This treatise was written in the Portuguese language, by Antonio Galvano, who had been governor of Ternate, the chief of the Molucca Islands, and was first translated into English by the celebrated Richard Hakluyt, who dedicated it to Sir Robert Cecil, Principal Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth. It was afterwards inserted in Osbornes, or the Oxford Collection of Voyages and Travels, and forms an appendix to the first volume of Clarke's Progress of Maritime Discovery; and from these sources the present edition has been carefully prepared. Of Richard Hakluyt, the original translator, the following notice is worthy of being preserved. "The _great_ Richard Hakluyt was descended from an ancient family at Yetton in Herefordshire, and was educated at Westminster School, from whence he was elected a student of Christ Church, in the University of Oxford, where he took the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Arts. Entering into holy orders, he was first made a prebendary of Bristol, and afterwards of Westminster, and rector of Witheringset in Suffolk. Besides this translation, he illustrated the eight decades of Peter Martyr Angelericus _de Novo Orbe_ with curious notes. He also translated from the Portuguese, _Virginia_, richly valued by the description of Florida, her next neighbour; and wrote notes of certain commodities, in good request in the East Indies, Molucca, and China; but what has most deservedly perpetuated his name, is his great pains, and judgment, in collecting _English Voyages, Navigations, Trafficks, and Discoveries_[2]."