vasquez de Coronado, Don Antonio de Espeio” were taken from Ramusio and Hakluyt.¹⁹⁷ His next extract, however, was from the letters of the Jesuit Martín Pérez, which had been left in Hakluyt's papers.¹⁹⁸ Pérez (1560-1626) was a missionary, explorer and ethnographer and the first missionary to enter the region of Sinaloa. Purchas's account was mainly limited to a description of the local Indians. A comparison of the text with that published by the Jesuit, John Hay, in 1605 reveals close similarities. It is possible that Hakluyt had made a translation from this Latin version and did so during or after 1605. All these narratives on New Spain contained little of great popular appeal but Purchas believed they would “be of vse one day, when our Virginian Plantation (which blusheth to see so little done after eighteene yeeres continued habitation, with so much cost, and so many liues and liuelihoods spent thereon) shall lift vp her head … And indeed for Virginia's sake wee haue so long held you in Spanish discourses.”¹⁹⁹ This must have been written as late as 1625, if 1607 is taken as the first date of colonisation.

Purchas made his “Spanish farewell,” as he called it, with Bartolomé de las Casas, who had figured so prominently in the earlier volumes of the Pilgrimage.²⁰⁰ The place of Las Casas at the end of the Spanish authors translated in the Pilgrimes was fitting, given the use of the Pilgrimes as source material for anti-Hispanic writers. This, however, was not Purchas's immediate intention: “And so farre am I from delighting to thrust my finger in sores (which yet I doe on necessitie, euen with the English also) that I haue left out many many inuectiues and bitter Epithetes of this Author, abridging him after my wont and lopping of such superfluities, which rather were the fruit of his zeale, then the flowre of his History.”²⁰¹ Nevertheless Purchas's abridgement of the 1583 translation was sufficient to ensure the continuation of the “Black Legend” in England in the years up to the next translation of Las Casas in 1656.

Purchas followed Spain in the Americas with the activities of the French and then the English in North America. By ending the travel section of the Pilgrimes with the activities of the Virginia colony all that went before could serve as an inspiration and lesson to the Virginia colonists, who by 1625 had undergone some traumatic experiences. Purchas's essay “Virginia's verger” buried in the Pilgrimes has been seen by Louis B. Wright as a sadly neglected piece of pleading for the Virginia colony.²⁰² Purchas ended the Pilgrimes with a reiteration of the colony's virtues: “We hold it to be one of the goodliest parts of the Earth, abounding with Nauigable rivers full of varietie of Fish and Fowle; falling from high and steepe Mountaines, which by generall relation of the Indians are rich with Mines of Gold, Silver, and Copper … the soile fruitfull … the Woods full of Deare, Turkies, and other Beasts and Birds.”²⁰³

Purchas, despite his obvious faith in the colony, could not bring himself to reject in the Pilgrimes the lure of mineral wealth. The Spanish legacy was too strong. His portrayal of the Iberian New World emphasised the conquests of Mexico and Peru, where the lust for gold had been a powerful motive for exploration. The Pilgrimes also reflected a more pronounced anti-Spanish attitude, partly because of the increased use of authors such as Las Casas and Benzoni, but also because sources, such as the Codex Mendoza and Garcilaso de la Vega, reflected the substantial achievements of the Aztec and Inca civilisations. Purchas presented to his readers the best survey of Latin America to date and one which remained standard throughout most of the century. Many of the English attitudes towards Latin America can be traced back to the Pilgrimes or the small compendiums based upon it. Of the nineteen Spanish and Portuguese accounts relating to the New World in Purchas only four appeared again before 1726.

He wrote in the Pilgrimes: “I meane to trauell no more, here I hang vp my Pilgrims weeds; here I fixe my Tabernacle, it is good to bee here: wee haue brought all the World to England.”²⁰⁴ He had made his will on 31 May 1625 but this was not to be his last publication. The fourth edition of the Pilgrimage appeared in 1626 to form what is often called the fifth volume of the Pilgrimes. The new edition was dedicated to George Abbot and Charles I, the latter's “goodnesse hath invited this boldnes, in accepting my late Voluminous Twinnes of Pilgrimes; then also vouchsafing to aske of this my Pilgrimage, whether it were there annexed.”²⁰⁵ Purchas had therefore wasted little time after the death of James I on 27 March 1625 in bringing the Pilgrimage to the attention of the new king. The 1626 version was substantially the same as in 1617 except that three treatises were added, none of which related to Latin America. He had noted in the Pilgrimage that he was “daily and howerly of a weak body” and indeed he died on 30 September 1626.²⁰⁶ His will, which was proved on 21 October revealed him to be relatively wealthy.²⁰⁷ He had prospered since the hard times at the end of the previous decade. The Pilgrimes had been a financial success and on 22 April 1626 he had been appointed Rector of the wealthy parish of All Hallows, Bread Street, a position under Abbot's patronage.²⁰⁸ He dispersed the remaining copies of his published works amongst his family and left his library and land in the parish of Thaxted to his son Samuel, who later became rector of Sutton in Essex.

