SOURCE: Wright, Louis B. “Samuel Purchas and the Heathen.” In Religion and Empire: The Alliance between Piety and Commerce in English Expansion 1558-1625, pp. 115-33. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1943.

[In the following essay, Wright examines the most famous works of Purchas, how and why he came to write them, and the enormous impact they had on his audience.]

On a summer's day in 1797, the Reverend Samuel Taylor Coleridge sought relief from the toothache by taking a dose of opium and reading the works of his brother cleric, the Reverend Samuel Purchas. From the modern point of view, one could hardly find a book better calculated to put one to sleep than Purchas his Pilgrimage (1613), the volume which Coleridge selected. But, before the poet fell asleep, he discovered in his reading enough wonders to inspire a poetical vision which took the form of a marvelous piece of imagery known to us as “Kubla Khan.” Long before Coleridge's time, Purchas' work had stirred the imaginations of Englishmen and kindled in them an interest in the expanding world and the customs and beliefs of heathen peoples in lands till then unknown. King James I made the book “Ordinarie of his Bed chamber,” the author boasted, and read it through seven times¹—no mean task, even for the English Solomon, because the first edition ran to 752 folio pages. Subsequent editions were expanded, and the fourth, published in 1626, was swelled to 967 pages, plus three additional treatises by way of appendix.

The Pilgrimage, which aroused the enthusiasm of King James and his contemporaries and furnished Coleridge with a theme for poetry, is scarcely known today. Purchas is remembered better for his vast compilation of travels entitled Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes (1625), a work so similar in title to his earlier book that the Pilgrimage and the Pilgrimes are frequently confused. Both influenced their age, and, though we may have forgotten their prolix author and undiscriminating editor, his contemporaries valued him, and the East India Company and the Virginia Company rewarded him tangibly for his services to English expansion.

Samuel Purchas was first and last a preacher. His curiosity about the spiritual state of the heathen led him to explore history, to examine the narratives of travelers, and to write the Pilgrimage, which dwelt morbidly on the abominations and iniquities of unchristian folk. The subtitle of the work promised a relation “Of The World And The Religions Observed In All Ages And places discouered, from the Creation vnto this Present. … With briefe Descriptions of the Countries, Nations, States, Discoueries, Priuate and Publike Customes, and the most Remarkable Rarities of Nature, or Humane Industrie, in the same.” Among other purposes professed by the author, in his dedication to George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the intention of displaying “the Paganisme of Antichristian Poperie, and other Pseudo-Christian heresies, and the Truth of Christianitie as it is now professed and established in our Church.” The resultant mixture of geography, religion, and refutation of popery was pleasing to the archbishop, who had written somewhat in that kind himself. Accordingly, Purchas, who until then had held a living in the unwholesome air of Essex, received a post as Abbot's chaplain and immediately thereafter became rector of St. Martin's, Ludgate. More than that, the book established Purchas' reputation for learning and brought him to the notice of Richard Hakluyt,² whose literary heir he became. The Pilgrimage was probably the means by which Purchas also attracted the attention of Sir Edwin Sandys, for Sandys' own religious geography of Europe gave the two men a common interest. At any rate, in 1622 Sandys had Purchas admitted to the Virginia Company, where he served in some sort of advisory capacity.³

In the preparation of the Pilgrimage, Purchas combed histories, ancient and modern, and read voraciously in the literature of travel, including Hakluyt's great compilation. More of a journalist than a scholar, he knew the sort of thing that would titillate the interest of his day. Indeed, the Pilgrimage is a remarkable reflection of the popular taste of Jacobean England for encyclopedic knowledge derived from history, religion, and travel. Here in a single book was a medley of fascinating details about the history, habitats, and beliefs of strange peoples. For instance, the section on America begins with a running account of the discovery and explorations of the New World, and, after a description of “the rare Creatures therein found,” proceeds to a more detailed exposition of the geography, history, and religion of particular regions. Such a work could not fail to please readers who were equally avid for information about the wonders of the New World and the way to the New Jerusalem. Furthermore, to an age that loved the signs and symbols of erudition, the copious notes with which Purchas filled the margins proved reassuring. The publication of four editions of so large and expensive a book between 1613 and 1626 is proof of its popularity.

