‘I do remember that being a youth, and one of Her Majestie’s scholars at Westminster that fruitfull nurserie, it was my happe to visit the chamber of Mr. Richard Hakluyt my cosin, a Gentleman of the Middle Temple, well knowen unto you, at a time when I found lying open upon his boord certeine bookes of Cosmographie, with an universall Mappe: he seeing me somewhat curious in the view thereof, began to instruct my ignorance, by shewing me the division of the Earth into three parts after the olde account, and then according to the latter, and better distribution, into more: he pointed with his wand to all the knowen Seas, Gulfs, Bayes, Straights, Capes, Rivers, Empires, Kingdomes, Dukedomes, and Territories of each part, with declaration also of their speciall commodities, and particular wants, which by the benefit of traffike, and entercourse of merchants, are plentifully supplied. From the Mappe he brought me to the Bible, and turning to the 107 Psalme, directed me to the 23 and 24 verses, where I read, that they which go downe to the sea in ships, and occupy by the great waters, they see the works of the Lord, and his woonders in the deepe, etc. which words of the Prophet together with my cousins discourse (things of high and rare delight to my young nature) tooke in me so deepe an impression, that I constantly resolved, if ever I were preferred to the University, where better time, and more convenient place might be ministered for these studies, I would by God’s assistance prosecute that knowledge and kinde of literature, the doores whereof (after a sort) were so happily opened before me.’ It was a true vocation the young Hakluyt had found, and he faithfully followed it all the days of his life. He took his degree as Master of Arts at Oxford in 1577, having learned five languages for the sake of his maritime inquiries; and then lectured ‘in the common schools,’ demonstrating the advances of geography—in his own attractive words, he ‘had waded on still farther and farther in the sweet studie of the historie of Cosmographie.’ His first book appeared in 1582, dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, and called ‘Divers voyages touching the discoverie of America and the Ilands adjacent unto the same, made first of all by our Englishmen.’ Hakluyt was convinced, as he set forth in his book, that for the future development of exploration and ‘plantation’ (as colonisation was called in those days) by the English, our principal necessity was a good system of education in nautical affairs. This need he continued to urge upon men of influence throughout his life; to Lord Howard of Effingham, the year after the Armada, he wrote (‘as being the father and principall favourer of the English Navigation’), pointing out—