CHAPTER XI

THE SEA

Boatswain. Heigh, my hearts! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! yare, yare! Take in the topsail! Tend to the master's whistle!-Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!

Gonzalo. Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, any thing. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death. The Tempest, 1. i.

Yet his means are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis, another to the Indies; I understand moreover upon the Rialto, he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath, squandered abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but men : there be land-rats and water-rats, land-thieves and water-thieves,—I mean pirates,—and then there is the peril of waters, winds and rocks.

The Merchant of Venice, 1. iii. 17—25.

Hakluyt extols England's Greatness at Sea

He does smile his face into more lines than are in the new map with the augmentation of the Indies. Twelfth Night, III. ii. 87.

To the Right Honourable Sir Francis Walsingham Knight. Right Honourable, I do remember that being a youth, and one of her Majesty's scholars at Westminster that fruitful nursery, it was my hap to visit the chamber of Mr Richard Hakluyt my cousin, a gentleman of the Middle Temple, well known unto you, at a time when I found lying open upon his board certain books of cosmography, with an universal map. He seeing me somewhat curious in the view thereof, began to instruct my ignorance, by showing me the division of the earth into three parts after the old account, and then according to the latter and better distribution, into more: he pointed with his wand to all the known seas, gulfs, bays, straits, capes, rivers, empires, kingdoms, dukedoms, and territories of each part, with

declaration also of their special commodities and particular wants, which, by the benefit of traffic and intercourse of merchants, are plentifully supplied. From the map he brought me to the Bible, and turning to the 107 Psalm, directed me to the 23 and 24 verses, where I read, that they which go down to the sea in ships, and occupy by the great waters, they see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep, etc. Which words of the prophet together with my cousin's discourse (things of high and rare delight to my young nature) took in me so deep an impression, that I constantly resolved, if ever I were preferred to the university, where better time and more convenient place might be ministered for these studies, I would by God's assistance prosecute that knowledge and kind of literature, the doors whereof (after a sort) were so happily opened before me.

According to which my resolution, when, not long after, I was removed to Christ Church in Oxford, my exercises of duty first performed, I fell to my intended course, and by degrees read over whatsoever printed or written discoveries and voyages, I found extant either in the Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portugal, French or English languages, and in my public lectures was the first, that produced and showed both the old imperfectly composed, and the new lately reformed maps, globes, spheres and other instruments of this art for demonstration in the common schools, to the singular pleasure and general contentment of my auditory. In continuance of time, and by reason principally of my insight in this study, I grew familiarly acquainted with the chiefest captains at sea, the greatest merchants and the best mariners of our nation: by which means having gotten somewhat more than common knowledge, I passed at length the narrow seas into France with Sir Edward Stafford, her Majesty's careful and discreet leger, where during my five years' abode with him in his dangerous and chargeable residency in her Highness's service, I both heard in speech, and read in books other nations miraculously extolled for their discoveries and notable enterprises by sea, but the English of all others, for their sluggish security and continual neglect of the like attempts especially in so long and happy a time of peace, either ignominiously reported or exceedingly condemned....... Thus both hearing, and reading the obloquy of our nation, and finding few or none of our own men able to reply herein,

and further, not seeing any man to have care to recommend to the world the industrious labours and painful travels of our countrymen for stopping the mouths of the reproachers, myself being the last winter returned from France with the honourable the Lady Sheffield, for her passing good behaviour highly esteemed in all the French court, determined notwithstanding all difficulties to undertake the burden of that work wherein all others pretended either ignorance, or lack of leisure, or want of sufficient argument, whereas (to speak truly) the huge toil, and the small profit to ensue, were the chief causes of the refusal......