In the description of Virginia, Purchas took occasion to insert a defense of the colony against its libelers. “Thus haue I beene bold somewhat largely to relate the proceedings of this Plantation,” he remarks, “to supplant such slanders and imputations as some haue conceiued or receiued against it, and to excite the diligence and industrie of all men of abilitie, to put to their helping hand in this action, so honourable in it selfe, glorious to God in the furtherance of his truth, and beneficiall to the common-wealth, and to the priuate purses of the Aduenturers, if the blooming of our hopes bee not blasted with our negligence.”⁴

In concluding a general chapter on the north parts of the New World, Purchas appends a prayer to Almighty God that the Virginia plantation “may triumph in her conquests of Indian Infidels, maugre the bragges of that Adulteresse [Spain] that vaunteth her selfe to be the only Darling of God and Nature.”⁵ Although Purchas is cautious about meddling in dangerous matters of state, he does not hesitate to suggest that Englishmen must circumvent the encroachment of Spanish Catholics in distant regions. He gives emphasis to that thesis by concluding the whole work with a bitter indictment of Spanish Catholics for their cruelties to the Indians. The Pilgrimage thus echoes the unanimous voice of the Protestant clergy in warning against the colonial monopoly of Spain.

The Pilgrimage was an important piece of oblique propaganda for colonial expansion. If Purchas had a consuming zeal to preach this gospel in the Pilgrimage—as Hakluyt had been motivated in his labors—he did not reveal it, but nevertheless he included many incidental observations on the need for Englishmen to occupy a portion of heathendom. And, what was more important, his descriptions of foreign lands and peoples stirred his readers to further interest in the world outside of England.

When Hakluyt died in 1616, his mantle fell on the shoulders of Samuel Purchas, who wore the habiliments with more delight than grace. Hakluyt was a scholar of genuine scientific interest, a thinker with a clear perception of his duty in helping to formulate a national policy that had in it the seeds of imperial development. Purchas was a country parson more interested, as he himself said, “in by-wayes then high-wayes.”⁶ But, though he had neither the intellect nor the editorial discrimination of Hakluyt, he continued Hakluyt's great task of compiling voyage literature, and published in 1625 Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes, a work whose title suggested the editor's debt to his predecessor.

The Pilgrimes was an imposing compilation of four vast folio volumes bearing dedications to Prince Charles, the Duke of Buckingham, the Bishop of Lincoln, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the course of his labors, the editor's notions of expansion underwent a marked development. Whereas in the Pilgrimage his comments on colonial activities had been more or less incidental, in the Pilgrimes he shows a definite purpose to promote ideas of colonization and overseas trade. In his dedication to Prince Charles, he waves the flag with the fervor of an ardent imperialist and delights to use the new word “Great Britain” to describe the realm at home. In the twenty books of the Pilgrimes, Purchas assures the Prince, are the records of “the English Martialist everywhere following armes, whiles his Countrey is blessed at home with Beati Pacifici; the Merchant coasting more Shoares and Ilands for commerce, then his Progenitors have heard off, or himselfe can number; the Mariner making other seas a Ferry, and the widest Ocean a Strait, to his discovering attempts; wherein wee joy to see Your Highnesse to succeed Your Heroike Brother, in making the furthest Indies by a New Passage neerer to Great Britaine. Englands out of England are here presented, yea Royal Scotland, Ireland, and Princely Wales, multiplying new Scepters to His Majestie and His Heires in a New World.”

