For (to conteine myselfe onely within the bounds of this present discourse and in the midst thereof to begin) wil it not in all posteritie be as great a renowme vnto our English nation to haue bene the first discouerers of a Sea beyond the North cape (neuer certainly knowen before) and of a conuenient passage into the huge Empire of Russia by the bay of S. Nicholas and the riuer of Duina; as for the Portugales to haue found a Sea beyond the Cape of Buona Esperanza, and so consequently a passage by Sea into the East Indies; or for the Italians and Spaniards to haue discouered vnknowen landes so many hundred leagues Westward and Southwestward of the streits of Gibraltar, & of the pillers of Hercules? Be it granted that the renowmed Portugale Vasques de Gama trauersed the maine Ocean Southward of Africke: Did not Richard Chanceler and his mates performe the like Northward of Europe? Suppose that Columbus that noble and high-spinted Genuois escried vnknowen landes to the Westward of Europe and Africke: Did not the valiant English knight sir Hugh Willoughby; did not the famous Pilots Stephen Burrough, Arthur Pet, and Charles Iackman accoast Noua Zembia, Colgoieue, and Vaigatz to the North of Europe and Asia? Howbeit you will say perhaps, not with the like golden successe, not with such deductions of Colonies, nor attaining of conquests. True it is that our successe hath not bene correspondent vnto theirs: yet in this our attempt the vncertaintie of finding was farre greater, and the difficultie and danger of searching was no whit lesse. For hath not Herodotus (a man for his time, most skilfull and iudicial in Cosmographie, who writ aboue 2000. yeeres ago) in his 4. booke called Melpomene, signified vnto the Portugales in plaine termes; that Africa, except the small Isthmus between the Arabian gulfe and the Mediterran sea, was on all sides enuironed with the Ocean? And for the further confirmation thereof, doth he not make mention of one Neco an Ægyptian King, who (for trials sake) sent a fleet of Phoenicians downe the Red sea, who setting forth in Autumne and sailing Southward till they had the Sunne at noonetide vpon their sterbourd (that is to say hauing crossed the Æquinoctial and the Southerne tropique) after a long Nauigation directed their course to the North and in the space of 3. years enuironed all Africk, passing home through the Gaditan strait and arriuing in Ægypt. And doth not [Footnote: Lib. 2. nat. hist. cap. 67.] Plinie tell them that noble Hanno in the flourishing time and estate of Carthage sailed from Gades in Spaine to the coast of Arabia foelix, and put down his whole iournall in writing? Doth he not make mention that in the time of Augustus Cæsar the wracke of certaine Spanish ships was found floating in the Arabian gulfe? And, not to be ouer tedious in alleaging of testimonies, doth not Strabo in the 2. booke of his Geography, together with Cornelius Nepos and Plinie in the place beforenamed, agree all in one, that one