Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
These are all, or nearly all, the publications brought out in English
and relating to America prior to the enlarged edition of Hakluyt’s
Collection, which was dedicated to Sir Robert Cecil, and of which the
third volume, bearing date 1600, was devoted to America. Compared
with the publications of the Continent for the same century, they are
strikingly fewer in number; and such as they are, it will be seen that
of the thirty-four separate issues enumerated above only fourteen are
of English origin, and of the whole number only twelve belong to the
first three quarters of the century.
[Illustration]
During this same century the literature of navigation took its origin.
The Continental nations had already preceded. It was not till 1528 that
the first sea-manual appeared in England, and no copy of it is now
known. This was a translation of the French _Le Routier de la Mer_,
the antetype of the later rutters. The English edition was called _The
Rutter of the Sea_, and other editions appeared in 1536, 1541, and 1560
(?); the second of these adding, “A rutter of the northe, compyled
by Rychard Proude.” None of these, however, recognized the American
discoveries.
In 1561, Eden, at the suggestion of the Arctic navigator, Stephen
Burrough (b. 1525, d. 1586), again tried to give some impulse
to English interest by his translation of Martin Cortes’ _Art
of Navigation_, which had appeared at Seville ten years before.
(_Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 151.) Cortes was the first to suggest a
magnetic pole. Frobisher, when he made his first voyage, fifteen years
later (1576), perhaps because Eden’s translation was out of print, took
with him a Spanish edition of Medina’s _Arte de Navegar_,—a work which
preceded Cortes’, but never became so popular in England.
In 1565 came a fifth edition of the _Rutter of the Sea_, and in 1573
William Bourne first issued his _Regiment of the Sea_, which long
remained the chief English book on navigation.[442]
Eden put forth, at what precise date is not known, but not later than
1576, _A very necessarie and profitable book concerning Navigation,
compiled in Latin by Joannes Taisnierus_, in which the translator
intimates that Cabot knew more of the ways of discovering longitude
than he had disclosed. See _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, p. 262. _Davis’s
Voyages_ (Hakluyt Society) gives the date 1579.
Such books, as the interest in America became more general, increased
rapidly, and I note them in chronological order.
=1577.= Second edition, _Regiments of the Sea_.
=1578.= Edward Hellowes published in London, in a small tract, a
translation, _A booke of the Invention of Navigation_ of Antonio de
Gaevara, Bishop of Mondonedo, originally printed at Valladolid in 1539.
=1578.= Second edition, Eden’s Cortes.
=1580.= Sixth edition of _The Rutter of the Sea_.
=1580.= Third edition, Eden’s Cortes.
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