The notion of imperial grandeur implied in these words was pleasing to the royal house and to thousands of Englishmen who had been gradually losing their insularity as they learned more of the wonders of the great world. The Pilgrimes appeared before King James's death, and Purchas presented the volumes in person to the monarch, who expressed great interest in the work, “which,” says Purchas, “he made his Nightly taske, till God called him by fatall sicknesse to a better Pilgrimage.” On the very day of his death, the King sent Purchas “a fauorable message of his gentle approbation and incouragement.”⁷ Readers less highly placed also approved the sentiments and the matter of the Pilgrimes. The East India Company, for example, expressed their satisfaction by a gift of £100 and took three sets of books, as the court minutes explain: “Mr. Purchas, a preacher and Bachelor of Divinity, presented the Court with four volumes containing many several treatises of the Indies and other remote parts of the world, having formerly presented the same unto his Majesty and the Prince, wherein is recorded particularly the many discoveries made by this Company, together with the great benefit which this kingdom reapeth thereby. Also he presented an epistle to the Company, which he read to them and demanded whether they were willing it should be inserted in some convenient place of this history. The Court took in very thankful part his labours, and in token of their good acceptance thereof gratified him with 100 l., and the Company to have three sets of his books.”⁸

Purchas' relations with the East India Company indicate his increased enthusiasm for the doctrine of expansion. In another appearance before the company court, he declared his purpose in compiling the Pilgrimes to have been “the glory of God and honour of this nation,” and he added significantly that, if he could be of further service, he hoped “they would make use of him as of a man obliged to the Company.”⁹ The epistle that he had previously expressed a desire to print was an indictment of the Dutch for their treatment of the English in the East Indies, particularly for the massacre at Amboina in 1623, and was intended to arouse the English nation to take a firm stand against hostile Dutch commanders in the Orient. The East India Company was anxious to publish this piece of propaganda in the Pilgrimes, but both the printer and the bookbinder demurred. Finally, on January 26, 1625, “the Court resolved to let it rest for awhile, and if they cannot procure it to be bound with the book, they will print it upon some other occasions.”¹⁰ No record exists of the printing of the controversial epistle. Extant copies of the Pilgrimes contain “A Note touching the Dutch” (immediately following the preface to the first volume), in which Purchas mentions the massacre at Amboina and other iniquities of the Dutch. However, descriptions, in the text, of the hostility of the Dutch to the East India Company are not meant, he explains, as a condemnation of the whole Dutch nation—who, after all, are fellow Protestants—but as an exposure of certain wicked commanders.

The influence of the Pilgrimes, coupled with that of the Pilgrimage, was enormous. As in his earlier work, Purchas combined the qualities of journalist, preacher, geographer, and propagandist, and reached a wider public than Hakluyt had known. Modern scholars have berated the parson of St. Martin's for his failure to preserve scientific details, for throwing away data in ships' logs, for abbreviating narratives, and for other editorial practices contrasting unfavorably with Hakluyt's, but they forget that Purchas feared tediousness as the devil and sought to reduce the vast body of travel literature to a compass acceptable to the general reader. He was a popularizer with a purpose. Like Hakluyt before him, he sought to arouse the English public to a sense of their obligation to go forth and seize a portion of the fallow world beyond the seas. If he showed a greater preoccupation with the foibles of the heathen and the need to evangelize them after the use of St. Martin's, Ludgate, it simply proves that Purchas was a typical Jacobean, reflecting the ideas and the tastes of his own day.

Scattered through the Pilgrimes are many editorial observations emphasizing the need for expansion overseas, but the climax of Purchas' propaganda comes in an original essay concluding the Tenth Book. It bears the descriptive title of “Virginias Verger: Or a Discourse shewing the benefits which may grow to this Kingdome from American English Plantations, and specially those of Virginia and Summer Ilands.” Probably because the essay is buried among an infinite number of travel narratives, its importance has been entirely overlooked. Yet Purchas reveals himself here as something more than a parson with missionary instincts. His essay is a reasoned and persuasive argument for expansion, written with the fervor of religious conviction.