To harp no longer upon this string, and to speak a word of that just commendation which our nation do indeed deserve: it cannot be denied, but as in all former ages, they have been men full of activity, stirrers abroad, and searchers of the remote parts of the world, so in this most famous and peerless government of her most excellent Majesty, her subjects through the special assistance and blessing of God, in searching the most opposite corners and quarters of the world, and to speak plainly, in compassing the vast globe of the earth more than once, have excelled all the nations and people of the earth. For, which of the kings of this land before her Majesty, had their banners ever seen in the Caspian Sea? which of them hath ever dealt with the Emperor of Persia, as her Majesty hath done, and obtained for her merchants large and loving privileges? who ever saw, before this regiment, an English leger in the stately porch of the Grand Signor at Constantinople? who ever found English consuls and agents at Tripolis, in Syria, at Aleppo, at Babylon, at Balsara, and which is more, who ever heard of Englishmen at Goa before now? what English ships did heretofore ever anchor in the mighty river of Plate? pass and repass the unpassable (in former opinion) straits of Magellan, range along the coast of Chili, Peru and all the backside of Nova Hispania further than any Christian ever passed, traverse the mighty breadth of the South Sea, land upon the Luzones in despite of the enemy, enter into alliance, amity and traffic with the princes of the Moluccas and the Isle of Java, double the famous Cape of Bona Speranza, arrive at the Isle of Santa Helena, and last of all return home most richly laden with the commodities of China, as the subjects of this now flourishing monarchy have done?

RICHARD HAKLUYT, Principal Navigations (epistle dedicatory) 1589

The English Navy

The navy of England may be divided into three sorts, of which the one serveth for the wars, the other for burden, and the third for fishermen which get their living by fishing on the sea. How many of the first order are maintained within the realm, it passeth my cunning to express.... Certes there is no prince in Europe that hath a more beautiful or gallant sort of ships than the Queen's majesty of England at this present, and those generally are of such exceeding force that two of them being well appointed and furnished as they ought, will not let to encounter with three or four of those of other countries, and either bouge them or put them to flight, if they may not bring them home. Neither are the moulds of any foreign barks so conveniently made, to brook so well one sea as another, lying upon the shore of any part of the continent, as those of England. And therefore the common report that strangers make of our ships amongst themselves is daily confirmed to be true, which is that for strength, assurance, nimbleness, and swiftness of sailing, there are no vessels in the world to be compared with ours.

WILLIAM HARRISON, The Description of England 1587 (2nd ed.)

A Merchant

Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth,
The better part of my affections would
Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still
Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind;
Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads;
And every object that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
Would make me sad.

The Merchant of Venice, 1. i. 15-22

A worthy merchant is the heir of adventure, whose hopes hang much upon wind. Upon a wooden horse he rides through the world, and in a merry gale he makes a path through the seas. He is a discoverer of countries and a finder out of commodities, resolute in his attempts and royal in his expenses. He is the life of traffic and the maintainer of trade, the sailor's master and the soldier's friend. He is the exercise of the exchange, the honour of credit, the observation of time and the

understanding of thrift. His study is number, his care his accounts, his comfort his conscience, and his wealth his good name. He fears not Scylla and sails close by Charybdis, and having beaten out a storm, rides at rest in a harbour. By his sea gain he makes his land purchase, and by the knowledge of trade finds the key of treasure. Out of his travels he makes his discourses, and from his eye-observations brings the models of architecture. He plants the earth with foreign fruits, and knows at home what is good abroad. He is neat in apparel, modest in demeanour, dainty in diet and civil in his carriage. In sum, he is the pillar of a city, the enricher of a country, the furnisher of a court and the worthy servant of a king.

NICHOLAS BRETON, The Good and the Badde 1616

A Sailor's Life

The master, the swabber, the boatswain and L,
The gunner and his mate,

Lov'd Mall, Meg, and Marian and Margery,
But none of us car'd for Kate;

For she had a tongue with a tang,
Would cry to a sailor, "Go hang!"
She lov'd not the savour of tar nor of pitch;

Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!
The Tempest, II. ii. 49-57

Voyages of purchase or reprisals, which are now grown a common traffic, swallow up and consume more sailors and mariners than they breed, and lightly not a slop of a rope-hauler they send forth to the Queen's ships but he is first broken to the sea in the herring-man's skiff or cock-boat, where having learned to brook all waters, and drink as he can out of a tarry can, and eat poor John out of sooty platters, when he may get it, without butter or mustard, there is no ho with him, but, once heartened thus, he will needs be a man of war, or a tobacco taker, and wear a silver whistle. Some of these for their haughty climbing come home with wooden legs, and some with none, but leave body and all behind. Those that escape to

bring news tell of nothing but eating tallow and young blackamores, of five and five to a rat in every mess and the ship-boy to the tail, of stopping their noses when they drank stinking