“Right Honourable and my very good Lord,” he here writes, “after I had long since published in Print many Navigations and Discoveries of Strangers in divers languages, as well here at London as in the city of Paris during my five years abode in France with the worthy knight, Sir Edward Stafford, your brother-in-law, his Majesty’s most prudent and careful ambassador ligier with the French king; and had waded on still further and further in the sweet study of the history of Cosmography, I began at length to conceive that with diligent observation, something might be gathered which might commend our nation for their high courage and singular activity in the search and discovery of the most unknown quarters of the world.... The ardent love of my country devoured all difficulties, and, as it were, with a sharp goad provoked me and thrust me forward into this troublesome and painful action. And after great charges and infinite cares, after many watchings, toils, and travels, and wearying out of my weak body, at length I have collected three several volumes of the English Navigations, Traffics, and Discoveries to strange, remote, and far distant countries. Which work of mine I have not included with the compass of things duly done in these later days, as though little or nothing worthy of memory had been performed in former ages, but mounting aloft by the space of many hundred years, have brought to light many very rare and worthy monuments which long have lain miserably scattered in musty corners and wretchedly hidden in misty darkness, and were very like for the greatest part to have been buried in perpetual oblivion.”