Samuel the Younger only published one work, A theatre of politicall flying insects, in 1657, which was concerned with insects, principally the bee. He does not seem to have inherited his father's interest in travel literature, although the list of citations in the book shows knowledge of some of the authors used by his father. The authorities quoted in the chapter on American bees included Oviedo, Ramusio, Cieza de León and “Mr. John Stones, my friend and neighbour who lived many years in Brasil.”²⁰⁹ What happened to the library after Samuel's death in late 1658 is unknown, but 1657 was an appropriate time for the memory of Purchas to be revived, given the translations and publications resulting from Cromwell's “Western Design.” Even then, no collection appeared in the style of Hakluyt or Purchas. Their works set a standard of achievement and enterprise which was not to be realised again in the seventeenth century. They ensured that travel literature became established in the public interest, free from the myths of the past and the simplicity of the compendiums. Not least also was the fact that they, more than any others, made the New World and its narratives known to the Old.

Notes

1. See L. B. Wright, “Propaganda against James I's ‘appeasement’ of Spain,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 6 (1942-43), pp. 149-172.

2. Sir Francis Bacon reporting Sir Robert Cecil's speech of 17 June 1607, L. F. Stock, ed., Proceedings and debates of the British parliaments respecting North America (Washington, 1924), I, p. 17.

3. J. de Acosta, The naturall and morall historie of the East and West Indies (London, 1604). (1), referring to the numerical entry in the appendix.

4. G. B. Parks, Richard Hakluyt, p. 138; R. Hakluyt, The principal navigations (London, 1600), II, pp. 698-699.

5. See G. N. Clark, “Edward Grimeston, the translator,” English Historical Review, 43 (1928), pp. 590-598.

6. A. Galvāo, The discoveries of the world (London, 1601), A3v.

7. P. d'Avity, The estates, empires, and principallities of the world (London, 1615).

8. W. Notestein, Four worthies (London, 1956), p. 151.

9. Clark, “Edward Grimeston,” E.H.R., pp. 586-587.

10. Acosta, Naturall and morall historie, p. 78.

11. L. E. Huddleston, Origins of the American Indians. European concepts 1492-1729 (Austin, 1967), p. 116.

12. Acosta, Naturall and morall historie, A4v.

13. P. E. Russell, “A Stuart Hispanist. James Mabbe,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 30 (1953), p. 79.

14. (Hernando de Soto), Virginia richly valued (London, 1609) (39).

15. M. Lescarbot, Nova Francia: or the description of that part of New France, which is one continent with Virginia (London, 1609).

16. (Soto), Virginia richly valued, A2r.

17. Ibid., A3v.

18. Ibid., A4r.

19. For a short but stimulating survey of the European attitude to the North American Indian see D. B. Quinn, “European technology and preconceptions” in W. P. Cumming, R. A. Skelton & D. B. Quinn, The discovery of North America (London, 1971), pp. 13-28.

20. (Soto), The worthye and famous history of the travailes, discovery and conquest, of that great continent of Terra Florida (London, 1611) (39a).

21. Ibid. Title page.

22. Pietro Martire d'Anghiera, De novo orbe, or the historie of the West Indies (London, 1612).

23. On Anglo-Spanish rivalry in North America 1603-1726 see J. L. Wright, Anglo-Spanish rivalry in North America (Athens, Georgia, 1971), pp. 1-73.

24. Ibid., pp. 35; 38-41.

25. J. Chamberlain, Letters, ed. N. E. McClure (Philadelphia, 1939), I, pp. 366-367.

26. J. Smith, A true relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate as hath hapned in Virginia (London, 1608); A map of Virginia with a description of that country (Oxford, 1612).