Being a preacher, Purchas could not forbear to cast his argument in the form of a sermon, beginning with the pious observation that “God is the beginning and end, the Alpha and Omega, that first and last, of whom and for whom are all things. The first and last thing therefore in this Virginian argument considerable is God; that is, whether we have Commission from him to plant, and whether the Plantation may bring glory to him.” Filling his margins with a panoply of texts from the Scriptures, he demonstrates conclusively that the undertaking is particularly under the eye of God and that English Christians have an especial claim to tenure in the regions beyond the seas, “whereof Hypocrites [meaning Spanish Catholics] and Heathens are not capable.”¹¹

The question of the right of Englishmen to displace natives from their lands in the New World—even if they were heathen—troubled the consciences of strict moralists and constituted at least a theoretical stumbling block to colonization, which the expansionists believed should be removed. Other preachers before Purchas had discussed the matter, but he resolved this case of conscience with a greater array of biblical learning than any of his predecessors had produced. The bald theft of heathen lands would be wicked, Purchas admits. “The scope of the Virginian Plantation [is] not to make Savages and wild degenerate men of Christians,” he emphasizes, “but Christians of those Savage, wild, degenerate men; to whom preaching must needs bee vaine, if it begins with publike Latrocinie.” With the Anglo-Saxon genius for discovering high moral reasons to justify doubtful deeds, Purchas proves from the word of God and the law of nature that his countrymen have a perfect right to American soil, particularly Virginia and the Bermudas.

First, “as men we have a naturall right to replenish the whole earth.” Since Virginia and the Bermudas are so barren of people that the sparse inhabitants cannot begin to make use of the land, settlers, “by Law of Nature and Humanitie, hath right of Plantation, and may not by other after-commers be dispossessed, without wrong to human nature.” Civilized people are justified in occupying areas thinly populated by nomads, “where the people is wild, and holdeth no settled possession. Thus the holy Patriarks removed their habitations and pasturages, when those parts of the world were not yet replenished: and thus the whole world hath been planted and peopled with former and later Colonies: and thus Virginia hath roome enough for her own … and for others also which wanting at home, seeke habitations there in vacant places, with perhaps better right then the first, which (being like Cain, both Murtherers and Vagabonds in their whatsoever and howsoever owne) I can scarsly call Inhabitants.” To question this right to settle savage countries would be not only to indict most nations, who have generally followed this practice, but “to disappoint also that Divine Ordinance of replenishing the Earth.”¹²

A second powerful claim to portions of the New World is based on economic reasoning. Nations have a natural right of merchandise and trade. No single country has a right to everything, and God in his wisdom has diversified the commodities of the world so that trade between countries may flourish. “It is therefore ungodly, and inhumane also to deny the world to men, or like Manger-dogges … to prohibite that for others habitation, whereof themselves can make no use; or for merchandise, whereby much benefit accreweth to both parts.” If savages, failing to observe these immutable laws of God and nature, prove “Outlawes of Humanity,” then they expose themselves “to the chastisement of that common Law of mankind” as well as to “the Law of Nations,” for they themselves are not “worthy of the name of a Nation.” Thus civilized peoples may invade the lands of savages who retard human progress. Thus “David conquered all the Kingdome of the Ammonites and left it to his successors in many generations.”¹³ This ancient argument, derived from Hebrew and Roman practice and theory, is the same that the German Reich in a later day brought out and dusted off to justify aggression in Poland and other regions described as “backward.”

Having laid a general foundation of law for the occupation of American soil, Purchas then proceeds to establish English rights to Virginia and the Bermudas by virtue of discoveries and settlement. He also sets forth seven honorable reasons why the colonization of Virginia commands the support of all patriots. These seven reasons, as Purchas describes them, are the glory of religion, the good of humanity, the honor of the English nation which “enjoyneth us not basely to loose the glory of our forefathers acts,” the honor of the King, the honor of the kingdom, the profits to be obtained, and the necessity of finding an outlet for the surplus population of the homeland.

