vpon the Luzones in despight of the enemy, enter into alliance, amity, and traffike with the princes of the Moluccaes, & the Isle of Iaua, double the famous Cape of Bona Speranza, ariue at the Isle of Santa Helena, & last of al ruturne home most richly laden with the commodities of China, as the subiects of this now florishing monarchy haue done? Lucius Florus in the very end of his historie de gestis Romanorum recordeth as a wonderfull miracle, that the Seres, (which I take to be the people of Cathay, or China) sent ambassadors to Rome, to intreate friedship, as moued with the fame of the maiesty of the Romane Empire. And haue not we as good cause to admire, that the Kings of the Moluccæs and Iaua maior, haue desired the fauour of her maiestie, and the commerce & traffike of her people? Is it not as strange that the borne naturalles of Iapan, and the Philippinæs are here to be seene, agreeing with our climate, speaking our language, and informing vs of the state of their Easterne habitations? For mine owne part, I take it as a pledge of Gods further fauour both vnto vs and them: to them especially, vnto whose doors I doubt not in time shall be by vs caried the incomparable treasure of the truth of Christianity, and of the Gospell, while we vse and exercise common trade with their marchants. I must confesse to haue read in the excellent history intituled Origines of Ioannes Goropius, a testimonie of king Henrie the viij, a prince of noble memory, whose intention was once, if death had not preuented him, to haue done some singular thing in this case: whose words speaking of his dealing to that end with himselfe, he being a stranger, & his history rare, I thought good in this place verbatim to record: Ante viginti & plus eo annos ab Henrico Kneuetto Equite Anglo nomine Regis Henrici arram accepi, qua conuenerat, Regio sumptu me totam Asiam, quoad Turcorum & Persarum Regum commendationes, & legationes admitterentur, peragraturum. Ab his enim duobus Asiæ principibus facile se impetraturum sperabat, vt non solùm tutò mihi per ipsorum fines liceret ire, sed vt commendatione etiam ipsorum ad confinia quoque daretur penetrare. Sumptus quidem non exiguus erat futurus, sed tanta erat principi cognoscendi auiditas, vt nullis pecunijs ad hoc iter necessarijs se diceret parsurum. O Dignum Regia Maiestate animum, O me foelicem, si Deus non antè & Kneuettum & Regem abstulisset, quàm reuersus ab hac peregrinatione fuissem, &c. [Footnote: Ioannis Goropij Becari originum lib. 5 pag 494. _Translation_: "More than twenty years before I received from Henry Knevett, an English knight, in the name of King Henry, a retaining fee, it being agreed that I should travel at the king's expense throughout Asia, so far as the letters of introduction or embassies of the Turkish and Persian monarchs would enable me. For he (the king) hoped easily to obtain from these two Asiatic monarchs not only permission for me