27. The theatre of the earth (London, 1601), T ii r.

28. The 1600 edition has only 31 leaves.

29. For an explanation of some of the reasons for this fact see M. T. Hodgen, Early anthropology in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (Philadelphia, 1964), Chaps. 1 & 2.

30. G. Abbot, A briefe description of the whole worlde (London, 1608), Q2r.

31. For Abbot's life see P. A. Welsby, George Abbot. The unwanted archbishop 1562-1633 (London, 1962), although Welsby does not cover in detail Abbot's geographical interests.

32. Calendar of state papers. Venetian 1615-1617. vol. XIV (London, 1908), No. 601.

33. R. A. Christophers, George Abbot. Archbishop of Canterbury. 1562-1633. A bibliography (Charlottesville, 1966), p. xiii.

34. Abbot, Briefe description, R1v and r.

35. Ibid., T3r.

36. Ibid., T1v.

37. G. B. Parks, Richard Hakluyt (1928), p. 224.

38. C. Hill, Intellectual origins of the English revolution (Oxford, 1965), p. 11.

39. Dictionary of national biography (London, 1921-22), XVI, pp. 488-489; W. Foster, “Samuel Purchas” in Richard Hakluyt and his successors, ed. E. Lynam (London, Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., XCIII (1946)), pp. 54-55; R. S. Dunn, “Seventeenth-century English historians of America” in Seventeenth-century America, ed. J. M. Smith (Chapel Hill, 1959), pp. 206-207.

40. E. G. R. Taylor, Late Tudor and early Stuart geography 1583-1650 (London, 1934), p. 62; L. B. Wright, Religion and empire (Chapel Hill, 1943), p. 116; L. E. Pennington, Hakluytus posthumus: Samuel Purchas and the promotion of English overseas expansion (Emporia, Emporia State Research Studies, 14, no. 3 (1966)), passim.

41. S. Purchas, Purchas his pilgrimage (London, 1613), ¶ 4r. (54).

42. Details of Purchas's life derived from H. W. King, “Ancient wills 7,” Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, IV (1869), pp. 163-183.

43. Now part of Southend on Sea.

44. Purchas, Purchas his pilgrimage (1613), p. 581.

45. Ibid., p. 465. Purchas noted in the margin that Vassall lived “of Eastwood in Essex.”

46. S. Purchas, Hakluytus posthumus or Purchas his pilgrimes (London, 1625), I, p. 74 (54c).

47. S. Purchas, Purchas his pilgrimage, 2nd ed. (London, 1614), p. 911 (54a).

48. T. Coryat, Thomas Coriate traueller for the English wits (London, 1616), pp. 45-46. On Coryate see M. Strachan, The life and adventures of Thomas Coryate (Oxford, 1962).

49. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1613), ¶ 2v.

50. Ibid., A6r.

51. Ibid., p. 613.

52. For a general survey of the Indian in the published literature of Spain and elsewhere see B. Keen, The Aztec image in western thought (New Brunswick, N.J., 1971).

53. Purchas, Pilgrimage, p. 667.

54. Ibid., p. 752.

55. Ibid., p. 689.

56. Ibid., p. 634.

57. For the relationship of Purchas and Smith see P. L. Barbour, The three worlds of captain John Smith (London, 1964).

58. Purchas, Pilgrimage, p. 653.

59. Ibid., p. 692.

60. Purchas, Pilgrimage, 2nd ed. (London, 1614), ¶ 2r.

61. Purchas, Purchas his pilgrimage, 4th ed. (London, 1626), ¶ 4v (54d).

62. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), ¶ 3r.

63. Ibid., ¶ 5v.

64. Ibid., A5r.

65. For a study of the Hakluyt/Purchas relationship see also C. R. Steele, “Richard Hakluyt and Samuel Purchas” in D. B. Quinn ed., A. handbook to Hakluyt, 2 vols. (London, 1974).

66. Purchas, Pilgrimage, p. 743.

67. Ibid., p. 836.

68. Ibid., ¶ 4r.

69. Ibid., pp. 782-783.

70. Purchas, Purchas his pilgrimage (London, 1617) (54b).

71. Ibid., p. 972.

72. Hakluyt's will is printed in E. G. R. Taylor ed., The original writings and correspondence of the two Richard Hakluyts (London, Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., lxxvi-lxxvii (1935)), II, pp. 506-509.