In describing the honor to the kingdom, Purchas indicates the imperial significance of overseas dominions: “As Scotland and England seeme sisters, so Virginia, New England, New found Land in the Continent already planted in part with English Colonies, together with Bermuda, and other Ilands, may be the adopted and legall Daughters of England. An honorable designe, to which Honor stretcheth her faire hand, the five fingers whereof are adorned with such precious Rings, each enriched with invaluable Jewels of Religion, Humanity, Inheritance, the King, the Kingdome.” The models for this expansion are found in antiquity and in contemporary history. The first example was the Roman Empire, which “sowed Roman Colonies thorow the World, as the most naturall and artificiall way to win and hold the World Romaine.” But nearer at hand and more obvious than the Roman dominion is the wide-reaching power of Spain, which grew into a rich empire after Columbus “stumbled upon a Westerne World whereof hee never dreamed.”¹⁴ If Rome and Spain could achieve imperial greatness, so can England. “And thus,” he argues, “you have Virginias hopes in generall propounded by Spanish example, urged and enfourced by our necessity of seeking vent to such home-fulnesse.”¹⁵

The natural situation of Virginia, its excellent climate, its magnificent rivers, its bays and harbors, its fisheries, its fertile soil, its great forests, its mines, and its abundance of all commodities required of man, make it a vast rich Eden waiting to supply the living space needed by the poor of England. If the nation would take advantage of these opportunities, the dreadful stagnation of trade at home could be alleviated, Purchas thinks. The scarcity of money, with ensuing evils, he maintains, “is in greatest part caused by the Merchandizes sought and bought in other Countries, whereby our Moneyes fall into forraine Whirle-pooles without hopes of recovery; whereas if our Trade lay (as we see the Spanish) with our owne Colonies and Plantations else-where, wee should hold them still current in our owne Nation, and draw others to bring to us both Wares and Moneyes from other Regions for the Commodities aforesaid.”¹⁶ In this sentence Purchas epitomizes the economic and political theories underlying the early development of the British Empire. Also worthy of note is the fact that the parson of St. Martin's was one of the first to hold up the examples of the Roman and Spanish empires for English imitation.

Not merely commercial prosperity but national defense required colonization overseas, Purchas is careful to point out. Indeed, he devotes some of his most earnest passages to the demonstration of that thesis. Virginia, particularly, is a valuable asset by reason of its naval stores and strategic position on the flank of the routes to the West Indies. “If an Iland needs woodden Wals to secure it from others, Virginia offers her service herein,” he observes. “Yea, as England hath wooed and visited Virginia, so herein Virginia will be glad and rejoyce to visit England, in her there-built ships, and to dwell here with us in thencebrought Timbers.”¹⁷ A big navy is the source of world power, Purchas proves from history. “Yea, without a Navie, Salomon had not beene so meet a Type of Christ, so glorious in Domesticall, Politicall or Ecclesiasticall magnificence.” Since the English Solomon now has Virginia to supply the materials for great ships, England can look forward to a new era of strength. “Haile then, al-haile Virginia,” Purchas exclaims in pious ecstasy, “hope of our decayed Forrests, Nursery of our Timbers, second supply to our shipping.”¹⁸

After further emphasis upon the value of Virginia as the arsenal of England, Purchas discusses the strategic reasons for developing strong bases in Virginia and the Bermudas. “I adde further,” he says, “that the prosecution of the Virginian Plantation is both profitable and necessary for the strengthening of the Plantations already begun in Summer Ilands, New England, and the New found Land, and that other expected in New Scotland.”¹⁹ Its central position on the lines of communication between the English colonies and its nearness to trade routes to the Spanish dominions, give it unusual importance. Moreover, if the long-hoped-for discovery of a new passage to the South Seas should be made, Virginia would be essential to the protection of English shipping in that trade. Since Spain and Portugal have attempted to monopolize trade with the Indies and treat all others as pirates, force is necessary to gain a rightful share in this commerce. “In the East, both English and Dutch have maintayned their just Trade by force, which by unjust force was denied, and have paid themselves largely for all losses sustayned by the Insultings or Assaultings of those Monopolians, with gaine with honour.”²⁰ Purchas desires not to meddle too far in such matters, but King James, “he whose words and workes hath ever beene Beati pacifici, knowes best when and how to exact his and the Worlds right, in the World, of which God hath granted a Monopoly to no man.”²¹

