THE LIFE OF SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT INTRODUCTION UNTIL quite recently, historians seem to have taken it for granted that, for nearly one hundred years, England entirely neglected to take advantage of the discoveries made by the men of Bristol under the inspiration and guidance of John Cabot. That they first reached the continent of America, first told of the marvellous wealth of fish of all sorts found in the waters through which they journeyed, and first described the country, clothed with forests and abounding with game; that they then failed to make good their discoveries, and left the further exploration and enjoyment of the new-found lands to the Bretons, Normans, and Basques, is not in accordance with the genius of the race. Provoked by the taunt that the English nation, of all others, remained "in sluggishe securitie and continual neglect of any notable enterprises by sea or land," the industrious Hakluyt undertook to clear the fair fame of England from such undeserved obloquy, and began to compile that wonderful collection of Voyages so aptly termed by Froude "the great prose epic of the modern English nation." Without this great work England's maritime history in the sixteenth century could never have been written. But in recent years the gradual collection and classification of public and private documents, both English and foreign, have laid open to us B |