73. Purchas, Pilgrimes (1625), III, p. 1066.

74. Ibid., I, ¶ 4v.

75. In 1621 he sold his father's shares in the Virginia Company (G. B. Parks, Richard Hakluyt, p. 257).

76. Ibid., I, ¶ 4v.

77. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1617), ¶ 6r.

78. Anthony à Wood, Athenae Oxoniensis … the first volume (London, 1691), columns 821-822.

79. Purchas, Pilgrimage, ¶ 6r.

80. Ibid., p. 1082.

81. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1617) Ddddd 4v.

82. P. Fernández de Quirós, Terra Australia incognita (London, 1617) (18).

83. C. Jack-Hinton, The search for the islands of Solomon 1567-1838 (Oxford, 1969), p. 133.

84. C. Kelly, Calendar of documents. Spanish voyages in the South Pacific (Madrid, 1965), p. 36. For further detail on the Quirós expedition and the exploration in the South Pacific see Martín de Munilla, La Australia del espíritu santo, ed. C. Kelly (Cambridge, Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., cxxvi-cxxvii (1966)).

85. For a list of the Quirós printings see Kelly, and also F. M. Dunn, A catalogue of memorials by Pedro Fernández de Quirós 1607-15 in the Dixon and Mitchell Libraries (Sydney, 1961).

86. Fernández de Quirós (1617), B4r.

87. Ibid., C4r.

88. The exception being R. Harcourt, A relation of a voyage to Guiana (London, 1613), which reappeared in 1626.

89. P. Heylyn, Microcosmus, or a little description of the great world (Oxford, 1621).

90. Ibid. America is covered on pp. 400-418.

91. For details see J. A. Williamson, English colonies in Guiana and on the Amazon 1604-1668 (Oxford, 1923), pp. 29-91.

92. See V. T. Harlow, Ralegh's last voyage (London, 1932).

93. C. H. Carter, “Gondomar: ambassador to James I,” Historical Journal, 8 (1964), p. 205.

94. M. A. Breslow, A mirror of England. English Puritan views of foreign nations 1618-40 (Cambridge, Mass, 1969), pp. 63-70.

95. A declaration of the demeanor and carriage of Sir Walter Raleigh (London, 1618), D1v.

96. D. B. Quinn, Raleigh and the British empire (London, 1962), p. 270.

97. T. Scott, Sir Walter Rawleigh's ghost or England's forewarner (Utrecht, 1626).

98. T. Scott, Vox populi or newes from Spaine (London, 1620), B4r.

99. Calendar of state papers. Venetian, 1619-21, XVI (London, 1910), p. 491.

100. In fact, there were five editions between 1620 and 1623.

101. Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Autobiography and correspondence, ed., J. O. Halliwell (London, 1845), I, p. 162.

102. T. Scott, An experimentall discouerie of Spanish practises or, the counsell of a well wishing souldier for the good of his prince and state (n.pl., 1623), E2r.

103. Ibid., E2r.

104. G. Davies, “English political sermons 1603-40,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 3 (1939), p. 5.

105. J. Chamberlain, Letters (1939), II, p. 350. Purchas's Pilgrimage may well have been the source of Everard's statement.

106. For a comprehensive survey of English translations of Spanish fiction see D. B. Randall, The golden tapestry. A critical survey of non-chivalric Spanish fiction in English translation 1543-1657 (Durham, N.C., 1963).

107. J. Simmons, “Publications of 1623,” The Library, 5th series, 21 (1966), pp. 207-222.

108. R. Zaller, The parliament of 1621 (Berkeley, 1971), p. 12.

109. A true relation of that which lately hapned to the great Spanish fleet, and galeons of terra firma in America (London, 1623) (40).

110. See L. Rostenburg, Literary, political, scientific, religious and legal publishing, printing and bookselling in England 1551-1700 (New York, 1965), I, pp. 75-96.

111. A true relation (1623), A2r.

112. R. E. Ruigh, The parliament of 1624 (Cambridge, Mass, 1971), p. 385.

113. Fishers folly unfolded or the vaunting Jesuites vanity (London, 1624), A2r & v. Typical of other pamphlets was S. Ward, A peace offering to God for the blessings we enjoy under his majesties reigne, with a thanksgiving for the Princes safe returne on Sunday the 5 of October, 1623 (London, 1624).

114. For a discussion of all these factors see J. P. Croft, “English trade with peninsular Spain 1558-1625.” (D. Phil., University of Oxford, 1969.)