Shrewdly aware of King James's predilection for peace, Purchas skillfully shows that colonies in America may be necessary to the maintenance of peace in a world armed and ready to go to war. “The most certaine, honorable, and beauteous front of Peace, hath a backe part of Warre, and therefore in securest Peace, Prudence is not so secure, but she armeth herselfe against feares of War, forearming men by the Sword drawne to prevent the drawing of Swords, and eyther eschewes it, or reaps good out of it.”²² The security of England's trade, and England's independence of action in peace or war, require strong outposts for protection. “Once, in just and even peace, Virginia stands fit to become Englands Factor in America; if war should happen, both it and Bermuda are fit Sentinels and Scouts, yea fit Searchers and Customers, fit Watch-towers and Arsenals to maintaine right against all wrong-doers.”²³ Here Purchas, almost in the words used by statesmen of our own day, warns England that she must be assured of the protection which Virginia and the Bermudas can give. In peace or war, he repeats, Virginia and Bermuda will be useful “to this Kingdome.” Like Lewis Hughes, ten years before, he stresses the natural fortifications of the Bermudas, those rock-bound harbors able to “laugh at an Armada, at a World of Ships.”²⁴ Virginia likewise is capable of defense against any hostile force, and “the worst of enemies to be feared is English backwardnesse or frowardnesse.”²⁵

To wake England from its complacent slumber and to counteract a stubborn refusal to discern the facts of geography—the “frowardnesse” complained of here—were Purchas' fixed purposes. He grows eloquent in his appeal: “If others impotence and importunities force a War, Virginia and Summer Ilands seeme to this English body as two American hands, eares, feete; two eyes for defence: two Keyes … for offence: two Armes to get, encompasse, embrace: two Fists to strike: the Sword and Dagger, Ship and Pinnace, Castle and Rampire, Canon & Musket, Arsenale and Peere, and whatsoever God shall please to give to humaine industry.” These regions have been especially set aside for the English, who must not be asleep to their divinely appointed rights. “And although I am no Secretary of Gods Counsell for the Indies, yet event hath revealed thus much of his will, that no other Christian Nation hath yet gotten and maintained possession in those parts but the English: to whom therefore wee may gather their decreed serviceablenesse in Peace, advantagiousnesse in Warre, and opportunity for both, to be both Magazine and Bulwarke, and ready even by naturall scituation to sit on the skirts of whatsoever enemies, which passe from America to Europe.”²⁶ In a peroration summarizing the infinite advantages of colonies overseas, Purchas addresses a prayer to “God the Father, Sonne and holy ghost” “that he may vouchsafe to goe with us, and we with him, and after him to Virginia.”²⁷

For its vision and wisdom, Purchas' essay is one of the best discussions, in this period, of the advantages of colonial expansion. It is a worthy successor to Hakluyt's Discourse of Western Planting. Although the author borrowed much from Master Hakluyt, his treatise shows that he too had done some original thinking, that he had pondered world maps with shrewd perception, and that he had become an intelligent apostle of geopolitics.

Originally written as a separate tractate, “at the request of some worthy friends,”²⁸ the essay was probably prepared at the behest of the Virginia Company to counteract the bad news of the massacre of 1622. Purchas hints as much. Had it been published separately instead of being abridged and buried with countless other documents, it would have given Purchas a larger place among the advocates of empire.

