Hakluyt in his Divers Voyages in 1582 did not venture to make this Cabot claim so strong as in this Discourse. In his dedication to Sir Philip Sidney he quaintly says that he ‘put downe the title which we haue to this part of America which is from Florida to 67 degrees northwarde by the letters patentes graunted to John Cabote and his three sonnes,’ simply meaning that he had printed the first patent of 5th May 1496. In his title page he speaks of the Discoverie of America,’ made first of all by our Englishmen and afterwards by the Frenchmen and Bretons.’ He does not question the rights and privileges of Frenchmen to the Gulf of St Lawrence and Canada, because they were in the occupation of a Christian prince. This Discourse of Western Planting therefore, and the voyage of Amadas and Barlow, in 1584, at the instigation and expense of Raleigh, based on a thorough knowledge of the Huguenot and Spanish expeditions to Florida in 1562-1568, are all parts of Virginia history, and therefore are preliminary to Hariot’s Report. It should be borne in mind that these terms Florida and Virginia as used by the Spaniards, French, and English, included the whole country from the point of Florida through the Carolinas and Virginia to the Chesapeake Bay, or perhaps even to Bacalaos. Raleigh’s patent, in which all interests were thus consolidated, came before Parliament in the Autumn of 1584 well fortified in its historical and geographical bearings by Hakluyt’s learned Discourse. In the House of Commons the matter was adroitly referred to a Commitee of which Walsingham and Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Christopher Hatton and Sir Francis Drake were members. The bill having passed the House was sent up to the Lords, and there read the first time on Sunday the 19th of December 1584, as appears by the following entry in the Lords’ Journal, volume ii, page 76. ‘Hodie allatae sicut a Dome Communi 4 Billae; _Prima,_ For the Confirmation of the Queen’s Majesty’s Letters Patents, granted to Walter Raughlieghe, Esquire, touching the Discovery and Inhabiting of certain Foreign Lands and Countries, quae ia _vice_ lecta est.’ It does not appear precisely at what date the Bill received the Queen’s signature, but probably as early as Christmas or New Year.