115. J. Howell, Epistolae ho-elianae. Familiar letters domestick and foreign. The seventh edition (London, 1705), p. 123.

116. Oxford, Bodleian Library. Clarendon MS 4, ff. 61-74.

117. Ibid., f. 74.

118. Ibid., ff. 66-70.

119. E. M. Wilson & O. Turner, “The Spanish protest against ‘A game of chesse’,” Modern Language Review, 44 (1949), pp. 480, 482. It was of great personal benefit to see the first production since 1624 of the play in the gardens of Trinity College, Oxford in June 1971.

120. Vox coeli, or, newes from heaven (n.pl., 1624). This pamphlet was long thought to have been written by Thomas Scott but J. H. Bryant has argued that it is the work of John Reynolds of Exeter. See J. H. Bryant, “John Reynolds of Exeter and his canon,” The Library. 5th series, 18 (1963), pp. 299-303.

121. Vox coeli, I2r.

122. S. Purchas, Purchas his pilgrim (London, 1619), ¶ 4r.

123. Ibid., ¶ 4r.

124. Purchas, Purchas his pilgrimes (1625), I, ¶ 6r.

125. R. Irwin, The heritage of the English library (London, 1964), p. 237.

126. S. Bill, “Lambeth palace library,” The Library, 5th Series, 21 (1966), p. 193.

127. T. Fuller, The church history of Britain (London, 1655), X, p. 51.

128. Purchas, Pilgrimes, I, ¶ 5r.

129. For a general discussion of patronage at this time and its implications see H. S. Bennett, English books and readers 1603-1640 (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 23-39.

130. Purchas, Pilgrimes, I, ¶ 4v.

131. T. Coryate, Thomas Coriate traueller for the English wits (London, 1616), p. 46.

132. Ibid., p. 37.

133. Purchas, Pilgrimes, I, Bk. 4, Chap. 17, p. 595.

134. Coryate, Traueller, pp. 41-42.

135. Ibid., p. 38.

136. Purchas, Pilgrimes, I, ¶ 5v.

137. Ibid., I, ¶ 5v.

138. Ibid., I, ¶ 5r.

139. Purchas, Pilgrimage, 4th ed. (1626), ¶ 5r.

140. Purchas, Pilgrimes, I, ¶ 6r.

141. Purchas, Pilgrimes, I, Book 2, Chapter I, p. 8.

142. Ibid., II, Bk. 10, Chap. I, pp. 1671-1693 (19).

143. Ibid., I, ¶ 5v.

144. Ibid., III, Bk. 5, Chap. I, pp. 855-917 (21).

145. Ibid., p. 855.

146. Ibid., p. 855.

147. B. Quaritch, Catalogue, 909 (London, 1971) lists, however, as item 210 a previously unpublished manuscript translation of Herrera dated c. 1620 and priced at £3000. Entitled “The Description of the ilandes and firme land of the ocean sea, which are called the West Indies”; it is possible that the translation was made by Christopher Tucke, a graduate of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

148. Purchas, Pilgrimes, III, Bk. 5, Chap. 2, pp. 918-969; pp. 1000-1026; 1026-1049; 1050-1065 (1a & 1b).

149. Ibid., III, Bk. 5, Chap. 3, pp. 970-1000 (30).

150. Ibid., p. 970.

151. G. Fernández de Oviedo, The natural history of the West Indies, ed. S. A. Stoudemire (Chapel Hill, 1959), V.

152. Purchas, Pilgrimes, III, Bk. 5, Chap. 7, pp. 1066-1117 (26).

153. Ibid., p. 1065.

154. F. Gómez de Orozco, “Quién fué el autor material del códice mendocino y quién su intérprete,” Revista Mexicana de Estudios Antropológicos, 5 (1941), p. 46.

155. Ibid., p. 51.

156. Purchas, Pilgrimes, III, p. 1066.

157. Atlas geographus (London, 1717), V, p. 583.

158. Purchas, Pilgrimes, III, p. 1066.

159. Ibid., p. 1066.

160. For a description of all the sections of the Codex Mendoza see D. Robertson, Mexican manuscript painting of the early colonial period (New Haven, 1959), pp. 94-107.

161. Purchas, Pilgrimes, III, p. 1066.

162. Although Robertson, p. 95 implies Purchas only translated the first section.

163. J. C. Clark, The Mexican manuscript known as the collection of Mendoza and preserved in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1938), II, p. 68.

