Produced by Karl Hagen, Juliet Sutherland, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. ** Transcriber's Notes ** The printed edition from which this e-text has been produced retains the spelling and abreviations of Hakluyt's 16th-century original. In this version, the spelling has been retained, but the following manuscript abbreviations have been silently expanded: - vowels with macrons = vowel + 'n' or 'm' - q; = -que (in the Latin) - y[e] = the; y[t] = that; w[t] = with This edition contains footnotes and two types of sidenotes. Most footnotes are added by the editor. They follow modern (19th-century) spelling conventions. Those that don't are Hakluyt's (and are not always systematically marked as such by the editor). The sidenotes are Hakluyt's own. Summarizing sidenotes are labelled [Sidenote: ] and placed before the sentence to which they apply. Sidenotes that are keyed with a symbol are labeled [Marginal note: ] and placed at the point of the symbol, except in poetry, where they are moved to the nearest convenient break in the text. ** End Transcriber's Notes ** THE PRINCIPAL Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries OF THE ENGLISH NATION. Collected by RICHARD HAKLUYT, PREACHER AND Edited by EDMUND GOLDSMIDT, F.R.H.S. NORTHERN EUROPE VOL. I. EDITORS PREFACE "This elaborate and excellent Collection, which redounds as much to the glory of the English Nation as any book that ever was published, has already had sufficient complaints made in its behalf against our suffering it to become so scarce and obscure, by neglecting to _republish_ it in a fair impression, with proper illustrations and especially an _Index_. But there may still be room left for a favourable construction of such neglect, and the hope that nothing but the casual scarcity of a work so long since out of print may have prevented its falling into those able hands that might, by such an edition, have rewarded the eminent _Examples_ preserved therein, the _Collector_ thereof and _themselves_ according to their deserts." Thus wrote Oldys (The British Librarian, No III, March, 1737, page 137), nearly 150. years ago, and what has been done to remove this, reproach? The work has become so rare that even a reckless expenditure of money cannot procure a copy [Footnote: Mr. Quantch, the eminent Bibliopole, is now asking £42 for a copy of the 1598-1600 edition.]