to the Countess of Lincoln, two of whose sons-in-law were among the settlers of that Puritan Colony : "If any tax me for wasting paper with recording these small matters, such may consider that small things, in the beginning of natural or politic bodies, are as remarkable as greater in bodies full grown." DUBLIN, IRELAND, May 1, 1870. EDWARD D. NEILL. He ENRY, the Earl of Southampton, was not only the patron of Shakespeare and other men of letters, but the friend of those who were engaged in the discovery of distant and unknown lands. had been disappointed at the failure of Sir Walter Raleigh's colony within the boundaries of what is now North Carolina, and determined to engage in another effort to plant the banner of England in America. Therefore he largely contributed in fitting out the ship Concord, under Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, who, accompanied by other gentlemen, in March, 1602, sailed from Falmouth, and, pursuing a direct and northerly route, on the fourteenth of May made land in America, in the forty-third degree of north latitude. Going ashore, Gosnold explored the coast and called, in consequence of the abundance of fish in the vicinity, one of the headlands Cape Cod, a name still retained. After trading with the Indians, the ship weighed anchor in June and arrived at Exmouth, in England, in the middle of July, bringing much encouragement for planting a colony in that region. In the latter part of the sixteenth century a pupil of Westminster school one day called upon a relative in the Middle Temple, upon whose table were opened certain books of travel and a map of the world. As various seas and kingdoms were pointed out, the youth resolved that if he ever entered the university he would devote himself to geographical studies. He kept the resolution, and in time Richard Hakluyt became the best informed man in England relative to the climate, races, and productions of the four quarters of the globe. At the time that Sir Francis Drake was fitting out his expedition. for America, he was chaplain to the English embassy in Paris, and so great was his interest, he wrote that he was ready to fly to England "with winges of Pegasus," and devote his reading and observation in furthering the work.1 Subsequently he was consulted by the Muscovy, Greenland, and East India Companies before they engaged in new enterprises. In the minutes of the East India Company, under date of 29th of January, 1601-2, is the following entry: "Mr. Hakluyt, the historiographer of the East India Company, being here before the committees, and having read unto them out of his notes and books, was requested to set down in writing a note of the princi 1 Hakluyt Soc. Pub., vol. VII, p. xii Introduction. 2 Cal. of State Papers, East Indies, 1513-1616, p. 120. |