164. Indeed the influence of the Codex Mendoza extended abroad. The plates were reproduced in Thévenot's translation of Thomas Gage published in Paris 1696 as Histoire de l'empire Mexicain representé par figures.

165. Bodleian Library MS 3134.

166. Purchas, Pilgrimes, III, Bk. 5, Chap. 8, pp. 1118-1122; 1123-1140 (22).

167. B. Keen, The Aztec image in western thought (New Brunswick, 1971), p. 84.

168. Purchas, Pigrimes, p. 1129.

169. Thus Purchas, p. 1133 is exactly the same as pages 201-202 of the 1578 Nicholas translation.

170. Ibid., p. 1123.

171. Ibid., IV, Bk. 7, Chap. I, pp. 1289-1320; 1320-1325 (11).

172. Ibid., p. 1289.

173. J. H. Rodrigues, Historiografia del Brasil. Siglo XVI (Mexico, 1957), p. 39.

174. Purchas, Pilgrimes, p. 1289.

175. Rodrigues, p. 39.

176. F. Cardim, Tratados da terra e gente do Brasil, ed. B. Caetano et al (Sāo Paulo, 1939, 2nd ed.), pp. 15-19.

177. Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV, Bk. 7, Chap. 9, pp. 1420-22 (28).

178. Ibid., IV, Bk. 7, Chap. 10, pp. 1422-1432 (18a).

179. Gresley is an interesting figure but very little is known of his life. He was in the retinue of John Digby, first Earl of Bristol and Ambassador to Spain and from 1605 to 1623 he carried letters and information between London and Madrid (J. W. Stoye, English travellers abroad 1604-1667 (London, 1952), p. 341.

180. Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV, Bk. 7, Chap. 11, pp. 1432-1447 (41).

181. Ibid., p. 1432.

182. Ibid., p. 1432.

183. Ibid., IV, Bk. 7, Chap. 13, pp. 1454-1485; 1485-1489 (20).

184. Ibid., p. 1454.

185. Ibid., p. 1489.

186. Purchas, Pilgrimes, Vol. IV, Bk. 7, Chap. 15, pp. 1489-91 (25).

187. Ibid., Vol. IV, Bk. 7, Chap. 16, pp. 1491-94 (43).

188. R. Porras Barrenechea, Los cronistas del Perú 1528-1650 (Lima, 1962), p. 89.

189. Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV, p. 1493.

190. Ibid., IV, Bk. 7, Chap. 17, pp. 1494-97 (35). The original manuscript of Sancho has been lost and all that remains is the printed version in Ramusio.

191. Ibid., IV, Bk. 8, Chap. 1, pp. 1499-1528 (27).

192. Ibid., IV, Bk. 8, Chap. 2, pp. 1528-56 (39b).

193. Ibid., p. 1529.

194. S. M. Kingsbury ed., The records of the Virginia company of London (Washington, 1906), II, p. 519.

195. Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV, Bk. 8, Chap. (1), pp. 1556-1559 (9).

196. Colección de documentos inéditos … en América y Oceanía (Madrid, 1870), XIII, pp. 356-393.

197. Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV, Bk. 8, Chap. 3 (ii), pp. 1560-62 (44).

198. Ibid., IV, Bk. 8, Chap. 3 (iii), pp. 1562-65 (31).

199. Ibid., IV, p. 1562.

200. Ibid., IV, Bk. 8, Chap. 4, pp. 1568-1603 (12).

201. Ibid., p. 1567. On this point see J. Friede & B. Keen, ed., Bartolomé de las Casas in history (DeKalb, 1971), p. 17. Their assumption as to Purchas's motives seems more probable than that advanced by V. L. Afanasiev in the same book on page 566.

202. L. B. Wright, Religion and empire, p. 131. Printed in Purchas, Pilgrimes, pp. 1809-1826.

203. Purchas, p. 1973.

204. Ibid., p. 1972.

205. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1626), ¶ 3r.

206. Ibid., ¶ 4v.

207. See his will in H. W. King, “Ancient wills 7,” Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society, IV (1869), pp. 171-176.

208. G. Hennessey, ed., Novum repertorium ecclesiasticum parochiale Londinense (London, 1898), p. 76. Brian Walton, the famous polyglot, was Curate of All Hallows from 1624-1628.

209. S. Purchas, A theatre of politicall flying insects (London, 1657), p. 205.