Moreouer, you may, if you please to consider that souldiers, of whiche I am one by profession, wee be not alwayes lusking in our forte or castle, but be as tyme and occasion wyll permyt, here to-day, wee knowe least our selues where tomorrowe. And I wyll ensure you, the most part of these my Princes dyd pleade their causes vnto me euen in the sea, a place, in fayth, not meete to penne Tragedies. And as for bookes, I was altogether destitute: for when I, to please my fantasie, trauayled (as you knowe) I could not beare about with me a library: but for cariage sake, contented myself with these foure: With the third _Decade of Titus Liuye_, with _Bossewell’s Concordes of Armorie_, with _Monsignor de Lange_, that notable warriour, and with the vnperfect _Mirrour for Magistrates_: which bookes made nothing to this purpose. I had not those Chronicles whiche other men had: my Memorie and Inuention were vnto me in stead of _Grafton_, _Polidore_, _Cooper_, and suche like, who dyd greatly ayde other men. And last of al you must consider, that the other part of the miseries of those miserable Princes were written, I sittyng on a rocke in the sea, not in Spaine, Italie, Fraunce, Scotlande, or Englande, but in Garnzie Castle, where although there be learned men, yet none whiche spende their tyme so vainely as in Poetrie. So that the complaintes of these men were written (as I say) where the want of helpe dyd diuersly daunt me with despayre. You haue greatly requested me by your last letter, to make vnto you a discourse of the Ile of Garnzie, and howe it is possible for the castle to be a place so pleasaunt for habitation, as I haue reported it, seeing it standeth in the Sea, separate from any lande. Good Syr, to write thereof (so manyfolde be the commodities and thinges woorthy the writyng of) woulde rather require a good volume, then a peece of an epistle. Let it therefore suffice for this tyme, that I by writyng vnto you some fewe lines of the Gouernour, I may briefely declare what the gouernement and commodities be. The right woorshipful Maister Thomas Leighton is her Maiesties Lieutenaunt there. Syr, I doo remember, howe constant _Constantine the Great_ was in religion, and howe that noble Emperour mynded the reformation thereof. You knowe howe carefull _Licurgus_ and _Solon_ were, for making of good lawes, and ministring of iustice. And histories doo recorde, howe passing happye _Epaminundas_ was in al his affayres: but what a seemely sight is it, to see al these vertues so to concurre in one man, that hee who shoulde compare hym with them, should, I wyl ensure you, doo hym great iniurie? for (that I may briefly conclude) vndoubtedly a few such men as he is, being plaste at a Princes’ elbow, were sufficient to keepe the most ruinous commonweale that is, from ruine and destruction. And now iudge you the commodities of the countrey, by the goodnesse of the Gouernour, for as Seneca sayeth:--