When he finished his discourse on Virginia, the industrious parson had not yet said all that was on his mind concerning overseas expansion. The epilogue to the Pilgrimes once more returns to the argument. While flattering King James for his wisdom and magnificence, Purchas again waves the flag for national expansion. Under this mighty sovereign, the kingdom has grown great and prosperous, commerce has increased, and the superfluous population has been disposed, not by invasion of weaker neighbors, but by settlement in spacious America “to breed New Britaines in another World.” In a fever of patriotic sentiment, Purchas is moved to boast that “at home doth Great Britain enjoy this Gem of Goodnes, the best part of the Ring of the worlds Greatnes.”²⁹ After a final enumeration of the merits of Virginia, he concludes with a word of praise for both Virginia and New England; concerning the latter he rejoices “to heare (by one lately returned thence, Master Morell, a Minister and man of credit) that the affaires of New England are thriving and hopefull, which two Colonies of Virginia and New England (with all their Neighbours) God make as Rachel and Leah.”³⁰ The final portions of the Pilgrimes were devoted to narratives of exploration in the northern parts of America. Had the indefatigable compiler been vouchsafed a few more years of industry, he undoubtedly would have composed a tractate on the virtues of New England. Unhappily, he died one year after his royal master, King James.

The preacher is evident in all of Purchas' works. While he was busy with the labor of compilation, he took time out to write a moral treatise which he confusingly called Purchas his Pilgrim. Microcosmus, Or The Historie Of Man (1619), a tedious description of the genus homo, his origins, degeneration, and hope of salvation. Pious ruminations are interspersed throughout his geographical narratives and descriptions. But this very quality helped to give his writings authority and to make them interesting to his generation. Indeed, not only did the contemplation of the religions of the heathen account for the genesis of Purchas' own curiosity about the New World, but his observations concerning religion and the religious purposes which he advocated in print gained respectful and sympathetic attention from his readers. Our own failure to understand the seventeenth-century appetite for religious matter has obscured the importance of Purchas as a propagandist. After the labors of the two preachers, Hakluyt and Purchas, travel literature occupied an exalted position, which it would never have attained had it been left entirely to lay publicists or to tellers of tall tales. These clergymen found in geographical and travel literature material used in preaching a religious and patriotic crusade—a crusade which had for its objectives the extension of the benefits of Protestant religion and an expansion of the realm of England.

Notes

1. Dedication of the fourth edition to King Charles.

2. George B. Parks, Richard Hakluyt and the English Voyages (New York, 1928), p. 225.

3. Susan Myra Kingsbury (ed.), The Records of the Virginia Company of London (Washington, 1906-35), II, 519; III, 65.

4. Purchas his Pilgrimage (1613), p. 634.

5. Ibid., p. 625.

6. Hakluytus Posthumus, or, Purchas His Pilgrimes, I (Glasgow, 1905), xlii; dedication to the reader. All quotations are from this edition. For a contrast between Hakluyt and Purchas, see Parks, op. cit., pp. 182, 225-29. A slight correction of this highly unfavorable picture of Purchas is to be found in Louis B. Wright, Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1935), pp. 535-40. See also E. G. R. Taylor, Late Tudor and Early Stuart Geography, 1583-1650 (London, 1934), pp. 53-66.

7. Purchas his Pilgrimage (4th ed., 1626), dedication to the King.

8. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, East Indies [China and Japan, 1513-1616 (London, 1862)] 1625-1629, p. 10.

9. Ibid., p. 15.

10. Ibid.

11. Pilgrimes, XIX, 218-19.

12. Ibid., pp. 222-23.

13. Ibid., pp. 223-24. See also p. 231.

14. Ibid., pp. 238-39.

15. Ibid., p. 242.

16. Ibid., pp. 252-53.

17. Ibid., p. 247.

18. Ibid., p. 249.

19. Ibid., p. 253.

20. Ibid., p. 255.

21. Ibid., p. 256.

22. Ibid., p. 254.

23. Ibid., p. 256.

24. Ibid., p. 257.

25. Ibid., p. 258.

26. Ibid., pp. 260-61.

27. Ibid., p. 267.

28. Ibid., p. 217.

29. Ibid., XX, 132.

30. Ibid., p. 134.